Traffic held us up on our way to the Women in Property event last Thursday (29th March 2012) at the Manchester Youth Zone so we kept our eyes peeled along the long Rochdale Road looking out for the address. However the double height glazed atrium sandwiched between triple height yellow clad volumes caught our eyes on the approach. The building is fourth to be built in an exciting new generation of youth centres by OnSide which is a, 'charitable enterprise leading the way in 21st Century youth provision to provide young people with top quality, purpose built, safe and affordable places to go in their leisure time.' The Youth Zone aims to be open 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year for 8 - 21 year olds, providing 25 activities every evening along with a mentoring programme to raise young people's aspirations and lead them to jobs and / or college.
Kate Vokes, Chair of Manchester Youth Zone and HR director of Bruntwood Ltd gave an inspiring talk on her involvement with the scheme from the very early stages, then Keith Hamilton from Roger Stephenson Architects explained how they arrived at the final design which included invaluable input from the committee of young people themselves, afterall they are the ones that will be using the facility. Janet Dunnett from OnSide finished by giving us a tour of the centre including a gym with the latest equipment, an enormous indoor sports hall with a climbing wall, a fully sprung dance floor, an outdoor sports pitch, areas for arts and crafts along with various chill out spaces, all the time emphasising there was never to be any compromise on the quality of equipment for these underprivileged youngsters. The presentation ended with a delicious lunch prepared in the state-of-the-art kitchen which is doubles up as a training facility for young people as well as provides healthy food options in the subsidised cafe.
Sarah King, Raynes Architecture
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