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.

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

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