Our first day of MSA Live started by giving an introductory presentation to the project to BA1 and BA2 students. As a ground we researched and discussed important historical timeline landmarks. The morning session ended by producing sketches of the canal and its industrial heritage.
In the afternoon session, we looked at our online survey feedbacks. Based on this we did a brainstorming session of what the nearby community’s expectation of the canal. The day was winded up by making a map of our thoughts and ideas of the project.

The first day of MSA live was very productive. As a group we studied the site, user needs and client needs, and winded up the day with a brainstorming session. During this, we narrowed down the areas that require interventions. This step is really helpful as we can make more analysis of the site from tomorrow’s site visit.

Its Site visit day!

Its Site visit day!
As we explored the wilderness and nearby neighbourhood of the Manchester Burry-Bolton canal, we sketched and took photographs. To make site visits more productive, each of us chose a spot to sketch the existing condition and what intervention can be brought in.

DAY 03 - Lets do some masterplanning !
The key issues we are planning to tackle are accessibility, safety, nature and leisure. These 4 points will be our key target while developing the masterplan. We have narrowed down to these four issues based on our site study, group discussions and brainstorming sessions.
Our day started with a general discussion on how we could tackle each of these issues. The solutions were marked on the site plan. Later, we divided ourselves into 4 groups – SAFTEY, NATURE, LEISURE and ACCESSIBILTIY. Each group produced design solutions and sketches. At the end of the day, we overlayed all our masterplan ideas to finalised the planning strategies.

DAY 04 – Client Meeting
The project progress was shared with the Canal Society for their comments and feedbacks.

DAY 05 – Model-making
After the client meeting, we are confident to move ahead with our masterplan strategies and design. Today, we divided ourselves into two groups, for sketching and physical model making. As we plan to do digital model and final design of the interventions, todays design discussions are crucial. We decided to make detailed design sketched and physical model to bring precision to our design.

Week 02

Day 06 – Workshop day!
We head towards detailing our design and masterplan strategies as we head toward the second week of MSA Live. As a preparation for this intensive week, we did a rhino modelling and rendering workshop for BA students. The first half we developed the site model and sketch model of intervention as part of the workshop. We also prepared a material palette.

Day 06 – Workshop day!
In the afternoon session, we engaged ourselves to produce a design mood board. The mood board collage was kept as a base for developing a detailed 3d model of the intervention model. The base document helped us divide the 3d model work into various small groups.

DAY 07
We finalised our design today and did finishing touch to the digital model. A group of us started preparing model for final 3d model which we are planning to hand over to the canal society.

DAY 07
We finalised our design today and did finishing touch to the digital model. A group of us started preparing model for final 3d model which we are planning to hand over to the canal society.

DAY 08
We started the day with client meeting. The agenda of the meeting was to show the design of intervention to the client and get approval. We also discussed about the VR and physical model of the project and how it can be used for public display in the community.

DAY 08
In the afternoon session, a group engaged in completing the physical model, whilst others completed the digital model for VR.

DAY 09 - VR testing!
As we head toward the final days of MSA Live, we started off day 09 with a fun session of VR testing. Then, we sat down to finalise on the data for publication sheets. As we look through the work done over last 8 days, we feel we have learned and improved various skills.

DAY 10 Final rush!

THE JOURNEY