Group 25
GREEN CORRIDOR GATEWAY

Green Corridor Gateway are teaming up with Friends of Chapel Street Park in Levenshulme to design and build a masterplan for Bluebell Green. This shared neighbourhood garden is the gateway to Manchester’s green corridor and needs our help to make it more welcoming and accessible to the community! Join us in studio for Week 1 as we design, draw and collage a masterplan to share with the neighbourhood, then bring your green thumbs in Week 2 as we create willow structures and moguls on site.

Download Final Report

Rachel Amy P / Baoxin Y / Natalia F / Meijun L

Meet the Team!

Name: Natalia Fijalkowska
Year: M.Arch1
Atelier: Flux
BA Architecture: Manchester School of Architecture
Part 1 Placement: N/A

Interests & Skills: Walks, dogs, working out, food & Netflix. I predominantly use InDesign, Photoshop and Revit.

What gardens mean to me: Gardens are an escape from reality of life for me; a space where I can think, relax, and connect to the surrounding nature!

Posted 15 Mar 2022 11:05

Meet the Team!

Name: Rachel Amy Price
Year: M.Arch1
Atelier: SKN
BA Architecture: MSA
Part 1 Placement: Leach Rhodes Walker

Interests & Skills: I am interested in photography, tennis, wild camping, whittling and guitar; I am also a qualified yoga teacher. My CAD skills include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, After Effects, plus AutoCAD and SketchUp. I also studied Foundation Art & Design at MMU.

What gardens mean to me: Gardens are a place for respite and reflection, exploration, relaxation, bird watching, connection with nature, connection with people, BBQs, and growing and cultivating fruit, vegetables and flowers.

Posted 15 Mar 2022 11:06

Meet the Team!

Name: Meijun Liu
Year: M.Arch1
Atelier: &rchitecture
BA Architecture: XJTLU
Part 1 Placement: N/A

Interests & Skills: I’m interested in DIY and hand making. Also, I love to record the memory through film. I use Rhino, Photoshop and InDesign.

What gardens mean to me: For me, a garden means good mood. When I was little, I played in my garden with my best friends: it's one of the most accessible natural spaces for urban residents. I enjoy having a walk through the garden or along the water, it's a relaxing time for me where I can just focus on nothing but the fresh air and shade of the trees.

Posted 15 Mar 2022 11:12

Meet the Team!

Name: Baoxin Yang
Year: M.Arch1
Atelier: FLUX
BArch Architecture: JLJU
Part 1 Placement: Tianjin Meixin Architectural Design Co.

Interests & Skills: I really enjoy travelling and photography. Also, I enjoy the sport of archery because it allows me to practice staying focused on things. I use Revit, SU, AI, PS and ID.

What gardens mean to me: For me, it can be a memory of running through the grass with a kite as a child. It can also be a relief from the stress of a busy school day. With the increasing urbanization and population growth, parks are becoming more and more of a specimen of a scattered concrete forest.

Posted 15 Mar 2022 11:15

Meet the Partners!

Friends of Chapel Street Park

The group came together in 2020 to rejuvenate the park and to make use of the abandoned bowling green which is now a community garden.

The vision of the garden is:
'To create a wildlife friendly space for the whole community to enjoy that is educational, safe and welcoming’.

FCSP's Values:
Kindness: We are empathetic, respectful and put local people at the heart of everything we do.
Trust: We trust in each other and are all accountable and reliable to your local community park and community garden.
Education: Provide a welcoming, positive and safe learning environment.
Environment: Leading by example to bring back and support a rich biodiversity.
Inclusion: We want everyone to feel safe and welcome.

Posted 15 Mar 2022 11:18

Week 1 Activities

Posted 12 May 2022 17:25

Week 2 Activities

Posted 12 May 2022 17:25

Our Site: Bluebell Green in Chapel Street Park

Posted 12 May 2022 22:33

Our Site: Bluebell Green in Chapel Street Park

Posted 12 May 2022 22:33

On our first day, Green Corridor Gateway met our partners, Vicky and Kate, for an online introduction and leader training talk to ensure our safety on site. In the afternoon we visited the site for a tour from Kate, and then met partners Jen and Cathy and their kids to hear about their aspirations for Bluebell Green. We took photos, drew sketches and discussed their plans for the garden.

Posted 16 May 2022 19:22

Day 1- A compilation of pictures from our site visit!

Posted 17 May 2022 11:16

In the morning of day 1, we knew each other and did ice breaker! Everyone did a sketch to describe their garden. Nice start!

Posted 17 May 2022 12:33

In the afternoon of day 1, we visited the site and met our friends in Bluebell green. Excellent sketches we did!

Posted 17 May 2022 12:40

Bluebell Green collage by one of our team members, Florence.

Posted 18 May 2022 08:27

On our second day we created collages of Bluebell Green and included aspects that Jen and Cathy had asked for on Day 1. We also included some of our own design ideas which will be presented to the community for their feedback later in the week.

Posted 18 May 2022 14:08

Bluebell Green collage by one of our team members, Joe.

Posted 18 May 2022 15:10

Day 2- we had a fun day experimenting, students got creative and explored their ideas through collage-making!

Posted 18 May 2022 20:35

Today we each drew scaled masterplans of Bluebell Green to reflect our collages from Day 2. Tomorrow we look forward to combining these design ideas into one final masterplan ready to present to Friends of Chapel Street Park on Saturday morning!

Posted 18 May 2022 20:46

Each masterplan had to consider a set of site constraints: our partners requested that we retain the locations of the pond, poly-tunnel, bug hotel, raised and low planting beds, shed, and orchard saplings. FCSP explained that anything else could be re-located and moved around the site if we wished to change the current layout.

Posted 18 May 2022 21:06

Our Partner, Jen, asked if we could create some signs for the children who visit Bluebell Green to give them activities to do such as finding different flowers around the garden.

Posted 18 May 2022 21:37

Florence from our Green Corridor Gateway team drew these beautiful signs to encourage the kids to explore Bluebell Green's bug hotel and other areas within the garden.

Posted 18 May 2022 21:41

Let's take a look at what the site have at the moment!

All these lovely facilities are intended for children. We will continue to improve them in our designs!

Posted 19 May 2022 02:08

It's a garden collage of impressions!

We will use this to develop a site design for the garden and to set the scene for the sketch design on Day 3!

Posted 19 May 2022 02:17

Study Time - Plants!

In this set of posters we'll take you on a detailed tour of the plants grown in the garden in the hope that they'll get better and better!

This information will serve a pedagogical purpose, helping the children to get to know each plant better and integrating it with the game!

By the way! Don't forget to scan the QR code where you can see more information!

Posted 19 May 2022 03:37

A homemade water wall is a fantastic addition to a garden play space! Using recylcing materials to build a water wall could teach kids about recyle, gravity, angles and water flow. Here we give ideas for water wall!

Posted 19 May 2022 17:00

This morning Green Corridor Gateway met on Teams to discuss which elements of yesterday's masterplanning sketches we will include in the final masterplan. Some of our pets joined the discussion too!

Posted 19 May 2022 20:19

After our Teams meeting we created a CAD drawing of the final masterplan, with the elements that Friends of Chapel Street Park asked us to include in the design, such as accessible paths, willow arches, lean-to shelters and an accessible WC.

Posted 19 May 2022 20:26

Day 3- our students busy creating scaled masterplans! Everyone worked together to put their ideas on paper.

Posted 19 May 2022 20:42

Jen from FCSP told us that the children in the community love the poem 'Nut Tree' by Julia Donaldson, so GCG's Florence designed this sign to put in Bluebell Green! We are all excited to share these signs with the community on Saturday, along with our masterplan and sketches from this week.

Posted 20 May 2022 13:16

Our final masterplan is ready to present to Friends of Chapel Street Park tomorrow morning to receive their feedback. We look forward to meeting the community at Bluebell Green - the presentation will begin at 10.30am!

Posted 20 May 2022 15:40

Presentation Day! We visited Bluebell Green on Saturday morning to present our final masterplan to the FCSP community and receive their feedback and comments. We will update the masterplan based on these comments and begin working on site next week!

Posted 22 May 2022 13:47

We began building moguls on site today!

Posted 23 May 2022 17:17

We also moved the tyres from next to the 'mud cafe' to the edge of the desire line path to create a boundary line between the kids' play area and the vegetable patches.

Posted 23 May 2022 17:40

Sam is already loving the moguls we made yesterday!

Posted 24 May 2022 06:40

Here shows the working process! We made Moguls with 4 different levels. And we moved the tyre to make it continuous with the axis of Moguls.

Posted 24 May 2022 17:20

Today we started making the first Moguls, which consists of four moguls,, with a staggered height and a gentle slope for the children to climb over. At the same time, we moved the tyres that were already on the site to make them fit better into our overall design.

Posted 24 May 2022 18:33

Today we raised the first Moguls and started on the second. We also reinforced the tyres from the previous day for a second time to prevent them from becoming unstable while the children were playing.

Posted 24 May 2022 19:24

We updated the Bluebell Green masterplan based on Friends of Chapel Street Park's feedback on Saturday morning. The main changes are the addition of organic shaped low beds to the south of the site, and a new location for the willow structures, second set of moguls, accessible WC and fire pit.

Posted 25 May 2022 17:30

Today we made willow arches on site! We began by using canes to mark out where each arch would go, then we coppiced the on-site willow and planted the branches to form the arches. To stabilise the arch structures, we braced them with willow ties.

Posted 25 May 2022 17:53

Today we completed the two Moguls in the site and re-enforced the position of all the tyres to ensure safety for the children when they play.

Meanwhile, work began today on the willow walkway and our priority was to ensure that the overall structure was stable and that they would not be blown apart in the wind and rain.

Posted 25 May 2022 20:36

Today we completed two willow fences and reinforced all the nodes to ensure they became more stable. Small trees were also planted in the corners around the fences to make the overall environment more beautiful.

Posted 26 May 2022 19:44

We made more signs for Bluebell Green!

Posted 27 May 2022 15:54

Today, we repaired the willow fence to make it more secure. Also, today was the day we delivered all the projects.

Posted 27 May 2022 16:47

Green Corridor Gateway's Joe painted this beautiful site plan for Friends of Chapel Street Park to follow in the future and display in their polytunnel. It shows the moguls we made this week, as well as the willow arches and willow fence around the 'mud cafe'.

Posted 27 May 2022 17:01

Today we had a grand opening at Bluebell Green for Friends of Chapel Street Park and introduced the Kids of Chapel Street Park to the moguls and tyre obstacle course!

Posted 27 May 2022 17:21

From willow to corridor and fence!

Posted 27 May 2022 17:48