Meet the collaborator

Friends of Beech Road Park is a local resident-led focus group dedicated to the conservation of Beech Road park; a charming, public open space in Chorlton. The group is passionate about their park, arranging activities and holding frequent meetings that provide a platform for communication with Manchester City Council and the local community. The group’s activities range from gardening and recreation to small-scale festivals and fundraising. Some of the recent initiatives have been outdoor table tennis tables, Christmas parties, “Art in the Park” art classes, landscaping and spray painting. The collaborators are made up of gardeners, community organisers and dog-walkers alike, they are a welcoming group that cannot wait to see what innovative proposals we come up with!

Friends of Beech Road Park have a strong social media presence on Facebook so feel free to follow their page and get involved!

Friends of Beech Road Park is a voluntary organization registered with Manchester City Council.

Find them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BeechRoadPark/about/?ref=page_internal

Digital Skills

Throughout Events there are 4 key programmes we anticipate using for the project. We have organised tutorials, hosted by ourselves or a guest speaker, to provide the skills required for our project. Alongside these workshops we anticipate that all students (including ourselves) will have different levels of experience using these softwares and the project will provide an opportunity to learn from one another.

InDesign: InDesign is crucial for setting up and formatting documents and portfolios and is therefore an extremely useful programme for architecture students to learn. During Events we will be using InDesign to create the final output, a ‘how to build’ booklet for the final designs, and also documenting our design process. We have arranged for Tony from the MMU Digital Media Bar to provide a quick introduction and tutorial to the software. More information on this to follow.

Photoshop: Another programme that is a staple to architecture students is Photoshop as it is really useful for creating a variety of visuals including diagrams, collages and renders.

SketchUp: A 3D modelling software that is useful for creating and adapting models, it can also be used in conjunction with physical modelling to test ideas.

AutoCAD: We will be using AutoCAD during this project to draw construction details on how the Tool Shed can be put together for the Friends of Beech Road Park.

Design Communication Skills

In addition to the development of digital skills we will also be focusing on developing our design communication skills in a variety of ways.

Through working in a range of different group sizes we aim to improve team working skills and allow everyone to contribute their ideas and thoughts. Some people may feel more comfortable voicing their ideas in pairs or smaller groups at first.

By using model making as a tool of design exploration we can test ideas in 3D whilst communicating key concepts to each other.

In presenting our proposals to the collaborator at the start of the second week we aim to improve presentation skills. This allows us the opportunity to discuss with the other students a range of presentation skills from how to best show ideas to tips on describing the proposals in order to get the collaborator interested and excited.

Following the presentation from Jack Badger we will develop our proposals to produce construction details that will communicate the materiality and construction of important junctions.

Our final output for the project will be exhibiting our work close to the site. All students will be involved in helping to curate and present the work for this, utilising the skills on design communication learnt earlier in the process.
Not only are these design communication skills valuable to the Events project but they are also skills transferable to future projects and even working in practice.

Exhibition

Our final goal for the Events projects is to hold an exhibition of our work within Chorlton for the Friends of Beech Road and local community to come view. Our collaborator, Laura, has arranged for the exhibition to take place on the final day of Events on the upper floor of The Lead Station, a pub situated down Beech Road, within close proximity to the site.

We will be exhibiting both our final ‘how to build’ booklet along with a curated collection of models and process drawings produced during the design development. Not only is this a great chance to show the community our proposals but it will be a rewarding conclusion to the project.

In addition to this, we are planning to maintain the exhibition to be included within the Chorlton Arts Festival, which will run from the 17th to the 24th May. This is a week long festival aimed at bringing together the residents of Chorlton with art venues, local artists and performers throughout the community.
For more information on the Chorlton Arts Festival please visit: http://chorltonartsfestival.org/