MSA Live 26

How was our budget was spent?
On the penultimate day of our action week, we used our completely untouched budget, as our model was made of mainly scraps, which allowed us to buy some food to power on with the rest of the work!

Engagement Workshop - 21/03/26

After the presentation, we organised an engagement workshop with both the client and members of the church community, with the aim of gathering their opinions, experiences, and feedback.

Prior to the workshop, we developed a series of questions designed to help us better understand the users’ perspectives. These included questions about what they value most about the church, how the space makes them feel and what improvements they would like to see in our scheme. These prompts formed the basis for open discussions with the users and the client, allowing us to gain a better understanding of their experiences, interpretations and ideas for the space.

To encourage participation, we wrote the questions on multiple sheets of A1 paper so that participants could easily note down their thoughts and ideas. We also provided printed floor plans alongside images of the different rooms and hallways, helping users to navigate the spaces more clearly and annotate specific areas with comments and suggestions.
Following the workshop, we were able to collate and analyse the responses, using them as a foundation for our ongoing design development. This process ensured that our proposals responded directly to the outcomes of the collaboration and reflected the needs and aspirations of the community.

Sam Fender Mix = Curation Mode
/Intensive Week Day 4/

After a long day of drawings and production, Day 4 was mainly about curation and documentation. Most of the core work was already there, so the focus was on bringing it together in a way that feels clear and intentional. Plans, sections, structure logic and key visuals were in place, and the task was to shape them into a coherent set.

We spent the session putting the publication and presentation together side by side, deciding what matters most and what can be simplified. A lot of it was about consistency and clarity, making sure the drawings speak the same language and the story is easy to follow. It was less “new design” and more making sure the design reads properly.

We also ran through the presentation sequence as a group and talked through the narrative. What comes first, what needs a moment to land, and what can be shown quickly. By the end of the day we had a stronger structure for the file and a clearer plan for uploading, so we could go into the next day focused on delivery.

Today marked our final rehearsal before the presentation, making it one of the most important sessions of the project so far. As a group, we worked collaboratively on the final touches to both the presentation and the publication, ensuring that everything was polished, well-structured, and completed to a high standard. We carefully reviewed each slide, checked that the information flowed clearly, and made sure the overall design looked professional and engaging.

We also spent time delegating speaking roles for the presentation so that each member of the team knew exactly what they would be responsible for. To help us feel more prepared and confident, we created and finalised presentation scripts, allowing everyone presenting to understand what they would be saying and which slides they would be covering. This rehearsal gave us the opportunity to practise our timing, improve the flow of the presentation, and make any final adjustments before the real event.

As this was our final MSA Live meeting, the session also felt like a celebration of all the hard work and effort we had put into the project over the past weeks. After such an intensive yet incredibly valuable learning journey, we decided to congratulate and reward ourselves by using the remaining project budget to order Subway together. It was a nice way to end the experience as a team and reflect on everything we had achieved throughout the project.

14/05/26

Action week day 4:

With our final day of action week and presentation looming near, it was time for the highly anticipated pizza party - a well deserved reward for all the hard work this year.

With bellies full and motivation high, the rest of the day was spent working on the presentation, choosing which of us were speaking and the accompanying visuals for the slides. A dry run of the presentation took us to the end of the day where we concluded, as ever, with a round-up of our outputs.

General consensus: Group 31 are feeling ready for the presentation tomorrow!

Our final intensive week session before the presentation required our team to work together efficiently and patiently. Today, we finalised our publication document and presentation for hand-in. We spent the day identifying gaps in the documents and adding final edits to our designs agreed by the whole team. The day ended with a final run through of our presentation, with notes taken and scripts prepared. Finally, we took a team photograph on one of the CyanLines projects next to Symphony Park as a project wrap-up memory.

Presentation preparation

Today we pulled together our publication and ran through our presentation in preparation for tomorrow afternoon. We ensured that our best and most relevant work was visible and easy to follow for our collaborator, tutors and MSA peers to understand.

After we finished adjusting the model to our proposal, we brought the model to our group to discuss our next steps.
We then made some final adjustments to the model with the suggestion from our group so before taking some final pictures of both a floor plan view as well as some perspective views of the model.

We did a pre-submission run-through presentation; we put it on the big screen to go through it as a group and let the speaker practice what they wanted to say. The whole thing is cohesive and looking really good; we are all super proud of how our work has come together; it's an honest, thought-out reflection of exactly what our collaborator asked us for back in January. We are basically done and ready for tomorrow!

Final Presentation Preparation
14/5/2026

Following the second site visit and community feedback, our group gathered for a final working session to refine the overall proposal and prepare for Friday’s presentation.

During this stage, we finalised visualisations, colour palette, publication layouts, and landscape and rain garden palettes requested by MIB. We also organised presentation roles, scripts, and speaking tasks to ensure a clear and collaborative final presentation.

14/05/2026

Today marked our final working day of action week, at the beginning of the day we reviewed what we had left to do and began adding finishing touches to our final outputs, presentation and publication. We then spent time reviewing our work, making sure we were prepared for the presentation the next day, we chose who was going to present and began practicing what we would say during the presentation.

14/05/26

MSA Live Week - Day 4

As we were now onto the last day before the presentation, we decided to use this day to do a final review on presentation and check for any mistakes or overlaps. We finalised the structure and content of our project and discussed the key points we wanted to verbally cover as well as assigning speaking roles to various team members.

Action Week Day 3
Completing Our Visualisations!

Our round table talk was about the logistics for our presentation, and drafted a checklist of what goals we aimed to achieve by day end. We then went on to split into two groups to complete the final drawings, visuals and outstanding text.

brainstorming and research session for publication

Action Week day 03 - 13/05/26

In today’s session, we were only two days away from the final presentation, so the team focused on refining and completing the remaining detailed aspects of the project.
For both the physical and digital modelling work, the focus was on refining and developing the remaining details of the project. The physical model involved laser cutting the final building massing pieces and adding more structural detail. At the same time, the 3D model was mostly complete in terms of the site amenities, including the main pitch, landscaping, car park, and surrounding facilities, with the remaining work focused on refining the building model itself and producing the final rendered visuals. The architectural floor plans were also nearly complete, requiring only minor adjustments and final detailing.
In terms of documentation, the presentation had been completed, allowing the team to continue work on organising the publication content. By the end of the session, many of the foundational and technical aspects of the project had been resolved, bringing us significantly closer to the final output.

11/5/26 Seventh Meeting
For our first meeting of the intensive week, we assigned roles for making a scale model of Design 1, a 1:10 model of Design 2, creating an instruction manual, drawing 3D perspectives, and putting together a presentation for the Friday deadline. As the final designs had already been made, all we had left to do then was choose a final layout to propose to our clients and cleared up any final enquiries about the schedule.

30/04/26
Today was our last workshop with the Loreto students. first they showed us what they had been working on the week before and we discussed that with them. then we gave them foam blocks representing classrooms chapel etc. we helped them explore the space and scale. they experimented with different pathways and orientations. this helped us lights around to set up the master plan.

Intensive Week Day 3
13/05/2026
With our model complete and a clear plan for how our housing schemes would be presented, the focus today was on bringing all of our material together in one place. This included renders, site plans, diagrams, graphs, and photographs, all of which will form the basis of our final presentation. As with earlier stages of the project, we divided tasks selectively among the group before compiling everything into a cohesive set.

Overall Mood(s): Organised

Over the last few days, our team has been busy in the B15 workshop completing the model for one of our outputs. With many hands involved, we managed to finish it quickly and efficiently, while also working well together to overcome a few challenges.

Initially, we had planned to make two separate models. However, we decided to merge the concepts of both into one, making the final model more interactive as a result. Although we ran into some complications along the way, we managed to turn them into an opportunity and produce something stronger in the end.

11/05
Action Week.
This main goal for this week was finalizing the presentation, publication and exhibition in addition to a making a physical and digital model. We needed to be as time efficient as possible so we divided the tasks amongst ourselves. Everyone was aware that the presentation was approaching soon so we were all cooperating and working at a very good pace. While not all of us were not working in the same place, some people being in the b15 and some in the GM, we managed to keep the communication and updates going back and forth to ensure everyone was on the same page and notified of any changes. We aimed for an earlier deadline so that we would have time to finish early and practice the presentation and to get things in order. Some people worked on completing the outputs themselves and some working on putting the publication, presentation and exhibition together. Overall, we were satisfied with the progress being made due to our coordination this week.

This session was all about getting ready for the presentation. We spent most of the time writing our script, refining what we wanted to say, and making sure the project could be explained clearly and in the right order.

While working on the script, we also finalised the form of our design. This was helpful because it meant we were no longer speaking about possibilities, but about a clearer final proposal that everyone in the group understood. We also looked back at church precedents again, making sure our ideas were still grounded in research and relevant examples.

To finish the session, we did a short rehearsal of the presentation. It was useful to test the timing and see whether anything needed to be shortened or adjusted. Luckily, the timing worked well, and we were able to keep it within the required length.

A calm but important session. Less about changing the design, and more about making sure we could present it with confidence and clarity.

12/05/26

This week, we started to analyse the outcomes of our community engagement task in depth. By reviewing where people had placed pins on the map indicating where they thought could be improved, we began to notice a clear trend emerging across the site. Although several different areas were highlighted, we were particularly drawn to the idea of creating a journey through the space. We began asking ourselves key questions: Where would people begin? What would attract them to the site? And how would they move through it?

This led us to consider a series of pop-up spaces and temporary interventions throughout the area. We explored what kinds of arts, crafts, and cultural activities could be introduced into these locations, drawing directly from the responses written by the public on the feedback board. We looked closely at which suggestions appeared repeatedly, what had been written two, three, or even four times, to identify the ideas that resonated most strongly with residents.

Once we had narrowed these responses down to the most popular themes, we began combining the findings by placing these ideas within the areas of the site that the public felt were most in need of improvement. This allowed us to create a proposal that responded directly to community feedback while encouraging movement, interaction, and engagement throughout the site.

This afternoon Emily came in to visit our workspace, so we decided to give her a short presentation about our project. After a short preview of Friday, Emily gave us some feedback before praising us and moving on to the next group. Responding to the feedback, we are now working on adding more client information onto the slides. Thank you for your feedback Emily!

Intensive Week Day 3: 13/05/26
We began the day by finishing the renders of the church proposal. Once these were complete, some of us started sketching directly onto the renders to visualise how the spaces could be used, adding elements such as a basketball court, food pantry, and social areas to make the project feel more realistic and engaging.

At the same time, others completed the physical models in B15. The simplified church model was designed so that the children’s mural designs from the workshop could be inserted into the structure, helping connect the community activities back into the architectural proposal.

Throughout the day, we also continued developing the final presentation by organising images, sketches, renders, and resources gathered throughout the project so far. Towards the end of the day, we held a trial presentation session where we planned who would speak during different sections for both the primary school workshop on Thursday and the final presentation on Friday. We wrote and practised scripts to help improve the flow and confidence of the presentations.

Before finishing for the day, we printed and prepared all of the materials needed for Thursday morning’s trip back to Wigan, ensuring the worksheets, presentations, and activity resources were organised and ready to use with the children.

Action 3 - 13/05/2026

After yesterday's engagement with Co-Op Academy Medlock, we continued today by summarising our learnings at the Geoffrey Manton Building and putting forward our efforts to develop the proposals further. With the help of the fruitful discussions we had with the kids and parents yesterday, we are much clearer about our way forward. In addition, we received many valuable insights into what should be included in our designs. Today's tasks focused on improving the quality of the modelling, sketches, presentations, and overall organisation of the work.
To begin with, we started off with a team discussion to reflect on our experiences during yesterday's engagement and to share the insights gained. Thanks to the children's drawings and the comments from parents during drop-off and pick-up, we have gained a much deeper understanding of what the daily street experience looks like and how community members would like to see it changed. All of this formed the basis of the next steps we would take and ensured that all the design decisions made today were rooted in what the users actually want.
The smaller working groups had already been formed before our visit to the school on the 11th of May, so today we were able to dive straight back into our respective tasks with renewed energy. The team responsible for modelling was busy working on the furniture, building elements, and surrounding structures within the software, considering all the details of their placement within the project. Simultaneously, the team working on the presentation developed the layout of the slides and drew up a timeline of the project's implementation. Both teams worked in parallel, which made our work much more efficient, as several tasks could be progressed at the same time without losing the integrity of the overall project.
In summary, today has been about modelling, sketching, presentation, and organisation, but everything remained focused on preparing a strong proposal grounded in the outcomes of yesterday's engagement. Picking up where we left off before the school visit allowed us to gain real momentum and complete our tasks quickly and efficiently.
Overall, today has been a very productive day, and we have managed to get through a lot of work. Working from the Geoffrey Manton Building gave us a calm and focused environment to push the project forward, and by the end of the session, we left with the feeling that the project is slowly but surely taking shape.

Action Week D1
11 May 2026

Welcome to Day 1 of our MSA Live Intensive Week! We kicked off this Monday morning by reviewing our core objectives and mapping out the remaining tasks. With the final presentation coming up this Friday, we knew we needed a highly structured approach.

After a productive group discussion in the studio, we officially distributed the workload. Some team members are focusing on finalizing the site plan and 3D modeling, others are crafting detailed architectural sketches on the iPad, and the rest are structuring our final publication in InDesign. The studio is buzzing with energy and focus. It feels incredibly rewarding to see everyone collaborating so effectively. It’s a busy and intense start, but we are fully geared up for the challenge ahead!

12/05/2026

Today kicked off with Nick showing us the work he had completed after our scheduled time tomorrow ‘prettying up’ our publication. With some more group input we completed pages together with each group member providing useful input into the design. This was followed by an Adobe Illustrator workshop lead by Jake, polishing up a Site Plan and Elevations for use in the presentation and publication. This provided challenge with Sean’s microphone being as useful as a chocolate teapot having to communicate through the group WhatsApp instead of the convenient Microsoft Teams call. This was hurdle was overcome, as PhaseTwo confidently moved into the rest of the week.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT!

To continue developing our concept designs, we took our ideas for the “Dens of Discovery” project out into the public in Chelford, where our site is located.
We set up at the local café, Tatton Perk, and spoke with members of the public about our proposal. This gave us valuable insight into how the project is perceived by the community and allowed us to gather genuine feedback on both the design and intended purpose of the dens. We also went to discuss to the community about companies that produce waste that could possibly recycled to help build these Dens.

Overall, the response was very positive. Many people expressed strong support for the idea of creating dens that promote recycling and sustainability. They all liked the unique concept designs and thought that it worked well for the area of Chelford. They also highlighted how the activities planned within the spaces could benefit a wide range of users, including children and people with disabilities.
A key takeaway from these conversations was the idea of inclusivity and accessibility is a really important theme for this close community.

21/04/2026

Workshop day! We went to the school and split up between 3 classrooms to lead the day long workshops. Our first workshop was to design your own playground, where the students had to place stickers and draw anything they feel they would want and need in a playground. This was to strengthen their abilities to organise a space. Our second workshop was for them to create their own 3d model playground item, like a swing, slide, or anything else they had in mind. We gave them straws and clay and let their creativity run wild. For the last and final workshop, they designed buildings of a city out of recycled items and the whole class came together and placed all their creations onto a map, creating a combined city. It was a successful day and they all enjoyed and were more cooperative than we expected.

24/4/26

SESSION 7: ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY: WORKSHOP AT THE CFC

Having arranged with Mark and Lawrence to turn up to the Counselling and Family Centre at 10am, three of us, Taecho, Sofia and Nicolas, met up at the MTC just before 9am to pick up some of the equipment we would need and headed to the tram stop at St Peter’s. The tram ride was exciting - two of us had never been to the CFC before, or to Altrincham at all. Once we arrived, a short walk brought us to the building where we met up with Libby - who had driven instead, which made more sense for her living at home in Stockport. We made our way in slightly ahead of schedule, signed it at the reception and sat down in the cafe to prepare for the upcoming engagement activity.
We had with us 2 large A2 sheets which we had prepared in advance - one with options for potential colour palettes for the interior, and the other with a likes/dislikes and improvements column - as well as several printouts of a plan view of the CFC’s cafe and common room and cutouts of rooms within it, as well as with cutouts of furniture. While we were confident this would be easy to understand, and, ultimately, fun, we had to find a way to present this in an understandable way. Handily, we were given permission to use a large whiteboard that was standing in the cafe against the wall - so we stuck everything on, and, after some deliberation by means of having breakfast and a coffee, were ready to go.
The first two people we asked before going into the common room were two guys who worked at the CFC. They reacted extremely positively to the tasks and were very happy to take part and answer our questions - the main thing we got from them was that the layout of the cafe needed to be improved. Confident the tasks would work, we headed into the common room.
The main group of people we were to ‘survey’ were the Cafe friday club, a group of elderly people who gathered at the same time every week to socialise. We first entered and presented ourselves - explaining who we were and what we had come to do - after which we brought the whiteboard in. Sofia took control at this stage, explaining what each task we had created was about, with some of the rest of us adding to what she was explaining when it was necessary. Starting with the likes/dislikes and improvements suggestions task, the leader of the cafe Friday club started; soon, though, more people were contributing to the discussion, and in no time everyone was chipping in. While some of us listened, others took notes of what was being said. And there was a lot - from how there is no good storage space to how the lights were hideous, and from how they thought it was a shame their art was not on display (the common room is also being used for other things - such as for an art club) to how the ceiling was sagging and had already had to be repaired once recently when some squirrels got inside.
All those present also took turns to take a look at the colour palettes we had chosen and to place a vote using stickers next to their preferred option. Though we soon realised we had printed the colour palettes too small for comfort, Taecho was able to find them on his tablet and present them enlarged for the people to see better. Soon, a definite favourite emerged - the light, colourful colour palette which consisted of some soft greens, yellows and reds. As for room arrangement (the final task), we heard the same thing repeated - the toilets are inconveniently located (and should probably be moved somewhere outside), the kitchen could expand into where the toilets were currently, and the cafe needed reconfiguring and potentially expanding.
After around half an hour to 40 minutes with the cafe friday club we were satisfied we had gathered a fair amount of information and, conscious that they may want some time together to socialise, returned to the cafe, satisfied. We were not done yet, though - next we asked more members of reception for their opinion. One guy working in the cafe repeated what was said earlier - that he wished the kitchen was larger and that the cafe was better laid out - while another lady from reception that we had an especially long chat with was very enthusiastic about making better use of a dead space adjacent to the cafe which was lying empty at the date of visit, overgrown, but definitely with potential. Could that area turn into an outdoor seating area for use during the warmer months? Maybe even a pub garden?
We finished our time there at around 12pm with some final photos in the outside area, where the four of us posed with several members of the CFC and with our board, by now covered in post it notes with likes, dislikes and suggestions for improvements, as well as in stickers by certain colour palettes. The final results were convincing - the soft colourful colour palette, second down on our list, was a clear favourite with several times more votes than the next most popular option. As for suggestions for improvements, some popular ones were improving the lighting, adding better storage, moving the toilets and making better use of the space available (both in the cafe and outdoors). Room layouts mirrored what people had said in the suggestions. We didn’t end up using the furniture cutouts.
We left shortly after, pleased, as Libby headed off home in her car while the rest of us took the tram back to Manchester.

Day 5 - Development

We’ve now finalized our core design ideas and started moving them from concept to paper and into detailed renderings. After the Easter break, each team member shared their individual progress. Through a round of peer feedback, we were able to collaboratively refine our approaches before moving into the next phase of development.

Group 13: Meeting Oskar "with a K"

Alongside the tote-spraying workshop, the Withington Walls x Mandem Meetup event also featured a live mural created by Oskar “with a K.” Taking a short break from painting to pose for a photo, he spoke with Macie and Cian about his work after hearing about the MSA Live 2026 project. Oskar spoke warmly about the Baths and the surrounding community, reminiscing on his role in organising the 2024 Paint Jam held at the site.

Having already spent time admiring the murals in the external courtyard, it was especially valuable to hear the story behind them. The Paint Jam, he explained, was organised to celebrate and promote street art culture across Manchester.

The conversation also highlighted the Baths’ wider cultural and social significance. Inspired by the site's continued association to activism, the group reflected on the Bath's impact, from advancing gender integrated bathing, to the community protests from 2013-2015 to save the Baths.

This week we met up and drove to Monton Unitarian Church for a site visit. We were able to walk around the bowling green, taking in the surroundings, photos, and relevant measurements.

We then met up with our client, Reverend Anna, and presented the work and design we made so far. She liked the design as well as the precedents we used for it and had feedback about changes she would like to see: prioritising a fixed roof over fixed structure (better weather proofing), feedback on size & location of structure on the site, and overall feedback on expectations.

Overall we enjoyed the site visit as well as Anna’s feedback very much, and found it very valuable. We established some next steps, and discussed the feasibility & budget of the project. As it is ambitious with the given budget, we might have difficulties to see the project to construction within the time given. Therefore we mentioned the possibility to work towards a finished design & fundraising for next year’s group (or potential different adaptive reuse projects).

17 March 2026 @ Sam Alex

/ Fortnightly Progress Meeting
Today’s agenda was to discuss the details of what we are going to do during the engagement session with the Mossley community, and grouping ourselves into small teams to handle different tasks based on our strengths.