Name: Patrick Allan
Course: M.Arch
Atelier: Non-Standard Habitats
Skills: Blender, Modelling/Visualisation, Revit, Enscape, AutoCAD, VR, Animation

Hi, I’m Patrick! I’m from Wolverhampton, I studied my undergraduate in Liverpool, and after graduation worked in Birmingham for a year, and then Manchester for a year before starting my masters at MSA in 2024. In Birmingham I worked on small scale residential schemes, and in Manchester I’ve worked on a wide variety of healthcare projects, from refurbishments to new wards and entire hospitals. I’m a big advocate of digital design and digital efficiency, having helped develop BIM practices and standards across two firms, with lately a specific focus on the BIM approach to healthcare projects, especially considering the technical requirements of New Hospital Programme projects.

I really enjoy digital model making as a medium to not only produce finalised production images, but also as a medium for experimentation and development; I love making animations and alternate styles of visualisations to help illustrate ideas and concepts. I’m looking forward to working with everyone on the Portland Basin Museum Project, and hopefully developing all of our skills together.

Site Visit: Portland Basin Museum

On 29/01/2025 we visited the site for the first time, not only to experience the site but to interact with and meet in person with our collaborator, Rachel Cornes.

We had a quick tour of the museum and its current exhibits and displays, before being shown the project space, and having an initial discussion about its current issues and the potential for its future. We had also prepared an initial presentation, with our first ideas and images, to help push forward the discussion and start to develop ideas with Rachel.

After this we were free to look around and take photos and inspect the space, to fully understand the potential and the limitations. We were also able to get some drone photography, to help understand the context of the museum, especially considering its unique location at the intersection of 3 canals.

Initial Digital Modelling: The Learning Space

In order to prepare for the collaboration weeks, considering the requirement of visuals and spatial proposals for our collaborator, we have begun to model the existing space and its surrounding rooms.

We have currently modelled all of the walls and physical features of the space, however we've left the exhibit stands and display cases out, so that there will be greater flexibility for model making and developing when the time comes.

Day 1: Icebreakers and Initial Ideas

We started off the day with some icebreaker activities to get to know each other better, following this we had some quick presentations from the M.Arch/MA.AR team to familiarise the BA's with our experience.

After lunch we broke off to research some precedents and sketch some initial ideas in-line with our collaborator's aspiration.

Pictured: Icebreaker Bingo!

Day 1: Initial Presentations

We re-capped the M.Arch/MA.AR team's work with the collaborator to establish initial concept ideas.

We also presented our practice/university experience to help familiarise the BA's with the skills we can help them develop.

Pictured: M.Arch/MA.AR work expose!

Day 3: Site Visit

Scan of the sheep exhibit from our visit to the museum today, check out the scan here:

https://poly.cam/capture/B206F9D9-7B8D-436D-B6AF-7C996664E718