Hey guys! My name is Athena, I’m 23 years old.
I’m from Cyprus but I grew up in both London and Cyprus. I studied for my undergraduate degree at the University Of Nottingham . I am now part of the &rchitecture atelier and I have a passion for designing for the needs of the people.

If I wasn’t studying architecture, I would have studied Sports Science.

Activities & Skills:
Our key objective is to develop a series of concept designs. These concept designs will be of mobile pod structures that aim to catch the imagination & creativity of the children. The pods should be interactive and facilitate all ages as they will be used by the whole community.

Through an online workshop environment, we will invite undergraduate students to join us and work together in small groups. In our group, students will learn essential skills that will benefit and further their studies.
We will start off by brainstorming ideas for the design of the pods followed by an activity where we will attempt to think in the mind of a child: how they interact with space and materials. We will then start to develop, design & test concepts for the pods and create various diagrams and collages.

To achieve this, various computer software such as AutoCAD, SketchUp, InDesign and Photoshop will be employed (a series of workshops for the students to learn how to use the above mentioned software will be provided). Furthermore, Handmade models and sketches will also be encouraged to produce a series of mix media ideas and concepts.

All about our site!

We started the day off through analysing our site to see how different aspects of it can affect our design decisions at later stages!

Things we have come up with, are that it rains a lot in Manchester and is quite windy which could affect our pods but luckily the site is protected by tall buildings so this can benefit how we design them!

We are also based near a small park so our pods could be transported to it to benefit the local community and help in local events!!

Have a look at the concept designs to see how we have taken this knowledge and started designing!

Photoshop collage making!!

After the Adobe Photoshop tutorial we began making collages based on each type of pod. Photographs from precedents that we all previously looked at were utilised to produce the finish images.

Here are three examples of the collages produced!

Stay tuned to see how we turn our fun and creative collages into a final design.

It’s a brand-new week!

Our team member Wiki (Wiktoria) started off the day with an AutoCAD tutorial.We learnt how to use multiple AutoCAD tools as well as how to export drawings to scale.

The tutorial was also recorded so all the students could look back at it while working on their own plans & elevations of the pods!

Tune in tomorrow to see how we have progressed!

Plan Development!!

Today we took our hand-drawn sketches and used them to create plans of the 3 pods on AutoCAD.

Drawing out the plans on AutoCAD allowed us to check dimensions and make any adjustments required easily and quickly.

The team made an excellent start!
Take a look at some of the drawings we have created so far.

Design Tutorial: Model Making Pod!

Take a look at a snap shot from our tutorial with the team who is working on the Model Making pod!

Each team has been placed into different breakout rooms (online) to work in. The Master students have been popping in and out of these rooms, providing support and any help required.

Tune in tomorrow to see our final outcomes!

InDesign Workshop!

Today our MA student Athena showed us how to use InDesign. We learnt how to use all the basic tools as well as more advanced techniques.

The session involved, importing images into frames, creating master pages, how to check if there are any spelling mistakes or file errors and lots more.

The tutorial was once again recorded so that all the students could look back at it for both this project and future ones.

Recap of activities & skills!

During these exciting two weeks we have learnt a variety of skills.

Take a look at the blog poster to see what personal development skills we have learnt.