THE MA1 TEAM

Hello!
Welcome to the Re:Think Bradford Event’s first post!
We are all in the Atelier: Landscape and Urbanism (LULU), and we will be coordinating this event which also emphasises on urban analysis/design and masterplanning.
Before getting started, allow us to introduce ourselves, shall we?

Areeje Sherllalah
Undergraduate Degree: Manchester School of Architecture / Part 1: Loop Systems Ltd
Areeje’s interest in the influence of built form on the wider scale of the urban environment & master planning stems from her experiences in vastly different countries. She appreciates the importance of historical research and the consideration of the local community, whilst aiming for a lasting positive impact through design. She has had experience working in architecture, contracting and interior design. She is proficient in using CAD and Vectorworks, as well as Adobe Creative Suite softwares, Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.

Bismah Zafar
Undergraduate Degree: Manchester School of Architecture / Part 1: IBI Group (UK)
Bismah is a local resident who lives just on the outskirts of Greater Manchester and having seen Manchester city evolve and grow, she is interested in how cities and the surrounding built environment create a happy place and promote positive health and wellbeing for every resident. She is currently a BA1 Teaching Assistant and is working part time with IBI Group. She has familiarity with Revit, CAD and loves to use Illustrator for diagrams.

Megha Paudyal
Undergraduate Degree: University of Kent / Part 1: LSI Architects
Megha has 2 years of experience working as a Part 1 Architectural Assistant, where she was exposed to projects of varying sizes, stages and from a range of sectors, but worked predominantly in the educations field. She also worked in Nepal for 2 months at a small research and design company which worked with bamboo and rammed earth as building techniques. She is proficient in ArchiCAD, InDesign and Photoshop and loves to sketch.

Koh Sung Jie
Undergraduate Degree: Taylor’s University / Part 1: DTLM Design Group .
SJ has completed his Part 1 studies and practice in Malaysia. During his practice, he had the privilege to work on many large-scale developments, residential and commercial, even handling one of the smaller projects under supervision of one of the directors. He enjoys immersing in research towards understanding how cities work and also has great familiarity in CAD, 3D modelling and diagramming.

As you can see, though we are from the same atelier, we have very different interests and skill sets to bring to the table for the upcoming event.

Stay tuned to what we have later!

THE COLLABORATOR : Bradford Civic Society : Kieran Thompson

The Society is a registered charity and exists in order to preserve the city’s heritage and built environment, while encouraging better design and architecture, and connecting people with Bradford’s planners and politicians. The Society is open to any member of the public and currently has 100 + members.

The team will be working specifically with Kieran Thompson who first joined Bradford Civic Society in 2018, whilst writing his dissertation at Manchester School of Architecture (Kieran is also a recent Master of Architecture graduate). His research questioned whether successful regeneration in Bradford would be led from a Bottom Up or Top Down approach. His main reason for joining the civic society was to connect with key stakeholders in the city quickly to gain a large amount of primary research.

Kieran is still an active member of the civic society, going onto be part of the newly formed 'Place Panel' in the city.

Some words from Kieran himself…
“I challenge you to look up next time you visit Bradford. It is a city with listed heritage buildings, ‘To Let’ signs, redundant 1960’s brutalism and vacant development plots. Call me crazy but this mixed palate and unique canvas rather excites me!”

We are really looking forward to work with our collaborator and the wider members of the society.

Follow the Society on Twitter or visit their website for more information.
https://twitter.com/BradfordCivic
http://bradfordcivicsociety.co.uk/

Bradford City has a strong vision to transform the city centre by creating new and diverse opportunities for all. The City has many proposed and ongoing projects. One of which we will be informing you about...

REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT 1 : Bradford Live

This is one of Bradford's first redevelopment project where a main iconic landmark building is being transformed into a world class entertainment facility with a capacity of over 4000 people.

Let’s start with the history of this building…

The building what is currently known as the former Odeon first opened in 1930 as the New Victoria. The renaissance revival building complimented the adjacent Alhambra theatre and featured a large multi-functional auditorium, a ballroom and a restaurant. In 1950 The theatre was renamed the Gaumont and hosted The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and many more world-renowned artists in the music venue. After closing as a music venue in 1968, the building reopened as the Odeon Twins, featuring two cinema screens and a bingo hall with a third cinema screen opening in the late 1980s. In the year 2000 the building closed to the public and remained unused for a few years. From the year 2004 to 2012 many redevelopment proposals had been expressed and scrapped that included the building to accommodate offices and a hotel.

At the end of 2014, following a rigorous competition, the Council awarded Bradford Live the right to re-develop the building. In September 2017 they announced the internationally renowned NEC Group as the operating partner. The plan is to re-instate the original huge auditorium, creating the biggest ‘mid-size’ venue in the country outside London and will attract national and international performers and with flexibility to host other events.

Bradford Live’s vision aims to support the city’s rebirth and believes that the former Odeon is key to that end as well as becoming a new cultural hub for the region, bringing the beat back to Bradford.

A meeting with Daniel Boulger

We were given the opportunity very early on in preparation for the Re:Think Bradford Project to meet with Daniel Boulger who is a lead project manager for venue partnerships from NEC Group and is currently working on the Bradford Live Project.

Dan has been working on the Bradford Live project since 2014 and as a non ‘Bradfordian’ he was able to share his views and thoughts of Bradford City, the potential the city has and what he would hope to see as the City undergoes a huge redevelopment. During this meeting, Dan was able to give us some key facts about the city which he has learnt by spending a vast majority of his time working on the Bradford Live Project.

Some key facts mentioned by Dan:
- The city is actually quite large and widely spread
- It is the 6th largest metropiltan district in England
- People that live in the City Centre are actually quite poor

Dan was also able to share some aspects of the city that could be improved and incorporated into the ‘City Village’ proposals. This included;
- An aspect which could attract the students who studied at Bradford University and the college to stay within the city
- An improvement to the marketing side that can encourage people, sponsors and businesses to come together which would improve the economy.
- Introduce green spaces, a ‘night life’ for the younger generations.
- An element of sustainable living and circular economy.

The information that Dan was able to share was really useful and gave us an insight into the city of Bradford. From this meeting we were able to take key things forward which we can share with the rest of our Events team when working on the proposals for the ‘City Village' in the upcoming months.

We would like to thank Daniel for taking some time out to share his views, experience and thoughts of the City and our collaborator for organising this meeting!

REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT 2 : Bradford Stations Masterplan

A second redevelopment project which has been proposed is the masterplan for the 2 train station in Bradford which aims to create high quality station gateways for the city centre enhancing the cities connectivity and the visitor experience.

At present, Bradford City has 2 train stations; Bradford Interchange which is the main train station connecting Bradford to the wider cities located south and the second train station is Forster Square which has a few local lines connecting Bradford to towns such as Skipton and Ikley. Although the train stations are within close proximity of each other (roughly a 10 minute walk) they are just seen as ‘dead ends’ with no direct connection, making it rather difficult for commuters, residents and visitors of Bradford. Automatically, this is seen as the primary divider of the City Centre that has a huge impact on the disperse community.

The proposed masterplan for both stations which will be delivered as 2 separate projects in the upcoming years. The overall vision for both train stations will include;
- Improving the visibility and connectivity of the stations within the wider city centre.
- Provide better connectivity between the stations using different transport modes (train, bus, tram etc…)
- Strategic approach to delivery of wayfinding
- Identify opportunities for new development within the adjoining the stations (including commercial and community provision)

In addition to this, Bradford City Council are pushing for the Northern Powerhouse Rail (HS3) – a fast line between Bradford, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool which could be a significant opportunity for the city creating a large amount of job opportunities and attracting visitors.

WEEK 1

We have been working collectively over the past few months to organise everything we need in order to produce the ‘City Village’ proposals during our 2 week Events period. We will be starting off with a walking tour of the Bradford City and initial site impressions which our Collaborator is really keen to hear about! Later on in the week will begin to develop ideas for the City Village site as well as researching alternative ways of living.

We have also invited our collaborator to come and take a look at our initial thoughts and work in process!

WEEK 2

During the second week, we will begin to rationalise our proposals further and begin to curate our exhibition boards. We will be organising the groups depending on their interest (whether that is co-living, eco-living, circular economy and much more). Towards the end of the week we will be focusing the final exhibition layout, printing out the work and transporting it to the venue, ready for the night of the exhibition.

Throughout the Events period we aim to learn lots of new skills and build upon our existing key skills as well as being able to use this event to explore what you may be interested in.

If you’re unsure, don’t worry there is something for everyone!