Hi, my name is Bryanna Quaynor, and I am in BA1 Architecture. I previously studied Art, Maths, and Economics at A Level, which helped me develop creative and analytical skills. In this project, we are transforming a church into a digital tech hub, and I’m looking forward to developing my design skills and exploring how architecture can adapt spaces for modern use.

Hello! I'm Roshni Patel a BA1 student at the Manchester School of Architecture. I am of Indian heritage and growing up experiencing different cultures has given me a unique outlook on architecture. I studied maths, physics and 3D design at A-level which have all set me up for my journey at the MSA. I like this project because it is adaptive reuse and has a wide range of users to consider. I can't wait to work with my team, learn from others and make a real impact on the Rossendale community. I am very excited to see this project grow!

Hi, I'm Cayden, a first year architecture student. I grew up in Malaysia and, so far, studying in Manchester has given me an entirely new outlook on architecture on top of my previous perspective.

In this project, I am excited to gain some insight into the experience of working in real-life industry and the dynamic of between collaborating parties, in this case between MSA and The Rossendale Digital CIC.

13/02/26 - 17/02/26

Designing the poster and coming up with a Group name

Over the course of two group meetings, we were able to successfully design a poster that represented our project, as well as come up with a group name. We initially had two poster designs: one was more monochromatic and minimalistic, while the other used a variety of colours.
During our meetings, we discussed which design would best suit our project and held a vote, which resulted in a general consensus that option 2 was visually stronger but would benefit from incorporating more colour, similar to option 1.
Following this, the design team worked on a final version that featured a revised colour palette and included our group name. In our meetings, we also considered possible group names that would clearly represent our project. We brainstormed ideas until we came up with the name “ALTAR-NATIVE.” As our project revolves around the repurposing of Bacup Christ Church, the use of “ALTAR” references the church and creates a play on the word “alternative,” reflecting the new purpose we are giving the building.

24/02/26

Starting a Rhino Model

As we started off our project, we decided to create a Rhino model of the site as it would be useful for a thermal analysis. It is also useful because our site is quite far so the Rhino model would allow us to observe the site and make changes without having to frequently visit the actual site. We first did a rough draft on Rhino to understand the shapes of the building.

10/03/26

Feedback Discussion

After we had submitted our ethics application, risk assessment, budget proposal, and project timeline, we came together to discuss ways we could improve. We received formative feedback and our ethics application was accepted on the first try which meant we could focus on improving the rest of our submissions. Our tutor commented that everything was quite easy to read with minor setbacks that we were able to discuss and resolve in our group discussions.

17/03/26

Deciding our next steps

After we submitted our applications, we began to sub-group our remaining tasks, dividing responsibilities regarding the Details, Model, Blog and IDD. Now that we were clear on our overall progress, we further updated our collaborator on our solar/thermal analysis- derived through modelling the Church

09/05/26

Solar Analysis

A solar analysis was undertaken to understand how sunlight interacts with the site and building. We realised that the South facing roof receives the strongest solar exposure while the North side receives less solar radiation meaning it needs extra insulation. Based on the daylight analysis, there are many indoor areas that don’t receive enough natural light and so additional artificial light is needed. The pictures uploaded show the proposed optimised lighting strategy.

12/05/26

MSA Live Week - Day 2

On the second day of Intensive Week, we reviewed the information given to us by our collaborator and we realised we needed to find a solution in relation to the condition of the stone. The stone sweats, which means the existing plasterboard rots and is stripped away over time. As a group, we thought of here using high performance natural hydraulic lime mortar mixed with a lime cork insulation aggregate, which allows the stone to breathe, while providing insulation to the wall.

13/05/26

MSA Live Week - Day 3

A big issue for the church was finding a good cheap option for insulation that would let the stone walls breath and not produce mold:

Option 1: recessed mortar painting into the crevices of the limestone walls.
Option 2: covering the stone walls with the mortar and insulation aggregate and carving to imitate stone.

We then decided to opt for option 1 because this solution allows the original limestone blocks to remain exposed, which may be a requirement for a listed building.

14/05/26

MSA Live Week - Day 4

As we were now onto the last day before the presentation, we decided to use this day to do a final review on presentation and check for any mistakes or overlaps. We finalised the structure and content of our project and discussed the key points we wanted to verbally cover as well as assigning speaking roles to various team members.