Group 12
RECLAIM OUR BACKSTREETS

Moss Side streets are not safe for kids to play outdoors and go to school on their own, drivers use the quiet residential roads as a shortcut to avoid traffic on the main road. They speed down these roads which causes issues for the residents. As future architects, we have been tasked with developing innovative solutions to slow traffic and provide a new environment for a specific street. Our collaborators have come to us to develop their project and submit it to the council. We are planning to submit drawings, a physical model and renderings, which we will be developing throughout the workshops spread out across our two weeks. We are excited to meet you and start working on this project!

Download Final Report

Lateefat A / Juliette F / Alessia M / Junjie T / Zhihao W / Tao Y

Lateefat A
Name: Alessia Maierna
Hometown: Monza, Italy
Atelier: Continuity in Architecture
Skills: Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup
Undergraduate Education: Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Architectural interest: Sustainability, Interiors, Adaptive Reuse, Urban Design
Hobbies: Photography, Drawing, Travelling
Posted 13 Mar 2023 14:28
Lateefat A

Name: Zhihao Wang
Hometown:Shandong, CHINA
Atelier: &rchitecture
Skills: Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup
Undergraduate Education: Shandong University of Art and Design
Architectural interest: Public Space, Heritage Refurbish, Community Common
Hobbies: Photography, Football (Both Real & FIFA), Guitar
Posted 13 Mar 2023 14:30
Lateefat A

Name: Tao Yang
Hometown:ChengDu, China
Atelier: Some Kind of Nature
Skills: Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup
Undergraduate Education: University of CHONGQING JIAOTONG
Architectural interest: Reuse, Low Carbon and Sustainability
Hobbies:Travelling, Photography and E-Games
Posted 13 Mar 2023 14:30
Juliette F
Name: Juliette Floch
Hometown: Lorient, France
Atelier: Infra Space
Skills: Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup
Undergraduate Education: University for the Creative Arts Canterbury, UK
Architectural interest: Heritage and anything to do with history, Conservation, Sustainability
Hobbies: Ukulele, Photography, Climbing, Running and Swimming
Posted 13 Mar 2023 14:42
Lateefat A

Name: Junjie Tao
Hometown: Wuwei, China
Atelier: MAKING
Skills: Adobe Suite, AutoCAD, Rhino, Sketchup
Undergraduate Education: Jilin Jianzhu University
Architectural interest: Healing Space, Environmental Psychology, Heritage & Culture
Hobbies: Photography, Travelling, Rocking Climbing and Writing
Posted 13 Mar 2023 14:47
Alessia M
Moss Side is an area in the South of Manchester. Historically it was a rural area, after the Industrial Revolution it rapidly increased, resulting in a densely populated area.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a large number of red brick terraced houses were built, and soon attracted numerous immigrants and workers.
Moss Side has benefited from several redevelopment and regeneration projects, thanks also to the different local communities.
Today the neighbourhood is affected by the numerous cars that use the residential streets as a shortcut to go from a main road to another, occupying and making unsafe the space that should be dedicated to residents, communities and kids.
Posted 31 Mar 2023 13:21
Junjie T
Location: Geoffrey Manton
Today is the first day that Group 12 met and worked together. March1s introduced the brief of the project and the expected outcomes of the clients to MLA, BA1 and BA2 students. The group held a brainstorm and shared inspirations and precedents. After that, we divided into small groups to work on the flyers for the event with the residents, site analysis, and style support. Students selected certain analysis aspects to work on.
During the site visit the group spoke with the collaborator and interviewed several residents of the chosen street.
Posted 10 May 2023 10:39
Zhihao W
Time to start the design competition!
We split into 2 groups led by the March 1 students and started developing design ideas, sketches and concept diagrams based on the site analysis and the precedents research we did on the first day.
Each group focuses on different approaches and topics in order to give the collaborators and residents several visions of what the project could be.
Posted 10 May 2023 15:23
Tao Y
Model-making Workshop
Before developing in detail the 2 different proposals of the project, BA1, BA2, MLA students lead by March1 built a 1:100 sketch model of Newlyn Street, after that each sub-group started to create on it the proposed intervention according to the sketches made yesterday.
We would like to bring it to the event on Monday to show it to the collaborators and the residents, let’s hope it won’t rain!
Posted 11 May 2023 15:15
Juliette F
Last day of the first week!
This week we have split our time between Geoffrey Manton and MTC which is why you can see us transporting the model made by BA1 and 2, on day 3. Today, undergrads continued the model and made cars out of clay to give a better sense of scale when we'll present it to the collaborators on Monday evening onsite.
Posted 12 May 2023 15:51
Juliette F
Last day of the first week!
This afternoon it's only MArch 1 students working on the project, as others students have submissions in the upcoming weeks. We are currently finalising the drawings and model for the presentation on Monday evening to the collaborators and residents of Newlyn Street.
Posted 12 May 2023 15:52
Lateefat A
Before and After!

On Sunday, members of Group 12 helped cleared the community street garden of overgrown weeds and plants in preparation for the design idea presentation we will hold next week
Posted 15 May 2023 23:59
Lateefat A
After spending time during the first week designing strategies on how to slow down traffic on our Moss Side site, on day 5 we spent the evening presenting our design ideas to the community. We had two design ideas shown on the walls for residents to give their input on how we can design their streets to be safer for them,
Posted 16 May 2023 00:27
Alessia M
Designing together!
We shared our proposals to the residents and we discussed with them about other possible solutions. It was very useful to listen to their suggestions and advice. Children and the adults from the neighbourhood were very involved. After presenting our 2 ideas we let them draw on a large map of Newlyn Street. Thanks to their suggestions we can now start to develop the final proposal of the project.
Posted 16 May 2023 09:01
Juliette F
We decided last week to choose a case study, Northmoor Street, to study a transformed street into a Home Zone. A "Home Zone" is a UK concept where residents needs are prioritise over cars with traffic calming strategies (narrowing streets, bollards...). This was an opportunity to see one of our case studies and apply some of the design solutions to our site. We took measurements to have a clearer understanding of the spaces for cars, pedestrians...
Posted 16 May 2023 16:09
Tao Y
After analysing Northmoor and coming up with a plan, we are back with the design. We are presenting our initial plan drawn on AutoCAD to the other students. It's time to share ideas and discuss what could be improved on the design.
Posted 17 May 2023 15:57
Junjie T
Some students were working in B.15 whilst the others stayed in Geoffrey Manton to continue the drawings. The plan for model making was to make a context model on day 1 and a more detailed model for the second day in the workshop. Here are some pictures of the process!
Posted 18 May 2023 16:13
Zhihao W
Today is the last day of MSA Live! Junjie led a group of fellow BA students in completing the model construction, while the other members of Group 12 finished the preparation and formatting of the presentation documents. Today, at 5 PM in the afternoon, we will officially present our design and model to the clients. It has been a journey filled with friendship, collaboration, and joy.
Posted 19 May 2023 14:39