Activities and Skills

The creative aspect of our project will give the opportunity to the students to develop and present design ideas to the team and our collaborator. This will allow them to evolve their collaborative, technical and personal skills.

Specifically, the development of knowledge of digital software such as these of Adobe suite, AutoCAD and Revit will help the team to create an exciting design proposal, based on coherent research and that will be presented in a good manner. This will be achieved through small workshops that will be organized in the future and that will assist the students to acquire more knowledge on how to use the above software.

Social Impact

The aim of this project is to provide a feeling of welcomeness throughout the year. With the use of colors, modularity and a sustainable approach, the project is going to create diversity in the neighbourhood. It will be equipped with modular spaces that can have different functions depending on the needs of the organization.

Introducing our Partners!

Building Bridges Pendle are registered Charity and in 2019 they celebrated their twentieth anniversary. The charity contributes to community relation and community cohesion meanwhile raising awareness about people with different backgrounds and cultures. Their aim is to help people, create new friendships that cross-cultural boundaries.
Our first Collaborator is Rauf Bashir who is the project manager of Building Bridges Pendle. He will be acting as our main contact on behalf of the charity along with Shabaz Ahmed and Katie Nolan who are the community developer officers. For further details visit their website at https://www.buildingbridgespendle.org.uk/about
If you want to get involved follow them on:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/buildingbridgespendle
Twitter - https://twitter.com/bbpendle
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bbpendle/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI-dd5vRGyz-7GK811jtOmg?view_as=subscriber

BBP Offices Ground Floor Area

Our project aims to explore ideas of how the ground floor area of Building Bridges Pendle offices in the centre of Nelson town, could be transformed into a vibrant space, accommodating different community events and enterprise activities, promoting the values of diversity and inclusivity.

Week 01 Highlights

An overview of the key activities of our group during the first week of MSA LIve. This will include introductory activities, presentations from our collaborators, software workshops and the development of initial ideas about our project.

Meeting the New Members of Our Team & Introducing the Project

We are excited to meet the new members of our team today. The introduction was including ice-breaking activities, general discussion and briefing about our project and collaborator.

Guest Speakers

Today we had to listen and exchange ideas with different people from Nelson town and Pendle Area, about the impact of our project on the area's multi-cultural community. The discussion was very useful and gave us a lot of ideas about the development of our project.

Main Design Drivers

After a long meeting we had today with our collaborator, Building Bridges Pendle, we have set some design drivers that will help us for the development of our projects. Those design drivers reflect the ambition and vision of the collaborator for the redevelopment of their ground floor.

Site Analysis

Some of the site analysis work we have done today in order to get a better understanding of the area and the site. The work was produced by MArch and BA students. This gave the chance to BA students to apply what they have learnt in yesterday's Photoshop and Indesign workshops.

Today we made alterations to the existing plan, trying to create an open and multi-functional space. We did that focusing on events that will be held in the town centre throughout the year and what they will require, including a kitchen, performance space and exhibition wall that will show off the different cultures and faiths within Nelson.

Research on different Cultures

Today MArch and BA students looked at the different cultural backgrounds of residents within Nelson and researched their traditions including food, art, decorative patterns, trying to think how these could be celebrated in our design. When reflecting on our research we decided that the cultural diversity of Nelson could be visualised through patterns and tiles from different countries within South Asia, North Africa, Eastern Europe, the UK and The Middle East.

Precedent Studies

Today MArch students along with BA students explored different precedent studies that gave us examples for the development of our design. Those precedents were based on the functional requirements of our space, use of colour and expression of cultural identity. This activity helped the group to start sharing different ideas and discussing the how different aspects of the projects could be like.

Revit Workshop

Today MArch students Nadezhda Yordanova and Nuwar Darwish, held a Revit workshop for BA students covering the basic of the software. During the workshop, BA students understood how to do plans, sections, and elevations in Revit, how to export plans and how to import materials. This was very useful for the BA students as for all of them it was the first time that they used Revit. Now, with the new skills they learnt, they are more prepared to assist the rest of the team with the development of our project.

Week 02 Highlights

An overview of the key activities of our group during the second week of MSA Live. This will include preparations of drawings for the final design, feedback and presentation sessions to our collaborators, and finalization of our work prior to the submission of the project.

Interior Design Exploration

Today MArch and BA students collaborated to find ideas for the interior design of the BBPendle ground floor, based on the precedents that our group found yesterday. The outcome was a flexible space providing opportunities for meetings and social events, reflecting at the same time the multicultural identity of the Pendle community.

Preparation for Feedback Session with our Collaborators

Today the team collaborated all together on finishing the design of the ground floor area before start preparing the presentation sheets for tomorrow's feedback session with our collaborator. This will give us the chance to get initial feedback from our collaborators, on our design before the final deadline on Friday.

Feedback Session with our Collaborators

Today we had an interesting discussion with our collaborators. We presented to them our initial ideas and gave them the chance to comment on them and tell us if they wanted to add something and hear their feedback about what we have produced so far. We all felt extremely connected with the design and we really look forward to make the alteration they suggested!

Initial Visuals

Those are the first visuals of our design that were presented today to our collaborators, during our feedback session. The current design received very good feedback from them and we are all looking forward to our final design presentation on Friday.

Responding to the Feedback

Today our team was divided into smaller groups working on different aspects of the project based on the feedback that we received yesterday from our collaborators. According to the feedback, the different groups had to think about how the building could be more secured, find a place for a small reception desk and improve the design of the side elevation.

Preparing the Publication

After finishing the final design changes, our team worked together by preparing the pages for the publication document. Initially, the team had discussions about what to put on each page and then we were divided into smaller groups working on each page separately.

Final Visuals

The post shows a series of internal and external visuals from our project. Our collaborators were really impressed with those images during today's final presentation, mentioning that they helped them to see how their ideas could be materialised.

Over the past two weeks, we have worked hard as a team to bring the ideas of collaborators, Building Bridges Pendle, into an exciting but thorough design that will hopefully be realised in the near future. There was excellent communication within the group and we felt a strong relationship was formed with the charity. We hope to visit their office, which has been the focus of our project, one day.

The vibrant design we have produced reflects the multi-cultural, welcoming organisation and the collective effort of all our group members. Thank you group 25

Final Presentation to our Collaborators!

A nice conclusion to an expressive and joyful project! Today was the final meeting with the collaborators. The collaborators were very satisfied with the changes we made to the design since our last meeting. A big thank you for the kindness and great teamwork, we enjoyed our collaborations!