We are Group 5, working with Monton Unitarian Church to transform the unused Boddan lodge grounds, an ex-bowls green next to the church, into a community garden and venue. We are lucky to have the valued input of the church committee and are supported by Manchester Urban Diggers who have experience in creating community gardens.

The project has two stages:
1. To design and create a Community Garden, including raised planters, within the intensive week. We hope to get stuck in clearing out the garden and building the planters, ready to be opened on the last day for a community party!
2. Additionally, we will design a Pagoda to be situated on the hard standing where Boddan Lodge used to sit. This will provide some shelter for events in the garden and even a wedding venue for the church. We hope to design the pagoda and create a cost breakdown to make it clear for Anna the Reverend to employ builders to bring to life.

Unitarianism is a religion that welcomes each individual for themselves, complete with their beliefs, doubts and questions, making it a particularly welcoming community. We are excited to work with the church committee to design something that meets their needs and to all get stuck in together to create it during the intensive weeks, leaving them with a space that brings the whole community of Monton together.

Hi, my name’s Nicole and I’m studying in MArch 1, within the Continuity Atelier.
After graduating with a bachelor’s in architecture from De Montfort University, Leicester I went into my Part 1 year out, working for DHA in Birmingham. I was lucky enough to work on a range of projects but particularly enjoyed the conservation work, so I’m excited to be working on a site with the beautiful, historic Monton Unitarian church. Being in the continuity atelier, we have a focus on designing within the context of the existing and I look forward to designing the community garden to add to the wonderful existing site.
During my year of travelling last year, I spent a month building a medial dispensary in Fiji, so have a little bit of construction experience and am excited to get ‘hands-on’ during the intensive weeks building in May. I don’t have particularly green fingers, but I’m looking forward to getting messy and planting with the raised beds with the community so I can learn and then plant in my own garden. I am excited to get the wider community of Monton involved and to work with undergrads to design and deliver something exciting that everyone can enjoy together!

Getting Presentation Ready!
Today's team meeting consisted of making a presentation for tomorrow's meeting with the church committee to propose initial ideas for the site and rally some help for building in the intensive week!
We sat down as a team and made a model of the site, added our initial idea for the pagoda and raised planters and created visuals from it.
Let's hope the Monton Community are excited by the project and want to get stuck in!

Tuesday 18th March
Community Consultation - Nicole, Pat and Jono took to the stage!
We held a presentation for the Church Committee and wider community to hear our initial thoughts for the site, with the help of Reverend Anna!
The idea of the pagoda was warmly received, other than health and safety concerns and the issue of vandalism. Upon reflection, we agreed the project needed to be refocused to just the planters- ensuring we could effectively deliver something the community can use, and do so safely.
The community engagement has made the project all the more exciting with people offering their help for building the planters during the two weeks- we look forward to all hands on deck!

Day 1 Intensive Week - A Warm Welcome!
It was so exciting to meet the whole team and we were so pleased everyone was keen to get stuck in. We met at the church and worked collaboratively outside in the morning to begin brainstorming ideas and get a sense of the space. By the afternoon, we had an array of design ideas and broke into two: one leading the site plan for the layout of planters, the other leading the design language of each planter. At the end of the afternoon, we came together and formulated a rough plan to build upon tomorrow.
We are excited to grow the design, and grow the beds!

Day 6 Intensive Week - Cutting
Thanks to a bright and early delivery of sleepers from Monton Fencing Company, we were able to start building the raised planters. As we had used our 3D model to calculate the number of each piece of wood needed last week, we were able to work efficiently in smaller groups to cut them to the sizes needed: one group measuring and marking, two people on circle saws, the rest carrying the freshly cut sleepers from the church over the wall to the bowling green. It was a busy day and hard work, but we managed to finish the cutting and have all the pieces ready to go for tomorrow's building!

Day 7 Intensive Week - Building
After another early delivery from Travis Perkins, we had the rest of the materials we needed ready to build the planters. We began the day by laying the sleepers from yesterday into position of the plan we had designed last week, to get the seal of approval from Anna the reverend. After a couple of tweaks she was happy and we could begin building the planters in place. We had three drills to use, so split into four groups, with one group cutting the wood delivered in the morning. The drilling groups attached the 50x50 posts to the inner corners of the sleepers and then added large sleeper screws to the outside corners to secure them. By the end of the day the cutting group had worked through all of the wood delivered in the morning, and the drilling group had connected the first two layers of sleepers for the 8 planters.