Centre Stage // Group 14 // Meet the team!

We are an eclectic mix of designers, each with different architectural backgrounds and beliefs and we are excited to be delivering Centre Stage!

We are a team 5th year architecture students, the 6 of us are as follows:

James Robinson - USE
Tom Keen - USE
Chris McManigan - USE
Rob Clarke - USE
Nestor Ruiz - &architecture
Hamza Khan - CIA

Group 14 // Centre Stage // A Bit About Our Main Collaborator

North West Theatre Arts Company are a business located in Moston, just North of central Manchester. As a collective NWTAC have a great relationship with the wider community teaching youngsters performing arts skills. One of their star pupils even made it to the bright lights of The West End.

NWTAC have ambitions to continue and even strengthen this bond they have with the community. If possible they see themselves broadening their oureach even further. The design of new community centre and theatre can help them to achieve this.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Collaborator No. 2

Introducing - Trevor Cousins

Trevor is an RIBA qualified architect, having practiced for 30 years and working his way up to director at Northmill Associates Ltd, he opted for a career change just over a year ago to set up Forty8 Design.

NWTAC have corresponded with Trevor previously to provide some inital feasbility work on the proposed community centre.

Trevor has experience in residential, supported living, and commercial property UK wide, and feasibility studies for blue chip clients. He also has longstanding experience in the design of Premiership Football Club facilities for training, academy and hospitality use, including site wide master planning and rationalisation of space.

We will consult Trevor throughout the Events process hoping he can provide insights for us from his experience in practice.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // What is the end goal?

This week, we met up with Mark, our collaborator at NWTAC, to dicuss in detail our aims and objectives for the Events period. From the outset, Mark made us aware that they have already been given a small sum from a grant to start progressing towards these works. Things can change rapidly on a live project!

From the discussion we agreed that working alongside Trevor, we can collaborate to create a zine of visuals for NWTAC to use during the public consultation phase of the project.

We aim to make something that illustrates the clear vision Mark has of this project through a series of visuals, looking at atmospheres, perspectives and the media we can use to represent how exciting this scheme can be for the Moston Community.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // What can WE gain from NWTAC's new home?

NWTAC works in , and teaches kids in the local community. All of the performances they advertise are put on solely by members of the Company. This stems down to the script, dress and even lighting. Everything is done in house.

This provides as a platform for potentially over looked and underfunded kids in Moston to excel with assistance from the very best teaching.

However, the current centre is not fit for purpose. A new, specialised facility with an intergrated community centre allows the Company to teach more kids perfoming arts and provides a space for young people to gather, potentially keeping them off the streets.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Our role within the Collaboration Team

As stated, Trevor, who works for Fourty8 Design is already consulting with Mark at NWTAC on this project, however it is at really early feasibilty stages.

This diagram shows we aim to collaborate with both Mark and Trevor to create this zine of visuals. Our aim here is use Trevor and his correspondance with Mark to create an indicative design and set of parameters for the design (as ambiguous as possible) so that we can develop a set of visuals.

These parameters will be based off previous correspondance between Trevor and Mark, our input and ultimately what Trevor believes to be feasible.

We will then take and ellaborate on these parameters to create a set of visuals to present to Mark before finalising a set in a publication.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Moston 2.0

This site presents a great opportunity for a real statement piece. Surrounded by suburban accomodation and low lying architecture, as long as our proposed community centre is harmonious with the surrounding industrial typology, there is real potential for something that can spark further regeneration of the surrounding area.

It is our role to consult with Trevor, and think as designers, to suggest architectural implementations that will be contextual and encourage Mark as well as the local community to think in different ways about the potential of their site and 'what they could have'.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Case Study - HOME

We're delighted to announce a guided tour of HOME on Wednesday the 29th April. This gives us a great perspective of a modern day theatre, cinema and community centre.

We can understand from HOME how theatres work in a human scale, this tour should help us to understand the underlying atmospheres community centres and theatres create as well as how architecture generates this so that we can portray these themes in our publication.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Stuart Wheeler @ SimpsonHaugh

We're delighted to have organised a talk from Stuart Wheeler, an architect at SimpsonHaugh with predominant experience in the early stages of design. Stuart will talk us through some examples of community centres and theatres he's worked on during his career honing in on what makes a successful concept design and how to respresent key aspects of architectural design with imagery.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Session plan - Week 1

Introducing the finalised session plan for our team! Spanning from the 28th of April to the 1st of May, we will be touring SimpsonHaugh, Home and NWTAC to gain inspiration for our zine. We're really excited to get started and kick start funding for NTWAC to help the surrounding Moston community.

Group 14 // Centre Stage // Session plan - Week 2

During week 2, spanning from the 4th of May to the 7th, we will be pushing on our deliverable of the Zine for NTWAC. During this time we aim to develop our understanding of how visuals can create emotions and how this publication can document our design process in an intuitive way. Working with Trevor, by the end of this week, we will have a fantastic document for NWTAC to show to funders and the community during consultation.