Name: Fraser Matthews (MArch 1)
Atelier: Continuity (CTY)
About me:
As a graduate of CTY at BA level, I have long had an interest in heritage. I believe that high quality existing buildings are the biggest asset to interventions in any built environment.
I am interested in responsibly transformative urban architecture. The lens in which I view urban interventions is usually concerned with the political and social. I am especially interested in the targeted interventions of our project, aiming to address specific social issues through architecture, while honouring the fantastic physical heritage of Bradford’s buildings.

Undergrad study: Manchester School of Architecture
Skill: Revit, Enscape, Photoshop, Procreate, InDesign

Wednesday 21st February

Our group, along with Group 29, met with our shared collaborator in Bradford for a tour of the City Hall, a major source of Bradford’s pride in its heritage. This is not just a grand building, but a centre of Bradford's council and is actively used and maintained. We as a group wish all of Bradford's exceptional heritage could be treated similarly.

Jade Ibegbuna, our collaborator, was an exceptional help and discussing Bradford with her is always a joy.

Wednesday 21st February

We walked along a route through the city, taking notes and photographs, familiarising ourselves with the city.

We began to take notes on vacant architecture, prominent buildings, social issues and the broader urban grain of Bradford.

Wednesday 21st February

We attended a presentation on Bradford City of Culture 2025. The fourth city to win this opportunity, Bradford will host 12 months of festivities celebrating art, culture and its own sense of place.

We will situate our own interventions within this – attempting to add to and enhance multiple placemaking and improving schemes.

We also discussed other overlapping projects, such as the Townscape Heritage Scheme (coming to an end) and the Heritage Action Zone, which we will unpack more when we visit the site with our BA students.

Wednesday 21st February

While our project site is distanced from Bradford university itself, we are eager to consider young people’s usage of the city in our scheme. Bradford is the youngest city in the country, so addressing this demographic is key.

March (multiple days)

As a team we produced a poster to represent our project and conveyed our key aims and approach, as well as letting the younger BA students know which skills are to be expected to be used or taught by us.

Monday 18th March

Breaking down, in detail, our aspirations for each day. Week 1 will include research and preparation as younger students familiarise themselves with Bradford, its heritage, and various plans to improve its built environment.

Later in Week 1 we will visit the site, giving students the opportunity to reflect on Bradford and choose specific buildings, sites and streets, taking notes and making sketches.

Monday 18th March

A more structured, output-led Action Plan. Week 2 will focus on taking our ideas and producing high quality sketches, diagrams and modelling which would all be preprepared the week before.

We will produce Serial Visions, Masterplans and Axonometric of our interventions.

This is assembled into a publication, with descriptive text, which will match the style and typeface of our poster.

3rd May

Fraser has been arranging the details of our site visit on Thurs 9th with our collaborator, and it become clear that extra assistance from the council would help our team understand what is already happening in Bradford.

Fraser spoke informally over the phone with the Landscape Architect and Team Leader for Landscape, Design and Conservation at Bradford Council, Dr Saira Ali, about other projects such as the Darley Street Market and the Bradford City Village scheme. We agreed to expand on this discussion on Thurs 9th but this provided a much needed overview of what the students needed to be aware of before visiting the site.

We discussed the following schemes:
• Transforming Cities Fund
• Heritage Action Zone
• Townscape Heritage Scheme
• City Village residential scheme
• The new Darley Street Market

7th May

Morning presentation by Fraser, taking the students through an introduction to Bradford and our original MSA Live brief as well as our own interpretation and goal.
We explained that Bradford is undergoing regeneration through a variety of schemes and that our work would involve understanding these schemes and what we might do differently.
In addition, we brought with us examples of past publications from previous MSA Live projects to show younger students what kind of work is expected from an MSA Live team.

7th May – DAY ONE

Afternoon discussion led by Mariam, Mi and Pranali. We encouraged feedback and discussion rather than strictly presenting our own ideas and findings.

We discussed what we had learned earlier in the day regarding Bradfords rich heritage, student perceptions of Bradford, Bradford’s status as a young city. We talked to them about our site visit conducted in February and walked them through Google street views to familiarise them with the site and the city.

We also answered student questions and provided information about Thursdays’ site visit, as well as loosely assigning roles based on skill, interest, and potential development.

8th May – DAY TWO
We spent our second day focused on more in-depth site analysis, setting up shared folders for each of the following schemes:
• Transforming Cities Fund
• Heritage Action Zone
• Townscape Heritage Scheme
• City Village residential scheme
• The new Darley Street Market
• Culture is Our Plan (2021 - 2031)
We wanted to give students the opportunity to see where the “gaps” were in the various projects. In addition, we researched and discussed critical social issues and deprivation in Bradford, namely the high rate of building vacancy and homelessness.
We also researched:
• Specific vacant buildings
• Landmark buildings with a deep heritage
• Transport routes and links
• Precedent studies for buildings and building reuse and streetscape interventions
• Limits and scope of project, including specific site boundaries

7th and 8th May – DAY ONE & TWO
While the main group work was ongoing, Fraser has been emailing our collaborator and engaging in cross-group discussion with Group 29 to negotiate the best use of our time on-site on Thursday 9th.

We checked our collaborators initial plan and offered notes and changes, receiving the final timetable on the 8th at midday.

9th May – DAY THREE – SITE VISIT
Introduction by our Bradford City council collaborator, Jade, giving us a recap of our collaboration up to this point and showing us, and especially the younger students, updates on the Bradford ‘Culture is Our Plan’ branding and intentions. This particular project is the context in which all other projects we discuss will be situated in, as it is a decade-long plan to rejuvenate and celebrate Bradford’s cultural sector.
Ethics forms signed by Jade before walking tour.

9th May – DAY THREE – SITE VISIT

New Darley Street Market site visit where we met people working on the project and were encouraged to ask questions about the project. Our own efforts would be very close to this market, so this was a good indicator of what kind of development was ongoing.
We then divided into 2 groups with the 1st focusing on key buildings and the 2nd on key streets and views. Sketches were begun and we documented as much as we could through notes and photography.
We also toured the bounds of the ‘Heritage Action Zone’ with Richard Middleton, a townscape heritage project officer, where he spoke about Bradford’s history and the challenges in the project such as ‘conservation deficit’ and provided further information of surrounding regeneration projects.

9th May – DAY THREE – SITE VISIT

We adjourned for lunch back at the Alambra Theatre, where Richard Middleton, a townscape heritage project officer, walked the younger students through a presentation on Bradford City of Culture 2025, similar to the presentation the MArch students were given in our initial site visit.
This was granular and detailed enough to include details such as branding colours.

9th May – DAY THREE – SITE VISIT

The group was once again split into 2, where the 1st were taken by Jade on a guided visit on the town hall. The MArch students had previously had a similar tour, so only one of us went with the BA students for this.
The remaining MArch students, and the 2nd group, started working on serial vision sketches, simple vignettes of the journey we took through Bradford earlier in the day.
These activities saw us through to 16:30 where we gathered again to take our agreed-upon coach home.

10th May – DAY FOUR

On Friday morning, we engaged as a group in an exercise with a printed map and pens. We selected buildings we had sketched and studied during the site visit, and especially the street connecting them. This established a spacial narrative of the townscape and the BA students were enthusiastic in bringing their own ideas and experience of the city.
This mapping exercise ensured all of us understood which streets we would be focusing on, and which key building we would suggest improvement for (many of which were partially or fully vacant).
We also briefed our BA students on their roles, which can be split up into the following:
• Site sketches
• Site modelling on SketchUp and Rhino

10th May – DAY FOUR

In the afternoon, ourselves and our BA students had formally split into two groups:
• Site sketches – those who enjoy sketching created 6-10 polished vignettes of our journey through Bradford. We asked these students to research “serial visions” by architect Gorden Cullen for reference to the style of images we expect, while also encouraging them to also show off their own styles.

• Site modelling on SketchUp and Rhino – led by Mariam and Mi. This involved showing younger students what practises are best for setting up a site model efficiently and then delegating students a range of buildings to work on in pairs or as individuals. Modelling the building exterior was key, as the depth of our project generally extends only to what kinds of new programme our buildings might require, as well as later intervention into the building frontages themselves in Week 2.

13th May – DAY FIVE

Beginning our second week, MArch arrived at our room early to prepare for the day.
When the other students arrived, we led a discussion of the previous weeks site visit, future design considerations and the week ahead, focusing on outputs for the publication and booklet.

We spoke about the concept of urban acupuncture, which is the type of urban intervention we were aiming for, as well as the scope and scale of our masterplan and what detail in our models and drawings we expected from the students. These design discussions lasted around an hour and we made sure to ground our conversation in how interventions could address social deprivation in Bradford.

13th May – DAY FIVE

We set up a Miro board which we could add to in order to easily and visually share our sketches, modelling, notes and mapping of Bradford.
Throughout the day, the students were working on creating the following kinds of installations:
• New outdoor seating
• Charity book stores
• Flexible art exhibition spaces for locals
• Public stage and outdoor tables
• Covered pavilion
• Linear water feature as a guiding downhill path
• Dedicated busking sites
• Pop-up outdoor market stalls
• New landmarks with circulation and seating

In addition to these installations, the following programmatic re-use of selected buildings were suggested:
• Soup kitchen
• Youth + community centres
• Craft and design workshops for local youth
• Vintage clothing supplier
• Cafes, bars and miscellaneous hospitality
• Indoor exhibition spaces
• Other leisure opportunities

14th May – DAY SIX

While most of the BA and MArch students were continuing to model individual streetscapes, interventions, and building frontages in SketchUp and Rhino, Mariam and Fraser spoke to our collaborator Jade via a Teams Meeting we had timetabled prior to the first Action Week.
We presented the entire range of sketches, interventions, serial visions, photographs as well as case studies and precedents. Jade was delighted with the range of work we had done up to this point and was eager to see more on Friday afternoon, which had previously arranged with her.
The other students continued their activities from Monday for the rest of the day, completing the drawing and, designing and modelling of streetscape installations and later moving onto modelling building facades and continuing to suggest new, original uses.

15th May – DAY SEVEN
As a team, led by Mi, students were busy finishing modelling individual building facades and creating an axonometric masterplan to showcase their work up to this point, for the booklet. Pranali and Fraser were walking on the budget and the masterplan output, respectively, while Mariam had begun to populate the booklet with our photographs and newly-completed installation designs.

15th May – DAY SEVEN
The students revisited their serial vision vignette sketches with a twist – they would now showcase the same narrative path through our chosen area of the Heritage Action Zone, but with their interventions imposed onto those drawings, diversifying and adding a new sense of dynamism to each street. These street-level drawings show off our smaller installations and changes to building frontages.

16th May – DAY EIGHT
All students, BA and MArch, were finishing and polishing our outputs: touching up sketches and exporting the digital model as a high quality axonometric and masterplan were of particular focus.

As MArch students, we had written out the text for our booklet, formatting it and making graphical additions to the booklet template, so that we were well-prepared for filling the booklet with outputs the following day.

17th May – DAY NINE
We continued finishing our sketches, while revisiting outputs that could be made even better. For instance, we wanted to present our project drivers:
• Heritage
• Community
• Culture
To do this, we wanted a page that presented our ideas slightly artistically, as interwoven threads underpinning our initial conversations at the start of this project.

17th May – DAY NINE

We finished our graphic outputs before presenting them to our collaborator. Our main final image was a colour-coded axonometric showcasing our modelling work and interventions into both streets and into the buildings themselves. We really wanted to “sell” our project with this final image, and are very proud of its quality and the fact that each students contributed to its completion.

In making this, we developed our skills in communication, software proficiency and maintaining a strong and legible workflow.

17th May – DAY NINE
We were delighted to present our work to our collaborator, Jade, as well as Emily Crompton and Group 29 (whose presentation we also attended).

The BA students had put a lot of their time and energy into our outputs, so were eager to share their own work, perspectives and ideas. We took turns presenting different parts of the project, so BA students could take their own interventions and explain them as they chose.

We are proud to say this presentation was a success!

17th May – DAY NINE – THANK YOU!
A special thanks to Jade for her enthusiasm and support throughout this action week and before. We look forward to seeing Jade in Bradford again soon, and to continue discussing our thoughts on it’s regeneration!

We also want to extend our gratitude for the excellent work ethic, eagerness to learn, and engagement of our BA students.

21st May – LEEDS CONFERENCE
Mariam (MArch) and Grace (BA) had the chance to showcase our ‘Interweaving Futures: Bradford 2025’ project to the stakeholders involved with Bradford’s regeneration schemes at the annual UKReiff event in Leeds. This was a professional environment and we received amazing feedback for our project and its presentation.
We spoke to members of AJ, Arcadis, and once again were able to discuss the project with Jade and Dr Saira Ali (Team Leader for Landscape, Design and Conservation at Bradford Council), who expressed interest in continuing the collaboration into next year as the Heritage Action Zone project progresses.