My name is Carla Henderson, a first-year undergraduate student at MSA from Cambridge. My drive for architecture is in exploring the psychology of space and understanding how design decisions shape human experience. Alongside this, I'm interested in the technical side of architecture, including its technological, economic, and mathematical aspects. Working on Cyan+ with CyanLines to connect Manchester's green and blue spaces is an exciting opportunity. The project promotes meaningful interaction between people, nature, and Manchester, while contributing to a more sustainable and environmentally conscious city. I am excited to contribute to this project and collaborate with our team.

During our meeting today, we had a doughnut birthday party! This was to celebrate the birthdays of three of our team members. As we continue our MSA Live journey, these moments of team bonding help to keep our motivated and relaxed meetings.

Talk from Tom Bloxton, founder of Cyanlines & Co-founder/chair of Urban Splash

Tom Bloxton, founder of CyanLines gave a talk to our students at MSA which one of our team-members attended. The talk gave us insight into the goals of CyanLines from the founder’s view, as well as the future of Manchester.
We discovered that most of CyanLines’ work focuses on restoring what is already there to uplift the city. His restorations are more zoomed into how the spaces made people feel and how to uplift the community, rather than on ‘quick fixes’. There is a drive to repurpose large buildings, factories and warehouses to make spaces for communities, e.g. a large space was rented for entrepreneurs to sell or use how they wish. Tom Bloxton tries to make spaces as interesting as possible to promote businesses, connect canals and turn around some areas in Manchester.
CyanLines was made to link what already exists in Manchester. More and more of the city is demolished for larger buildings, but why not connect what is already there?
Tom Bloxton sees a future where all of Manchester is connected, with a hundred miles of greenery.

In our recent Cyan+ meeting, we made badges in preparation for our upcoming engagement activities. We all had a chance to use a badge making machine and created badges to hand out to the public as a reminder of what our project means for Manchester.
We also gathered a set of precedents to show during our engagement activities in Platt Fields Park and as an inspiration for our plans to improve our new Cyanline (Cyan+).