Hi, this is Maria, born and raised in Portugal.

I completed my BA in Architecture at the MSA. During my year out I worked at OMA, Rotterdam in PR for 6 months followed by 6 months as an architecture intern at a studio in Santarém, Portugal: Nuno Piedade Alexandre, Matéria.

Currently, I am in Infrastructure Space atelier. My hobbies include yoga, surfing and anything artistic. 🧘🏽‍♀️🏝️🎼🎨

A fun fact about me is that the first musical instrument I learnt to play was the violin. 🎻

Looking forward to spending a few weeks doing lots of fun stuff together!

Who is the client?

Our client is Stockport City Council.

What is the Project brief?

Our task as designers is to come up with an intervention for the Merseyway Shopping Centre’s façade as a part of an ambitious, larger strategy to improve Stockport. The aim is to increase footfall in a shopping centre which has become dispensable and unnecessary for a community which has opted for the ease of online shopping. Our mission here as architects is to come up with a strategy not only for the façade but what goes on behind it; to re-think new purposes for the shopping centre and what kind of businesses would attract people to the space.

The second part of the brief is to provide our client with ideas for an underused balcony, part of the shopping centre, which overlooks a main shopping street.

We will be picturing all different characters and scenarios of people and designing for them. For example, an 80-year-old person who wishes to purchase a CD. Where do they fit in to the scheme? Do they? What else could be placed along their journey so they spend time and money at the centre? A bakery? A grocery store? These are some of the questions we will be asking.

What are the outputs?

In terms of outputs, expect a lot of freedom, mostly collages, expressive, colourful, artistic showing people interacting with the building. Views from the city, i.e. from the train, in motion, rhythm.