Name: Isobel Mobbs
Course: M.Arch 1
Atelier: Continuity

I was born and raised in Leeds and completed my bachelor's degree in De Montfort University in Leicester. During my undergraduate I completed a dissertation on women’s safety in urban spaces and was shortlisted for the RIBA East Midlands Award for my final year studio project.

I am predominantly interested in the communal impacts of architecture. I approach design from the personal perspective, initially focusing on the needs of locals and apply these as a priority to my given brief. I am currently in the Continuity Atelier which is centred around the context of place, and I hope to bring this approach to my MSA Live project this year.

Week 1 - 3/02/2026

Today marked the first meeting of our team. To start off, we began with introducing ourselves, exchanging initial ideas, and discussing our first impressions of the project. It was great to hear everyone’s perspectives and enthusiasm, and the conversation helped us start building a shared understanding of the direction we might take.

In the afternoon, we met our collaborators from Manchester city council Kate and Mike. We are going to collaborate with them on the School Street Initiative which is part of the Manchester active travel strategy and Investment Plan (MATSIP). As part of this wider programme, our focus will be on two schools near the university campus. The aim is to develop creative design proposals to revitalise the school street environment, making it safer, more welcoming, and more vibrant for the community. Since school streets are closely connected to children’s everyday experiences, we are particularly looking forward to engaging with them during the intensive week. This will be an opportunity to better understand their perspectives and include their ideas and needs.

As next step, we continue researching precedents projects and planning documents as reference to understand how design could be approached, identifying what has worked well elsewhere and what could be improved. By doing this, we hope to build a more holistic understanding of the school street project and bring our findings together for discussion with our collaborators in the next session.