“Literacy and empowerment: Re-casting the tower blocks of New Wortley” by Nour Al Ali

Nour Al Ali currently holds a master’s degree in architecture. Graduated from Leeds Beckett University with merit. Originally an interior architect with some freelance experience. Currently based in Leeds and actively searching for an architectural assistant position and open to interior design as well.

Created and rendered using a mix of programs including 3dMaxs, Enscape, Vary and AutoCAD. Social Housing tower blocks in the UK are most often places of poverty, crime, social isolation and low educational attainment. By adding a new function to the host building a prosthetic architecture emerges. In this example, a library is inserted into the existing, for the benefit of the inhabitants and the local community

The library is an urban experience, a place of promenading and gathering, a journey designed as linked episodes, incidents and montages that stimulate the user’s literary imagination. The architecture also acts as a beacon to Leeds and commuters.

Through community consultation residents can expand their flats with
an additional parasitic space of their own typology attached to the tower façade.”