MSA Live 21

Meet The Team

Introducing the LiveWires team. Currently we are a team of six MArch.1 students at the Manchester School of Architecture

Rayyan Amjad
Atelier: Advanced Practice
BArch: University of Liverpool
Worked at: Aeys Associates
Skill: Autocad, Photoshop, InDesign
Interested in: Minimalist architecture

Posted 1 Mar 2021 14:27

Jian,"Eric",Gao
Atelier: USE
BArch: University of Liverpool
Worked at: Three sections of internship in China (short time), one in Egypt
Skill: Sketching, Photoshop, Rhino&Grasshopper
Interested in: Conceptual approach, operation (function) check.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 14:28

Joseph Twitchen
Atelier: PraXxis
BArch: Manchester School of Architecture
Skill: Sketchup, Illustrator, Diagramming
Interested in: Architecture and community and architecture and wellbeing

Posted 1 Mar 2021 14:28

Soniamaria Losapio
Atelier: PraXxis
BArch: University of Liverpool
Worked at: Pitman Tozer Architects
Skill: Graphical - Photoshop, InDesign
Interested in: Sustainable and inclusive architecture

Posted 1 Mar 2021 14:29

Pardis Naji
Atelier: PraXxis
BArch: University of Central Lancashire
Worked at: Briefly at a firm in the Netherlands & RIBA Mentoring scheme with Bennetts Associates
Skill: Revit, Visualisations & InDesign
Interested in: Community/social architecture & urbanisation

Posted 1 Mar 2021 14:29

Jemima Eyre
Atelier: PraXxis
BArch: University of Bath
Worked at: Sheppard Robson, London
Skill: Hand drawing, Photoshop & InDesign
Interested in: Adaptive historic reuse of heritage buildings

Posted 1 Mar 2021 14:31

We are excited to be working with the Workhouse project, founded by Eva Schlunke, Dominic Sagar and John Large. The core aim of this project is to establish a social media presence which serves as a community forum for exploring and understanding issues around housing and building community resilience.This should include looking at different types of need, aspirations, barriers, mistakes, agendas etc while keeping the focus on finding out what works (locally, nationally and internationally), and how successes can be replicated and implemented in Hulme and Moss Side.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 15:01

Jian G

Social agenda?

We want to unite the local community and eliminate social segregation through the use of food.

Our primary aim is to design a community food hub and activities centre for residents of Hulme and Moss side to provide covid safe interactions.

What will you do?

During the MSA live event you will help us to build a virtual community forum where members of the Work House Project and the community of Hulme and Moss Side will come together to learn more about food. You will have the opportunity to partake in live events such as cooking skills, talks from external collaborators and conversations with members of the community.

A ‘self build project’ the end goal is to design a food and activities hub. Working closely with this diverse community-the design of the hub will be tailored to benefit the needs identified through social mapping and collaboration exercises.

Posted 1 Mar 2021 19:54

This project will enhance your graphical skills with the use of Photoshop and Indesign, as well as your drawing skills on Autocad and Sketch up. We aim to organise workshops and create an environment to encourage you to ask questions. This project is a great opportunity for you to learn how to conduct social mapping research, understand the local community needs and their dynamics, in order to design a gastronomic community space for the local people to gather and enjoy it. Architecture is about making places for people to enjoy, therefore the project will help you boost your communication skills and human understanding.

Posted 2 Mar 2021 15:37

LiveWires DAY #01 TIMETABLE:

10:00: Informal team meeting & ice breaker activities
10:30: Brief outline
11:00: Coffee break
11:15: Introduction to the Indesign Templates and familiarising with everyone's software skills.
11:45: Lunch Break
12:45: Meet the collaborators who we will be working closely with - The Workhouse Project Team's presentation
15:00: Coffee break
15:30: Get to know the site - Presentation of the site by the MArch students
16:00: Run-through Day #02 schedule

Posted 10 May 2021 12:30

THE BRIEF

Over the next two weeks we will be reimagining the Lost Highway. This stretch of land is an invaluable green space for the residents of Hulme and Moss Side however it has been neglected and become a place where people dump litter.

The focus is to design a noise and pollution barrier which improves community relationships, public spaces, access to activities and resources and the needs and aspirations of residents.

To kick off DAY 2 we spent our time brainstorming and then collaging our ideas on to photographs of three areas of interest along the Lost Highway.

ALLOTMENTS & COMMUNITY GARDENS

We want to re-landscape existing green verges along the highway to facilitate food growing spaces. These will be a continuation of the structure for example, planter walls which act as a buffer to noise and vehicular pollution along Princess Road. We want to ensure we design these spaces so residents take pride in them and view them as their own back yard'.

Posted 11 May 2021 20:04

COMMUNITY KITCHEN

We want to develop the lay-by along the highway to provide space for a community kitchen. The community kitchen should be multifunctional and modular so it can be used for a variety of events. This will become a valuable space for food community initiatives around Hulme and Moss Side and when not being used for cooking it can be used as a sheltered space for picnics and gathering.

Posted 11 May 2021 20:17

FOOD MARKET STALLS

Finally, we want to reimagine the base of the Epping Walk bridge to become a more attractive part of the 'Lost Highway'. This could include features such as market stalls, seating, sleeping pods and tool stores. This could be a place for community grocers such as 'The Bread and Butter Thing' to trade and share high quality locally sourced food within the community at a more affordable price.

Posted 11 May 2021 21:02

Inspired by urban transit maps, we created a diagram to schematically present the existing charitable food infrastructure in Hulme and Moss Side. This furthered our understanding of the existing networks and interactions in the locality. Additionally, we spent the the day developing our understanding of the site as well as beginning to test design ideas and strategies for the site to be developed after our site visit tomorrow.

Posted 12 May 2021 14:44

A busy day on site (covid safe) and a lot of sketching!

We met with Dominic Sagar and Eva Schlunke, from the Workhouse project, and started to discuss ideas. Regeneration of the Lost Highway will have a phased development and our job is to kick start phase one!

Phase one is to get people excited about development, start tackling the 'food problem' in Hulme and start to involve the community in the regeneration of the Lost Highway. This phase will also involve securing funding for the future.

With this in mind we started to consider how we could design a structure with minimal funding. By building with local recycled materials, we could save on material and labour costs. We considered the use of wooden pallets, tyres and plastic bottles. These are all materials we could resource locally on Facebook marketplace or recycling centres free of charge.

We spent the afternoon sketching and planning developments with these unconventional building materials deciding on key concepts to explore further tomorrow!

Posted 13 May 2021 21:57

We started today with a talk from Christina MacRae, Research Fellow from Manchester University and Nursery School teacher at Martenscroft Primary School (aged 3-5) which is located between the Lost Highway and Aquarius Centre. We invited Christina to speak with us as we were interested in how we might link up with the school and the Aquarius Centre, to marry the development along the Lost Highway with similar community lead initiatives.

Christina explained that at Martenscroft there is such a diverse cohort of children, much like the rest of Hulme. She talked about her work at the school, including integrating children and their parents within the wider community, explaining the benefits it can have on mental wellbeing and imagination. One example she gave was a 'Den Building Event'

She welcomed the prospect of redeveloping the Lost Highway into a ‘communal’ space, highlighting that green spaces that exist already were either intimidating or underdeveloped. She emphasised the improvement that even communal seating can have in make areas more inviting.

Martenscroft currently work together with the Aquarius Centre in maintaining allotment gardens which straddle both sites. Our hope is to join this partnership, creating pockets along the Highway which could also benefit the school and Aquarius Centre. These areas could be managed by a Parents Association at the school, local residents and The Workhouse Project.

Posted 14 May 2021 15:15

To create a physical barrier between our site and the adjacent road, the team began developing ideas for a wall constructed from reused tyres. We intend to fill the tyres with soil that can support the growth of plants creating a bucolic meadow bank next to the cycle path. The side of the tyre wall facing the road can also utilised as a location for sponsor logos to provide a source of funding for the development.

Posted 14 May 2021 16:14

Inspired by the market stalls along the river Seine in Paris, originally used by booksellers to sell used and antiquarian books.
We have designed market stalls made of OSB, which will be sustainably sourced and easy to construct with. They will be fixed in place to the wall along the cycle path, the stall-holders will then be able to open them up and put on display a variety of things to engage with the community and be a part of the daily city display.

Posted 14 May 2021 16:25

Manchester Hulme area possesses a very diverse community with different cultures co-existing together. However, due to cultural differences and language barrier, migrants and refugees struggle to integrate within the local community. Consequently, to solve local social segregation, the design proposal comprises pop-up dining/kitchen mobile pods that aim to unite the community by being self-built demountable structures, which fold and unfold according to daily usage.

Posted 15 May 2021 02:34

At the end of last week, we started to finalise our designs through a series of sketches. Today we have been exploring, discussing, and experimenting our ideas through 3D modelling. Visualising our ideas, and putting our proposals into the wider context, made us think about construction and modularity methods which we will be exploring further this week.

Posted 17 May 2021 19:18

The site visit allowed the design team to experience the space. It exposed us to the local dynamics and the place’s culture.
The site turned out looking and feeling a lot different from what we had envisioned. As a result, the group visit of the site allowed us to get a better sense of scale and contributed to gathering details that will strengthen our design responses. The site visit was crucial to creating design solutions sensitive and responsive to a place's characteristics and the partners' needs.

Posted 18 May 2021 19:25

Our design team met face-to-face with Dominic Sagar, a member of The Workhouse Project, our external partners. Bringing the design team and the external partners face to face together allowed to share knowledge, experiences and accomplishments to learn from one another. In order to understand what is expected from the project entirely, we discussed vital design ideas with the external partners and their priorities. The meeting served us to refine our design responses later.

Posted 19 May 2021 00:56

Our design process comprised profound site analysis, sketching and modelling the first week, where the whole design team contributed. This week, we have begun refining and rendering our final design ideas after testing them on-site and discussing them with our external partners, who have approved them.

Posted 19 May 2021 14:57

This week the students have been sketching and designing the community spaces along our site. They have also been making collages to show our intentions and the importance of community engagement, by finding ways in which local residents, community centres, and schools in the neighbourhood can be involved in the scheme.

Posted 20 May 2021 18:09

Masterplan of the proposed development along the Lost Highway.

The final proposal transforms this neglected highway into an invaluable pedestrianised link between Hulme and Manchester offering community facilities based around food sharing, cooking and growing.

Posted 21 May 2021 11:58

TYRE WALL

The tyre wall is a crucial part of the redevelopment of the Lost Highway. It acts as a noise and pollution barrier from the busy Princess Road whilst facilitating plant growth, seating and advertisement along its stretch. Made from reused tyres and pallets, the extravagant ‘fence’ is affordable and appealing.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:00

MARKET STALLS

Taking precedent from the market stalls along the Seine River in Paris, the market stalls instead aim to provide space for community events such as the ‘Community grocer’. The market stalls have been designed to lock up securely at night, and they can be leased to vendors for markets, charity bake sales, etcetera.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:01

ALLOTMENT GARDENS

The Aquarius centre currently has 11-12 small allotments shared with the community and Martenscroft. Hulme and Moss Side residents would like to expand growing to include gardening projects in the estate. Increasing allotment space along the green verges, which straddle the lost Highway and housing estate, transforms the area and allows more fresh produce for the community grocers and residents. The small allotment spaces will grow low maintenance hardy crops which would be primarily maintained by residents of the estate but overseen by the Aquarius, a Parents Association at Martenscroft school and the Workhouse Project.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:01

KITCHEN

The Aquarius centre has an indoor kitchen used for a range of community events; however, since covid-19, they feel they would benefit from more outdoor cooking facilities as residents feel safer meeting outdoors. Tackling food shortage in the Hulme area as part of the Lost Highway regeneration project is crucial.The kitchen pods and the seating pods have been designed to be self-built and modular, allowing them to be packed up and left securely overnight. The kitchens and seating pods are meant to be flexible and support various community events, such as cooking classes, soup kitchens, or a community café.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:02

Our modular kitchen manual!
We have been working on modular construction methods, whereby parts of the building are prefabricated and delivered to the site and put together. Now our community kitchen is easily unpacked, assembled, and can move around the site.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:48

In order to provide our external partner with the exciting imagery with which to sell the project to the community, we created some final perspective renders in an effort to bring the scheme to life. This perspective reveals the view of the site from Princess Parkway, taking in the areas for branding and sponsorship as part of our project's economic strategy.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:50

We produced some rendered perspectives of the cycle path, tyre wall and market space area to look at how the area can be utilised throughout the day.

Posted 21 May 2021 12:52