Group 37
BAM BRINNINGTON ACTIVE MOVEMENT

The BAM!! initiative entails creating interactive audio walks and signage interventions in Brinnington, Stockport. Over the past four years, Life Leisure in Stockport has been working in Brinnington, an area marked by high deprivation and health disparities, to positively influence population behaviour by promoting physical activity. The concept for the audio walks originated from community requests for a map of the area, leading to the creation of Brinnington Maps. These audio walks and interventions seek to enrich the maps by providing residents with descriptions of historical sites and landmarks through various mediums such as Signages, a web page, or Gamification. The project targets a diverse range of groups, including those experiencing depression, individuals with long-term health conditions, elderly residents, children and adolescents and so on. Beyond simply increasing physical activity levels, the project aims to tackle broader issues such as social isolation, mental well-being, accessibility, and area revitalization. The approach involves adopting a holistic strategy, considering various factors encompassing health, community development, and more, to foster increased activity within the local community.

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Sanah M / Patricia Susana MG / Karim Tharwat Talal A / Atikatu Yaya A / Siddharth KM

Hey everyone, I am Karim Almatari!

As an exchange student from Politecnico di Milano, I am excited to explore and learn about how things are done here in the UK. I am all about community engagement, sustainable design and global citizenship. Getting the chance to work on a project like this is very fulfilling.

You can usually find me travelling around taking pictures of landscapes and landmarks or sitting down enjoying a good book.
Posted 10 Mar 2024 17:53
Hello! My name is Patricia Mock Gris, but everyone calls me Pati. I'm from Panama and I'm doing the MA of Architecture and Adaptive Reuse. I did my undergraduate degree in Panama and worked for a couple of years before I decided to come to Manchester and do a masters.
This project excites me because, architecture aside, it’s about human interactions and the communication between our group (that I love) and the community.
If anyone talks to me for more than 30 minutes will probably hear me mentioning that I love boxing and that is one of my favorite hobbies for releasing stress! I enjoy playing piano and watching Desperate Housewives over and over again.
Posted 10 Mar 2024 17:59
Hi my name is Sanah, I am a MArch 1 student at MSA. I was born and raised in a small town in West Yorkshire. I studied my bachelors in architecture at the University of Huddersfield. At MSA I am a member of the Praxxis atelier.

Some of my hobbies and interests include traveling, sketching, photography and of course watching movies on Netflix.
Posted 10 Mar 2024 18:02
Hey everyone, I am Atika Yaya!!
I am with the MArch 1 cohort in the PRAXXIS Atelier.

I’m a US born Nigerian, and I grew up mostly in Abuja. I achieved my undergraduate degree at the University of Sheffield and had my Part 1 experience in London. My Hobbies include lots of crafts, learning new languages and watching netflix.

I am very passionate about working with communities to improve their quality of living even through the smallest means. I feel that this project is perfect of me because it allows me to learn and work closely with my group mates and the Brinnington community to understand their different needs through varied points of view.
Posted 10 Mar 2024 18:11
Hey, I’m Sid. I work alongside a great team in PRAXXIS Atelier, pushing forward equal rights and opportunities for all through architecture. I graduated in 2021, worked for a year as a project architect and quit my job to start a small design studio with my classmate. Here to level up and make some great friends.
I usually spend my spare time bouldering, hiking, playing basketball or dancing to DnB.
Posted 11 Mar 2024 02:41
Meet the Collaborators!

Life Leisure is a Community Interest Company (CIC) which is owned by the Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council. They strive to ensure that local residents have access to affordable provision within their local communities.

Their whole purpose is to improve the lives of others, this is a key driver of all the work that they do. Developing a more active and healthier community is their mission.

Life Leisure believe that physical activity can help improve well-being and health of the community. They work to have a positive impact on social, mental and physical health of their local community.
Posted 11 Mar 2024 19:31
Meeting our Collaborators!

In early December we had the pleasure of meeting our collaborators Ross and Lisa who work for Life Leisure. This was our first meeting with Ross and Lisa, where they introduced us to Life Leisure and gave us an overview of the current culture in Stockport. We then discussed ways in which we can help them make improvements to achieve their goals. We were all very excited for the next steps of this project.
Posted 11 Mar 2024 19:34
First Site Visit

On the 31st of January, the BAM! team went to Brinnington for our first site visit. We were taken around by the amazing client representatives Ross and Lisa, seeing what the potential threats and opportunities for an intervention. Brinnington had an incredible history and a tight-knit community, where their opinions and needs helped shape the direction of our project.

Through the walk, we spoke about many aspects that could lead to an intervention including signage, fitness and health, digital identity and access to green spaces.
Posted 11 Mar 2024 19:38
Discussion with Ross and Lisa @ Life Leisure

31/01/24. After the site visit, we sat down with Ross and Lisa in the Life Leisure Centre to discuss their goals and aspirations for the project. A fun fact about this Leisure Centre is that since the moment it opened it has had an “abnormal” behaviour because it is always used by different members of the community. During the discussion we all concluded that the objective of this project is simple, we need to encourage the community to be more active and our job is to come up with ways to do so. We discussed the audio walks and how that could happen, and we came up with the idea of maybe creating a point system to encourage people to make the walks. The site visit and this meeting gave us a starting point for the project, we can now start actively thinking about the possibilities for Brinnington.
Posted 11 Mar 2024 20:06
Poster Proposals

20/02/2024: After hearing what the client's requirements were, and what Brinnington needed. We began to brainstorm ideas by creating proposals for the poster. We soon realized that our main focus was all about getting the community engaged through active movement. The proposals were therefore a reflection of this. In our search for a name, we wanted something that was just as “punchy” and thus BAM was born. The 3 proposals showcase various members of society on the move.

Both the MSALive supervisor and the client loved the idea, especially the first option. We were recommended a few graphic tweaks and that the people in the poster reflected the demographics of Brinnington. We took this on board and updated it using data from the National Census.
Posted 19 Mar 2024 23:00
Second Meeting with Lisa @ MTC

28/02/24. Just finished another meeting with Lisa on the latest updates on BAM! In it we debriefed on a range of topics including the portfolios of intervention, poster developments and budget allocation. Lisa was very helpful and helping us coordinate with BBL, a grassroots community initiative and finding ways of collaborating to achieve the best results. We also learned due to the nature of the project there was a need for a risk assessment and filling the appropriate ethics matrices to protect the data the community is entrusting us with.

Posted 19 Mar 2024 23:02
Wishing Wall

On the 28th of April we attended a community event at life leisure where we had the opportunity to speak to members of the community about what improvements they would like to see in the area and about what we could do to encourage people to engage in outdoor activities.

The most common themes that were mentioned by the members of the community were to include more outdoor activates in the parks and safe spaces to walk.
Posted 8 May 2024 13:56
New Additions to the Team

Meet BA1 and BA2 students who will be working with us for the new few days.
Posted 8 May 2024 13:58
MSA Live Action Week Day 1

MSA Live action week began on the 7th May. We had the chance to meet with the BA1 and BA2 students who will be working with us for the next two weeks to produce the outputs for this project.

We started off the day with an ice breakers and informal chats to give everyone a chance to get to know each other. We then presented an introduction PowerPoint to our new team members to give them a better understanding of what the project is about and what we have done so far. We then gave them a chance to ask questions and share any ideas they may have. We had a lovely chat about the ideas they had in mind, some of their ideas were about including dog parks and using signages as a free tour guide around the area.

We then shared a task with the BA1 and BA2 students, we asked them to start a SWOT analysis of Brinnington and to create a mood board with precedent studies which they can present to us the following morning.
Posted 8 May 2024 13:59
MSA Live Action Week Day 2

We started the day by reviewing the mood boards and precedents that the team came up with. They brought ideas for modular furniture, landscape design, dog parks and a site analysis of Brinnington. They were all very good!
Posted 9 May 2024 12:59
MSA Live Action Week Day 2

The team got divided in two groups: audio walks and landscape design.

The audio walk team will be developing the website and the audio tours during Action Week. We did a site analysis of Brinnington, a map of green spaces, an urban latency map, a photo mosaic, and historical research.

The landscape design team will design proposals for park entrances, modular furniture for the different parks and street signs for Brinnington. We did sketches of modular furniture to add in some empty green spaces and ideas for the park entrances. After lunch, we started to 3D model the modular furniture in SketchUp.
Posted 9 May 2024 13:13
As a group we prepared a detailed plan of tasks which we need to complete. This allows us to stay organized and easily distribute tasks to everyone.

Day 1: 08.05.2024
- Organise in groups See precedents and moodboards
- Site analysis
- History and landmark research
- Pin point locations of audio walk and buildings to put murals on
- Website formatting
- Concepts and start design dog park and park entrance
- 3D modeling

Day 2: 09.05.2024
- Finalise map
- Finalise what the audio will say
- Design for the physical signs
- Website formatting
- Park design
- City signs design

Day 3: 10.05.2024
- Continue with graphics for website (map and images for each stop)
- Recording of the audio
- Start adding the audio walks information
- Finalise SketchUp model

Day 4: 13.05.2024
- Start booklet
- Build graphics for website
- Physical model of audio walk signs
- Build the website
- Renders and digital presentation
- Physical model signs

Day 5: 14.05.2024
- Work on booklet
- Build graphics for website
- Physical model of audio walk signs
- Build the website
- Renders and digital presentation
- Physical model signs

Day 6: 15.04.2024
- Work on booklet
- Finalise graphics for website
- Physical model of audio walk signs
- Finish website
- Physical model signs

Day 7: 16.05.2024
- Work on booklet
- Attend Exhibition at Brinnington

Day 8: 17.05.2024
- Submission
- Finish booklet

Posted 10 May 2024 12:56
MSA Live Action Week Day 3

The audio walk team continued to work on the site analysis. We also started prepping the material and files for model making. The plan for next week is to create a physical model with the audio tours, so the preparation of the data is very important at this stage.

The landscape design team continued to work on the modular furniture and the entrances to the park. We also came up with ideas for the physical signs for the audio walks and for the city. Today we´ve made great progress! Some graphics are ready for the final presentation!
Posted 10 May 2024 12:57
MSA Live Action Week Day 4

10.05.2024
We spent the day finding and testing what would be the best locations for the audio walk. One we had finalized the best locations we then conducted some research into the ideal time and distance a walk should be to encourage the residents of Brinnington to get their weekly steps in. The aim is for each sign post to encourage people to walk further to meet the next sign. We also included an additional walk for those who feel they want a longer walk.
Posted 13 May 2024 14:14
MSA Live Action Week Day 4

10.05.2024

We began our designing and brainstorming session later that day on how we could design the street signs.
We also discussed the ideal dimensions and font for the sign.
When speaking to Ross from life leisure he informed us that there is an issue of vandalism of signs, they attempted to fix this issue by raising the signs higher to avoid people from vandalizing the signs. We have decided that the new proposed signs can be painted on site by the local community to allow them to feel that they had an input in the design and discourage this act.
Posted 13 May 2024 14:20
MSA Live Action Week Day 5

The audio walks team created the audio walk map. We used the aesthetic of the existing Brinnington maps to make the map cohesive with the existing ones. We also worked on the 2D and 3D physical signs for the audio maps and street signs and rendered the park interventions.

We created a model making team today! We worked in the B15 workshop to create the 1:1 street sign and the audio walks physical map. For the audio walk map we laser cut the landscape and put the map together. We identify the stops in the map and created the paths with nails and string.
Posted 14 May 2024 15:21
MSA Live Action Week Day 6

Today the model making team finished the audio walks physical model and we took pictures of it in the B15 Photo Studio. We added the audio walk post point numbers and the location of the Life Leisure Complex!

Meanwhile, the design team kept working on the design and renders for the park entrances and the logos for the city signs that we are proposing.

The audio for the audio walks was recorded! And we began to add it to the website.
Posted 15 May 2024 12:42
MSA Live Action Week Day 6

We launched the website! Still a work in progress but is visible for anyone that wants to check it. The QR code will lead you to it, but you can also visit the website at www.bamaudiowalk.com
Posted 15 May 2024 12:43
MSA Live Action Week Day 7

Today is the last working day!

We are going to Brinnington tomorrow to exhibit everything that we have been working on, so today we are focusing on the final details.

We finished the audios and the gallery on the website. It is finally done and ready to be used!

We also finished the park entrance and signs renders and printed them for the exhibition.
Posted 16 May 2024 19:14
EXHIBITION: INVITING ALL OF BRINNINGTON
16 May 2024

We sent this poster a few days ago to Life Leisure as an invitation for the local community to come and see our exhibition on 16th May 2024.
Posted 17 May 2024 11:23
MSA Live Action Week Day 8
16.05.2024

We arrived at Brinnington Life Leisure at 11am where we met with Ross and Lisa. We briefed them on all the outcomes we have produced which they were very excited about. We then began to set up our exhibition for the local community to view.
Posted 17 May 2024 11:24
MSA Live Action Week Day 8 - Exhibition Set Up Complete
16.05.2024

Here we have completed the set up for the exhibition. We have presented our physical model of the audio walk, the wishing wall where we gathered the opinions from the local community, diagrams and renders of the park interventions, a model of the new signage design, a map of the audio walk which was inspired by the original Brinnington maps and we left a feedback sheet where the local community can share their opinions on the work we have done.

Posted 17 May 2024 18:41
MSA Live Action Week Day 8 - Meeting the community
16.05.2024

We had the chance to talk to local residents and tell them about our project. They took pleasure in hearing about our suggestions for the audio walk, new signage, and park interventions. They were happy to see their town represented on a physical model, read every wish on the wishing wall, looked at the renders and compared them to what exists today. One person expressed how necessary the park entrances were, since they would encourage people to visit the park. Another person told us how the modular furniture would get vandalised, to which we debated that they were meant to be vandalised, their purpose was creative release. The exhibition started conversations and became an example of the possibilities available for Brinnington. From the residents feedback and opinions we know that they would be thrilled to see these concepts implemented in Brinnington.
Posted 17 May 2024 18:43
MSA Live Action Week Day 8
16.05.2024

This concludes our MSA Live project. We appreciate the support from our tutor Emily and our collaborator Life Leisure’s Ross and Lisa for working with us and supporting us through this journey. Additionally, we are very appreciative of the assistance and support provided by our BA1 and BA2 students.
Posted 17 May 2024 18:45