Presentation Preparation

Throughout the past few weeks we have been busy making the event as varied, interesting and enjoyable. We have had various meetings as a team to discuss how this could be achieved During these group sessions we have been taking minutes and drafting agendas for official collaborator meetings to try and create the best possible event that will be both engaging for the team and valuable for Friends of Beech Road Community Group. The purpose of forming minutes and an agenda were to maintain effective communication with Laura and to keep track of the action points for all involved in the project.

It is extremely important that we satisfy the requirements for the collaborator so that the outcome can be used to benefit the community. Through our meetings, we have been discussing how to give back to the community and to offer a chance for Friends of Beech Road to give their input on what they would like in the park. A number of things discussed were;
- How to involve guest speakers to enhance the learning experience for all of us?
- What educational trips could we go on to expand our knowledge of small architecture?
- What documents are outstanding for the project?
- What blog posts are we going to produce and of what visual style will they be?
- How are we going to involve the committee throughout the project?
- What are the final outcomes for the project?

Through a meeting with the collaborator (Laura), it was decided that we would give the committee a chance to be involved in the project and give their opinions through a presentation of ideas, which will take place at the beginning of the second week. This session will be like a review and will be presented to Laura for feedback and the invite is being extended to any current Friends of Beech Road committee members.

The idea behind having a presentation at the mid-way point is to get comments that can be worked through into the design during the second week. This will enable changes to be made or areas to be developed further for the final booklet of information that will be exhibited in Chorlton.

All of this preparation is to try and create the most social impact possible for the project!

Storage solutions in Small Spaces

How do you fit a lot of tools/equipment into a small space without clutter and creating mess? What other architectures can we look at to help create an efficient use of space.

Micro Architecture

‘Sustainability, cost-efficiency and space are just some of the factors driving an international renaissance in pocket-sized architecture that’s big on expression and style.’ (Lutyens, 2015). Micro Architecture is a concept that is becoming more popular. With today’s increasing land prices and reduced space in cities, there is a much greater drive towards space saving to make the most out of the building. Architecture at this scale crosses over into product design, to create solutions for the smallest of spaces.

Many small/micro architectures also sit within quite extreme climates, such as the desert, which enables a further level of complexity and exploration to be undertaken. Designers not only have to think about how to create intricate, clever spaces internally but also how to deal with weather by providing clever solutions (such as water harvesting).

Small Architecture can come in many different shapes and sizes. These all play a very different role within the built environment. Examples include;
- Pavilions: These tend to be temporary structures and provide a specific use
- Shipping Containers: Becoming more widely used today to create a range of different spaces, from housing to restaurants and shops.
- Bespoke homes: Usually quite exploratory in terms of form, small homes are becoming ever more popular.

This concept of small spaces and space saving ideas can be applied to this Gardeners Tool Shed. The shed will need to accommodate a range of different tools and be able to flex to be used for different activities. It would therefore be useful to explore different ways in which space can be saved. The intention is to create such solutions through the ingenious ways of storing items to allow free and uncluttered space for the gardeners to use. Examples of this could be under floor storage units to allow large tools such as rakes and spades.

If you are interested in small spaces and small Architecture, please take a look at ‘Small Architecture by Philip Jodidio, 2014.

Also Check out the link below for some interesting SHEDspiration!
https://www.architonic.com/en/story/dominic-lutyens-less-is-more-bigging-up-micro-architecture/7001120

Guest Speaker: John Lee

Activity: Parkkeepers Hut Presentation
Location: Chatham Building (Room TBC)
Date: Wednesday 29th April
Time: 11.15am

John Lee is a lecturer and Architect, who owns Manchester Practice, Acra. In 2011, he was commissioned to design a Park Keeper’s Hut in New Islington. The use for the hut was to enable people to shower/wash, somewhere sheltered and for a canal service station. The hut was designed with its context in mind therefore what could have been a shed of 4 walls and a pitched roof, became a much more exciting piece of architecture. The structure also uses timber cladding to fit in with its context and tree trunks are used internally to give the space a rustic and low tech feel.

John will be joining us to talk about the design process that he went through in designing this hut and to give some ideas and inspiration on small spaces and how to make the most out of them.

InDesign Tutorial

Activity: In Design Skills Workshop
Location: Geoffrey Manton Building (Room TBC)
Date: Tuesday 28th April
Time: 11am

The output for this event is to provide collection of professional booklets to present design options for Friends of Beech Road Park Community Group. A member of the digital bar team at MMU has kindly agreed to run a workshop on InDesign skills, with particular focus on creating Master pages, paragraph styles and setting out layouts. The workshop will be vital in offering skills that can be used for future projects.

InDesign is an essential programme for anyone who has an interest in, or works in the design industry and is used extensively for various different things. It is commonly used for feasibility studies in practice and students use it extensively for portfolio layouts and presentation documents. The programme is useful as it allows the creation of styles, page layouts and templates that can provide a clear flow to a document. Photo alignment is also a key feature of InDesign to create sleek presentations. The outcome of the project is set to be a professional document that will clearly present the options to the collaborator. We therefore feel that this is a key programme to use for the required output.

For 1st and 2nd year architecture students who will be joining us for this, it would be great if you could prepare for this session by making sure you download InDesign on to your laptops as you will need it for the duration for the project.

Project Outcomes

The publications will be divided into the different design options. One will focus on our response to the site, providing detailed analysis of the park and surrounding area, through sketches, diagrams and personal observations. The other 3 publications will provide different design options for the gardener’s tool shed, options that can be used by the community, either as a base for a future design or as something to build from. Each of the designs will aim to offer a different approach to the shed and will each provide construction details and materials so that the drawings could be built from if desired. The purpose of having a range of proposals is to give the ownership back to the community. We do not want to impose a design onto them but rather provide inspiration that may not have been thought about. The publications will be separate documents but will come together to create an inspiring vision for the future Beech Road Park through this shed.

We are also planning to have an exhibition at a pub near the park on the final day of the event, which will be part of the Chorlton Arts Festival 2020. This is to allow local people the chance to observe and comment on the proposals and generate further ideas. The idea behind this is to give ownership back to the people of Beech Road Park. They are a committee that already undertake many tasks to make the area a welcoming and friendly place to be and this exhibition is designed to give them something that is a stepping stone to a future project. More information about the exhibition to follow.

Reflection and Thank you

Unfortunately, Ready Sheddy Go has had to be cancelled with the recent outbreak of Coronavirus, due to its involvement with the wider community and therefore potentially vulnerable groups people. Overall, this process has taken us away from a project that we would normally undertake and allowed us to rethink what the architect’s role is within a project. It is not just about design, it’s about the interconnection of people and skills to create the most beneficial outcome. This project has allowed us to explore design that we may not have during our time at university as most project require bigger buildings/interventions therefore some of the details are sometimes overlooked.

Through working with people from other disciplines, it has enabled us to consider alternative design techniques and built cross-disciplinary networks that could be used for years to come. It has taught us more about understanding the social value of projects and how it can create a big local impact to people who usually get overlooked. Although this has been cut short, we hope that this can be used as a platform for ideas and that there may be a future project that could see this tool shed be designed and built for this community.

Thank you to all those who have been involved, collaborators, guest speakers and site visit coordinators that have contributed in creating an event that would have provided the people of Beech Park Road with an exciting space to make use of.