Within the 2 week project, we will help you learn new digital, physical and social skills in addition to helping you improve on any software or physical skills you may already have in regards to architecture.

Furthermore, we will be going through different design stages to help produce a final output of a construction manual for the client. We aim to help to develop a design all the way from a concept stage to a final design which will include construction detailing and modelling (physical and digital.)

The 2 Week Program also hopes for you to explore interaction with the local community, the client and being able to use different mediums to convey your ideas.

We are working with Hulme Community Garden Centre to re-design a children’s mound at the garden.

Promoting sustainability: Re-design of the children’s mound would involve the use of existing materials on-site to create play structures. The project also involves using permaculture design methods to create these play structures.

Promote Well-being: Re-design of the children’s mound at the garden would encourage children to engage in physical activities in a natural environment. The project would aim to create a play area to stimulate children’s imagination.

Re-design of the children’s mound involves promoting horticulture and involving local community.

Hulme Community Garden Centre (HCGC) is our external collaborator. HCGC is a unique community-led project, established 20 years ago and underpinned by organic principles, promoting sustainability through best horticultural practice and a respect for the environment.

These are the aims of the HCGC:

- Bring communities together through gardening.
- As a not-for-profit organisation they offer home-produced plants for the local community.
- They are foremost a volunteer and education hub, promoting horticulture and sustainability to schools, colleges and communities.
- They provide opportunities for individuals and groups, promoting a sense of well-being and a place to relax, learn and play.

The HCGC are committed to promoting well-being through gardening, bringing specialist knowledge to best help and advise people to enjoy the nature.

Name: Mohsin Ali

Atelier: &rchitecture

Undergraduate: Manchester School of Architecture

Work Experience: Part 1 Architectural Assistant, Design Studio - North

Skills: AutoCAD, Revit, Adobe Suite, Sketchup

Interested in: Intersections between Art & Architecture, Community Activism

Hobbies: Making Art, Cooking, Reading, listening to Music & Fashion

Name: Rucha Valimbe

Atelier: Complexity, Planning and Urbanism (CPU)

Undergraduate: Manchester School of Architecture

Work Experience: Junior Architect, SSH Design

Skills: AutoCAD, Revit, Adobe Suite, Rhino, Sketchup, Grasshopper

Interested in: Computational Design

Hobbies: Sketching, Origami, Badminton, Driving

Name: Julian Ng

Atelier: Continuity in Architecture (CiA)

Undergraduate: University of Kent

Work Experience: Architectural Assistant, Barrie Ho Architecture Interiors LTD & Architectural Designer, TFP Farrells

Skills: AutoCAD, Adobe Suite, Sketchup, Modelmaking

Interested in: Adaptive reuse, Masterplanning & Residential

Hobbies: Photography, Cooking, Video Games, Tennis & Digital Art

Name: Jianxuan Wang

Atelier: Some Kind of Nature (SKN)

Undergraduate: University of Liverpool

Work Experience: Architectural Assistant, OLI Architecture

Skills: AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup, Adobe Suite

Interested in: Public Space, Masterplanning

Hobbies: Basketball, Drawing & listening to Music

Day 1 (Morning) - Site Visit

A site visit to Hulme Community Garden this morning. We met the team, viewed the site, and learned about the social and ecological values of the garden to the wider community.

Day 1 (Afternoon) - Design Discussions

This afternoon, we had a guest lecture from MSA tutor Joe Dempsey. He shared his own work with Hulme Community Garden, and his ideas and thoughts on material and Degrowth-driven design. After his lecture, we discussed key opportunities and constraints of the site, and important design drivers around permaculture.

Day 2 (Morning) - Concept Development

Concept development by the BA students this morning. Three distinct concepts based on permaculture design were developed by the students. The three different groups worked along the concepts of sensory experience and free play.

Day 2 (Afternoon) - Mock Critique

In the afternoon, BA students created presentations to showcase their site observations, design framework and concepts. This was followed by discussions on how ideas could be conveyed further through diagrams, refining the concepts and preparing for presentation to the client.

Day 3 - Client Meeting

In the morning, Julian presented some of his work as a short tutorial on visual communication in preparation for a meeting with the client this afternoon. The students then adopted some visual communication methods for their presentations, delivered a mock presentation, and then presented to their initial concept ideas for a Permaculture inspired playscape to the team at Hulme Community Garden.

Day 3 - Student's Work

The first team delivered a presentation on sensory-inspired play as consisting of "action" and "creative" playscapes integrated into the existing site. The second group proposed multiple ways of accessing the mound through analysis of various types of movement, and the third group encouraged an idea of "Freeplay" that optimised the imaginations and agency of how the children wanted to play. The garden gave us feedback on how we could homogenise these ideas and begin with a final concept

Day 4 - Design Consolidation

Today we began by consolidating our three options from earlier this week. This meant highlighting differences and similarities in the work, and adapting based on the clients feedback. The BA1 and BA2 students homogenised their design through this framework and presented a consolidated programme and activity matrix to develop further tomorrow.

Day 5 - Design Consolidation

This morning we began by sketching a detailed site plan of the play area. BA students measured widths and dimensions to design the four different elements within the playground - the education area, access to the mound, the main play structure and the walkways/ seating within the site. In the afternoon, we planned out layouts for the design and construction manual.

Day 6 - First day of final package preparation

This morning we split the group into three teams to focus on the production of a model, a drawing package, and a short document for the community Garden. These teams went off to begin to present the consolidated design by finalising a digital masterplan, detailing and diagramming areas of educational play, and begin the base of the site model.

Day 7 - Second day of final package preparation

Today, the modelling team added some movement elements to the site model - exploring access up and around the mound. The layout team diagrammed and detailed some of these access pathways for the final document, whilst the drawing package team finalised some sections of the final scheme.

Day 8 - Third day of final package preparation

In the first half of the day, the modelling team finalised the 1:100 site model incorporating all the play structures on site. The layout team created diagrams detailing the construction of the main play structure to be placed onto the children’s mound within the site. BA students also created perspective sketches and diagrams that illustrate access and experience of the play structure of the mound. The drawing team finalised the sections and created diagrams to highlight the circulation, access and zoning for the playground.

Day 9 - Fourth day of final package preparation

Today we consolidated work for the Construction manual output. This involved finalising the exploded axonometric diagrams and construction sequences of the various play structures designed as part of the playground design. The BA students created illustrations to depict the materiality and sourcing of the sensory walkway. Visuals drawn by the BA students were incorporated into the manual to depict the educational zone and the main play structure designed over the mound.

Day 10 - Final Presentation

PermaPlay finished their project today! This morning kicked off with a final presentation to the client, showing our final design, construction manual, and physical model of a proposed playscape at the Hulme Community Garden. The garden really loved our work! To finish the day, we went for a group coffee at Hatch to celebrate the hard work we put in over the last two weeks.