NAME: Anisa Begum

ATELIER: PRAXXIS

RESEARCH METHODS GROUP: DEEP cutting EDGE: Deep Mapping of Manchester Edgelands

UNDERGRADUATE: BSc (Hons) Architecture: University of Salford

EXPERIENCE: I started my masters immediately after completing my undergraduate degree.

SKILLS: Adobe Creative Suite, Digital modelling on (REVIT, LELUX DAYLIGHT, LUMION), Fine Art, Graphic Design, Photography, Ceramics, 2D and 3D modelling, Textiles

NAME: Eleanor Nurse

ATELIER: Flux

RESEARCH METHODS GROUP: Urban Anti-Urbanism in the 20th Century

UNDERGRADUATE: Manchester School of Architecture

PART 1 EXPERIENCE: I spent 2 Years at DLA Architecture in Leeds

SKILLS: Hand Drawing, Photoshop, InDesign, Sketchup, Enscape, Painting, CAD, Model-making

NAME: Letong Huang

ATELIER: Continuity in Architecture (CIA)

RESEARCH METHODS GROUP: An Environmental History of Cement

UNDERGRADUATE: Sheffield Hallam University

PART 1 EXPERIENCE: Architectural Assistant, CZ Planning and Design Institute

SKILLS: SketchUp, Lumion, Photoshop, Illustrator, CAD, VRay, InDesign. In terms of architecture I am partial to modernism and fair-faced concrete. I look forward to working with you all on this interesting project.

NAME: Marwa Dulaimi

ATELIER: PRAXXIS

RESEARCH METHODS GROUP: Prefigurative Architecture

UNDERGRADUATE: University of the West of England (Bristol School of Architecture)

PART 1 EXPERIENCE: I spent a year freelancing as a designer and artist, then worked as a Part 1 Architectural Assistant in Chester specialising in heritage and conservation architecture.

SKILLS: Illustration, woodworking and ceramics, printmaking, digital modelling (Rhinoceros), rendering (V-Ray) and the Adobe Creative Suite.

NAME: Xiongzhe Shi

ATELIER: MAKING

RESEARCH METHODS GROUP: Designing for Welfare

UNDERGRADUATE: University of Liverpool/ Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

EXPERIENCE: During the first project of MAKING, I finished the reconstruction of an old barn in the countryside, keeping the timber construction in the renewed one. Then I started to be interested in reconstructing and renewing heritage buildings.

SKILLS: Drawing, Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, Sketchup, Enscape, CAD

SOCIAL VALUE.

HERITAGE AND CONSERVATION: The digital resource we create will serve as a space where the community can engage with the heritage of Salford in a creative, enticing way. We are focusing on creating a foundation for its social history that can be built upon and shared by others, an educational resource that demonstrates the vitality that heritage projects can bring to communities.

PROMOTING EQUALITY: We recognise equality as a fundamental human right and will look to shine a light on voices that have been overlooked.

LGBTQ+ VISIBILITY: “Islington Mill as you know it is a product of Queer Love” – IMAC founder, Bill Campbell.
We are interested in mapping LGBTQ+ safe spaces in Salford as well as LGBTQ+ history, providing a resource that supports and celebrates the community and its history with Islington Mill.

REGENERATION: We believe in celebrating the re-use of buildings for the community. The digital resource will supplement the regeneration work of Islington Mill and ensure that the Mill remains a vital creative hub for artists and the wider community, preventing the gentrification and loss of creative space.

Ultimately, we believe in well-being for all and art for everyone.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SITE:
Islington Mill was built in 1823 and is a Grade II-listed, six-storey Georgian mill building located on James Street, in Ordsall, Salford. Islington Mill Arts Club today is home to over 100 artists and collectives and is currently undergoing renovation work to help restore the mill and reach its full potential as a community-centred arts hub.

“We are one of the longest standing mills of our kind, purpose-built in 1823 to spin imported cotton that was farmed and cultivated by enslaved people overseas, and then processed by exploited workers here in Salford. Islington Mill was part of the explosive industrialisation of England. In the following centuries as many types of British manufacturing were dismantled, the uses of the mill gradually changed from intense manufacturing to storage, retail, clerical and eventually into partial disuse. As with many abandoned buildings around the country, artists began to occupy the property, making and sharing their work and ideas. Over time, this process saw us galvanise into the dynamic arts organisation that we are today.” – Islington Mill Arts Club

Hidden Threads is collaborating with Islington Mill Arts Club and BB Heritage Studio to creatively map and document this extensive history.

SKILLS:
This project involves a variety of skills and activities in which you can participate and we strive to explore the history of Islington Mill and Salford using graphical representations. We will use the following skills to create our digital resource:

CREATIVE MAPPING: Creative mapping techniques will be explored and through this we will celebrate the hidden stories of Islington mill. We encourage the use of alternative methods such as hand-drawing, fieldwork, collage, animation and more!

STORYTELLING: The built-environment has the capacity to tell a story about its history. Therefore, we will be creating a visual, spatial link between the past, present, and future of the area, telling the stories uncovered through our research in the form of a digital resource.

HISTORICAL RESEARCH: The site’s history will be researched through a variety of methods and resources to explore the social and architectural history of the area.

PHOTOSHOP & INDESIGN: We encourage and will assist with, alongside other creative methods, the use of Photoshop and InDesign to creatively map the history of Islington Mill.

1 DAY TO GO!

We are really excited to get started with the Hidden Threads Project...
We will be meeting Monday at 10am at Geoffrey Manton GM223 so be ready to have some creative discussions and uncover some hidden histories of Islington Mill!

Photo: A throwback from our site visit in March, a taste of things to come!

DAY 2!

We've had a fantastic day so far discovering the area around Islington Mill and tracing its history - making use of the beautiful sunshing sketching outside. Already there's some great ideas about alternative ways of mapping heritage and engaging with the arts.

DAY 2

Tracing the layers at Islington Mill...

DAY 3...SITE VISIT!

Today we went on a site visit with Bernadette, the external partner for the project and architect for Islington Mill. We learnt about the journey Islington Mill has been on, from a tragic accident in 1824 through to its current life as an arts and community centre. The building fabric tells many stories and we will be mapping this change throughout the project.

DAY 3...SITE VISIT

The sun was shining for our site visit at Islington Mill this morning - we even went up on to the roof to see how the Salford skyline has changed over the last 200 years. We sketched, photographed, recorded and documented our experience of the building and this will inform our mapping exercises. From the site visit we established specific interests that have informed our sub-teams; the material heritage, mill typologies and social history.

DAY 4 - Exploring research trajectories

Sub-team 1 is interested in the material history of Islington Mill and tracing its journey through material change. They have been busy working on creating a timeline of the mill and researching the materials of different phases of construction.

DAY 4 - Exploring research trajectories

Sub-team 2 has been hard at work researching the construction of mills and how that relates to Islington Mill's changing use over the last 200 years. They have been doing some excellent drawings both on and off site and are interested in mapping the technologies and construction techniques present in the Mill.

DAY 4 - Exploring research trajectories

Sub-team 3 are fascinated by the entanglement of Mill heritage and artist & LGBTQ+ spaces as well as the growing concern surrounding gentrification of Mills in Manchester and Salford. They have been creating posters outlining their agenda and will be looking into mapping the history of Artist & LGBTQ+ spaces in mills after the decline of the textiles industry.

DAY 5 - End of Week One!

Friday was a fantastic day to sum up the first week and there are some great developments in each sub-team with research starting to translate into exciting drawings, timelines, maps, textures and more! Each team presented their thoughts so far and the mapping techniques they will be exploring in the second week.

WEEK 2 DAY 1_Workshop with External Partners

We've kicked off the second week with a fantastic workshop with Bernadette, Heritage Architect working on Islington Mill and Stef, the general manager of Islington Mill. Each group presented their work and thoughts so far and have received some really useful feedback for working going forward. It's brilliant to see research starting to translate into some extremely creative drawings and maps that will be useful for making the heritage of Islington Mill accessible to the public.

WEEK 2 DAY 1_GUEST SPEAKER!

This afternoon we were joined (online!) by a guest speaker, Steve Taylor, a PhD Candidate at MMU. We learnt about his research topic and progress - how music and arts venues work within contemporary cities and how architectural typologies can affect the way they operate. We also received some valuable tips on employing creative methodologies to conduct research as well as some great case studies which we can incorporate into our mapping exercises.

Thank you Steve!

DAY 7!

There is some wonderful work emerging - today we focused upon developing the creative heritage work based upon the client's feedback from yesterday. As the work progresses, more groups are overlapping and there is some fantastic collaboration happening. The undergraduate students are moving towards producing the final outputs, whilst the MArch students have been collating the work and designing the platform for the digital resource.

DAY 7_COLLABORATION, COLLATION, CREATION!

A view into the work so far... the team is working hard translating heritage research of Islington Mill and Salford into some beautiful, colourful and creative maps and drawings that communicate stories, materials, journeys and histories.

DAY 8_Decision Time!

Today we gathered in co-works to present to eachother our progress and to work together to ensure each sub-team overlaps and visually reads cohesively. We held mini-workshops on photoshop, digimap and figma and gave eachother feedback based upon all the expert knowledge we had accumulated from the clients, our own research and guest speaker. It was largely a continuation of yesterday's workflow and tomorrow we are looking forward to collating it together into the digital resource and adding some interactive elements!

DAY 9_1 DAY TO GO!

The team is hard at work compiling and making the finishing touches to our digital resource. Today we will be preparing for tomorrow's presentation to Bernadette, the heritage architect at Islington Mill and Stef, the general manager. We are excited to share the final product and all the creative work the undergraduates have been creating!

DAY 9_FINISHING TOUCHES!

Day 9 was spent making those final edits and changes to the collages, maps and posters and compiling them into the resource. Stay tuned on the blog on day 10 for the outputs and presentation to the clients!

DAY 10_Presentation!

We've got the biscuits ready...it's presentation time! This morning we are joined by Bernadette from BB Heritage Studio and Stef, General Manager at Islington Mill and we are presenting our platform that engages creatively with the Mill's heritage.

DAY 10_PRESENTATION TO THE EXTERNAL PARTNERS

This morning we had a great presentation to the external partners from Islington Mill where we explained our process, documentation and things we learned. We also discussed with Bernadette & Stef how we will link our resource into their existing website and platforms as well as the possibility of a physical exhibition in Islington Mill in the summer.

DAY 10_PRESENTATION DAY

Each sub-team did a fantastic job of presenting their work from the last two weeks to the external partners. We have identified scope for Islington Mill to expand upon our digital resource and incorporate their own research and artists into it. We talked through our digital resource on a big screen and reflected on what we had learned as well as discussing key issues facing Salford currently - such as, gentrification, retaining artists spaces in cities and renovation.

DAY 10_THANK YOU!

A huge thank you to the undergraduate students, external partners, guest speakers and all the individuals who advised us in our planning of MSA Live - Hidden Threads. It has been great to work together, go on site and get stuck into researching Islington Mill!

DAY 10_OUR DIGITAL RESOURCE!

Our platform is live...come and see our work!

https://www.figma.com/proto/0tDWS9GSFWfLOGiwQYsz4j/Untitled?node-id=0%3A3&scaling=min-zoom&page-id=0%3A1&starting-point-node-id=0%3A3

AND

https://pitchdeck.hypermatic.com/slides/l3mw2s8c16316?token=VmlJXy1CXmtfO2V7clc=

We have explored key areas of Islington Mill's heritage and mapped, sketched and collaged to help make heritage accessible and engaging for all so scroll through, interact and learn! Islington Mill Arts Club has an incredibly strong social value and exploring heritage creatively, paying special attention to social history, LGBTQ+ culture and the importance of the arts has been at our core throughout.

Thank you everyone for your hard work...

HIDDEN THREADS is live, come check out our MSA Live project!