MSA LIVE 24 is this year’s annual programme of collaborative student-led live projects. Each year the Manchester School of Architecture runs MSA LIVE to unite FDN, BA1, BA2 and MLA1 students with MArch 1 and MA+AR postgraduates in mixed-year teams. The post-graduates engage in practice-based research to organise projects, working with collaborators from the North-West and beyond to create social impact beyond architectural education.
This year approximately 650 students from 6 cohorts in MSA have worked on 40 projects with over 80 external collaborators and organisations. The projects culminate in two ‘action weeks’ which are documented on the MSA LIVE 23 blog live.msa.ac.uk/2024. Topics tackled are current and active for communities and issues are always wide ranging. This year projects included creating visions for urban forests, adaptive reuse of churches, using art to encourage reduction of single-use plastics, celebrating heritage of place, developing co-designed gardens, building modular furniture for a tiny cultural space, feasibility studies for underused and disused brownfield sites, proposing a new Heritage Action Zone, retrofit and sustainable development of community use buildings, masterplanning, making campaign materials to promote independent businesses, re-imagining an iconic chandelier at the airport, imagining a music festival to regenerate a town, creating an active lifestyle audio trail, and one project is even designed a sauna!!
We are always interested in working with new collaborators so if you would like to work with MSA students in your community on a project please get in touch: e.crompton@mmu.ac.uk
MSA LIVE 24 External Collaborators
Manchester Climate Alliance & Ardwick Climate Action; Class Of Your Own Ltd & Alder Grange School; The University of Manchester; Cityzen Club CIC, Boiler House, Touch Wood, Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust; Save Hulme Hippodrome Ltd; Manchester City Council/ Our Town Hall & Lendlease; Levenshulme Old Library CIO; Oswald Road Primary School along with Manchester Libraries Archive, Manchester Film Archive, Local Historians, Local Architects, Chorlton Arts Festival; Bradford Metropolitan District Council; The Carlton Club; Our Sale West Big Local; Kingdom Life Church & Still House Design Ltd; The Former Height Youth Club Association & Salford City Council; Moss Side Millennium Powerhouse, Corstorphine & Wright, QS Solutions; Station South; Friends of Victoria Park Stretford & Autistic Society Greater Manchester Area; Heaton Mersey Village Conservation Group CIC along with Signpost Carers, Burnage Rugby Club ,Heatons Muslim Community Trust, Manchester Fruit Tree Coop, Venture OutNovanta, Costain, CWT and Manchester City Council Public Realm Team; Healthy Me Healthy Communities CIC & Growing Manchester, Groundwork Manchester, Manchester City Council; Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council with GM Ageing hub, GMMoving, Jigsaw Homes, Action Together Tamseside; Growing Togetherness CIC & The University of Salford; Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council; SHOP Preston CIC; Emporium M33; Marple Civic Society; Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council with Hemingway Design and GL Hearn; Florence Arts Centre; Manchester Airports Group with LAZERIAN studio; StudioLab with Alsager Town Council, Alsager Music Festival; Trafford Music Service & MCAU; FutureEverything & Stockport Metropolitain Borough Council, MadLab and In4; Lime Arts @ Manchester NHS Foundation Trust & MUD Manchester Urban Diggers; Life Leisure & Brinnington Big Local, Stockport Council, Age UK Stockport; In-Situ & Building Bridges Pendle; Always Ahead and Flag Lane Baths with K2 Architects.
