19/03/2021. Guest Announcement!


We are delighted to announce that members from the Marple Civic Society will be giving a presentation during MSA Live!

Who are they and what do they do?

Marple Civic Society is a registered charity and was started by four architects who lived in Marple. They focus on Marple, the surrounding villages and the countryside within Marple north and south wards and aim to make the area a better place to live, work and visit.


Why have we invited them?

The members from the Marple Civic Society know what Marple is all about, what it needs and what they want! This will provide a better ‘sense of place,’ something that Joe, our collaborator has reiterated the importance of.

We look forward to welcoming them!

Day 2 - Reviewing mapping tasks

In the morning, we reviewed student’s responses to a short task we set on day 1. They had the choice of creating a mental map of their hometown/Manchester or they could map the paths, landmarks, edges, nodes, and domains onto a map of our site, Marple’s Memorial Park, as inspired by Kevin Lynch’s book ‘The Image of the City'.

The first exercise allowed students to recognise how they mentally picture areas that are familiar to them. Which, in turn, would help them understand how residents of Marple might feel about our Community building project and what would be important to them.

The second exercise enabled a deeper understanding of the site. It helped to identify areas of importance and key areas of weakness on the site, which would come to inform our opportunities and constraints diagram, which we produced together afterwards.

Day 4 - Model-making workshop

In the morning, Juliet led a model-making workshop, to help generate ideas for the concept and form of the new buildings on the site. She gave a short presentation about how, why, what, when, and where models are used before showing an example she made specifically for the project. Students were asked to create similar sketch models in groups, subdivided according to the three key buildings on the site; the community space, leisure centre and library. They were encouraged to use recycled materials and consider how their model was photographed, through their lighting and position.

The resulting sketch models, created by the BA students, demonstrate a broad range of approaches which explore different materials, from the use of cardboard and polystyrene to paper and foamboard. This exercise helped us to identify key points of interest from each student’s model, which could be combined to inform the final form of the buildings.

Day 7 – 2nd Tutorial with Ian Fisher

In the morning, we had another tutorial with Ian Fisher, who is a Landscape Architect. We presented the progress we had made on the master plan of the site, in which we focussed on the landscaping around our new building proposals and the main entrance to the park. We also talked about our strategy towards the canal edge, in terms of adding bridges and pathways through, as well as our approach towards the busy Station road to the north of the park, which involved widening the pavement.

He gave us lots of detailed feedback and tips about landscape design. He encouraged us to place an invisible grid on the masterplan of our site, Marple’s Memorial park, and use that to guide the landscaping features as our current masterplan lacks structure. Ian also talked about the importance of the hierarchy of spaces and reducing our focus on the vehicle and its associated car parks. Overall, it was a highly valuable session that gave a great introductory insight into landscape design.

Day 8 – Presentation from David Rudlin

David Rudlin gave an introductory presentation on urban design principles. This was important for helping towards the development of our master plan within Marple. In his talk, he highlighted the difference between architectural and urban design, suggesting that unlike buildings urban spaces are designed from outside to inside. While architecture considers the practical dimensions of humans to ensure ergonomic spaces, urban design focusses more on people as a collective and the activities they do as a community.

David mentioned some key readings including The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch, The Concise Townscape by Gordon Cullen and The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. He then divided the urban landscape into three key areas: spaces (areas between buildings), places (identity of an area) and life (human activities within that area). After exploring some key urban case studies from all over the world, David laid out the 9 key points from the National Model Design Code. Overall, this provided a practical framework which we could apply to our site. Notably, this included exploring the hierarchy of spaces and streets around the park, reducing the focus on parking and ensuring an appropriate level of urban density within the park.

Day 10 – Completing the serial vision perspectives and master plan

In the morning, we completed the rendered master plan and final serial vision sketches which are to form the output of this urban design scheme. Every BA student contributed a sketch and each one injects the individual style of the student into the final compilation. Some were completely hand drawn while others incorporated the SketchUp model which we used as the basis of the images. The final 9 drawings include views from the new entrance of Marple Memorial Park, the new community building, the Hollins house building and extension, the new leisure centre as well as connections across the canal and traffic routes including Station Road.

MArch students added colour to the sketches to make the green spaces stand out and bring the images to life. We are very happy with everyone's contribution and are pleased with the final outcome.