Our MSA Live event offers the opportunity for children to learn about post-war infrastructure through a fun and engaging virtual school trip. A normal school trip is an opportunity to break with routine and learn about somewhere new. Admittedly, we can’t recreate the atmosphere of excitement as you wait for the bus, but we can give the children a chance to work with their friends to discover interesting stories through interacting with a new space. BArch & MLA students will design this new virtual space and create online games for the children to play on their “day out”. It will also give an opportunity to get architecture into the curriculum and show the positive affect architecture can have. Architects were not commonly involved in the design of industrial buildings but you can see the aesthetic and social improvements they made when the National Coal Board started using them. The huge, potentially overbearing forms were made monumental and iconic while hiding the messiness of the industrial day-to-day work. Amenities also played a large role, and the public was receptive to these industrial monoliths in their area because of these benefits to the community, despite the pollution. These structures are steadily disappearing as we gradually switch to a fossil-fuel free energy system but their historical importance should not be understated. By educating children we are ensuring that these iconic buildings live on through in the next generation, even if their physical presence has faded.

Meet our Guides! Colin Coal, Kelly Kettle and Ellie Electricity will help explain how electricity is created and add some fun to our diagrams. We found out from our lecture this morning, that characters are a really good way to engage small children. Thanks to Olivia and Megan for the very informative presentations on exhibition and graphic design for children!

Miro madness!! We’ve been beavering away, working on our diagrams, exhibition boards and website. This is our home base where we plan everything. You can see each others’ cursors flying around which is great for co-ordinating everyone but also makes you really feel connected to each other, something sorely missing in these weird Covid times. Having said that, we are one step closer to normality with the pubs opening inside today! We’re planning a social on Wednesday for more team bonding.

Prepping for the big virtual school trip tomorrow. We enlisted little brothers in a trial run of our paper nets, very impressed with the neat colouring on the house! We also finalised all our diagrams including the Coal to Kettle one (above), which features dinosaurs that look a bit more alive than they should! You’ll have to excuse our artistic license there, everyone likes a dinosaur surely!? Fingers crossed our little 5 year olds enjoy their class tomorrow