Manchester test
Abstract
“The Manchester School of Architecture has advanced peer-to-peer learning by linking multi-
level group work with its outreach work. This pedagogic approach has become an essential
vehicle to progress the School’s ambition to connect academia, the architectural profession and
societal networks whilst offering a rich learning experience for the student. Embedded into the
curriculum, the School adopts this approach at key points during the academic year, requiring
students to collaborate through intense ‘vertical’ projects. Students from different levels of study
across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes unite to explore an architectural proposal
or contemporary agenda in relation to a live project as group work. The addition of external
collaborators, who may act as client or participate as an active team member, enhances student
learning, experience and debate. This paper will introduce and analyse this model’s pedagogy
and good teaching practice through two examples of the School’s established peer learning
projects, the Events Programme (2008 to date) and the All School Project (2015 to date).
Sitting at each end of the academic year and driven by live agendas, these vertical projects
provide an experimental area for design and research. The All School Project (September)
involves the entire school responding in teams to a single brief created in collaboration with a
local external partner to rapidly produce 50 solutions to a single design or research question.
The Events Programme (April) is a collection of 20 collaborative projects. Working with a live
client, the brief for each ‘Event’ is prepared by groups of three or four students in the
postgraduate MArch course and delivered to groups of approximately 16 undergraduate
students from the BA (Hons) course in Architecture Years 01 and 02. Activities during Events
are researched, designed, planned and taught by MArch students who are then assessed on
their project management and del”
Victoria Jolley is an architect who joined the MSA in January 2015 and has taught across the
undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. A Fellow of the HEA and a member of SEDA,
she co-ordinated the School's Events programme for three years from 2015. She is currently
undertaking a PhD focusing on Central Lancashire New Town (1967), a part-realised super-city
designed to accommodate 500,000 people. This has fostered an interest in garden cities and
suburbs, new towns and dynamic linear growth strategies. In 2009 Vicky gained a Master of
Philosophy by Research focusing on Lee House, Manchester (1927-31), an incomplete tall
building that demonstrates the influence of the American skyscraper on 1920s British
commercial architecture. Designed by Harry S. Fairhurst and Son, Vicky was introduced to the
firm's early work after she graduated from Manchester University, whilst employed as an
architectural assistant at the Fairhursts Design Group. Edwardian architectural pioneers and
construction innovation remain a keen interest. On graduating from the Mackintosh School of
Architecture, Vicky practiced in Manchester, working primarily in housing and building
conser
Laura Sanderson is a senior lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture and a qualified
architect. Her work is underpinned by the principals of Continuity in Architecture. The atelier
focuses upon the process of analysing and understanding the nature and the qualities of place
in order to develop new buildings and other elements within the urban environment. Over the
last few years, the atelier has discussed Small Settlements, especially those surrounding the
city of Manchester; producing research outputs in Bollington (2016), Bakewell (2017) and
Rochdale (2019) including exhibitions, articles, book chapters and built interventions. This year
the atelier is studying Shrewsbury, working in collaboration with Shrewsbury Town Council on
sites in the Historic Town Centre. Alongside her work in Small Settlements, Laura recently co-
curated UnDoing (2019), an exhibition at Castlefield Gallery (with Stone, S.), featuring the work
of a number of international artists and architects, exploring how buildings, places and artefacts
are re-used, reinterpreted and remembered. These themes will be further explored in
‘Remember, Reveal, Construct’ to be published in 2020 (with Stone, S.). Projects on the
drawing board include a collaborative project with the Institute of Place Management, Simone
Riddyard and Dr Luca Csepely-Knorr using a Serial Vision approach to the UK High Street.
Laura has published a number of reflections on her pedagogic approach including her work in
Continuity in Architecture, the 2014 Atelier [Zero] installation and the MSA Events Programme
which has produced over 200 diverse live projects over the past decade.