MSALIVE24 Class Of Your Own Project - HPA

MSALIVE24 Class Of Your Own Project

All Images are from the Manchester School of Architecture COYO Final Report

On Monday 17th June, HPA’s attended the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) celebration of the MSALIVE24 projects. MSALIVE is an annual programme which brings students from MSA to collaborate on real projects. This year there were 40 projects, one project in particular involved students at Alder Grange Sixth Form working with MSA students to renovate St Nicholas’ Church located in Sabden.

Sabden Church, also known as the Church of St Nicholas, was constructed in 1841 and was granted Grade II listing status in 1968. Today, Sabden serves a population of around 1700 but with a dwindling congregation it was recognized there was an opportunity to preserve local heritage while extending the church to a more diverse population. The project was led by the Class Of Your Own (COYO) and ‘Design Engineer Construct’ (DEC) enterprises where 12 Sixth Form Students collaborated with 5 Manchester School of Architecture students to repurpose the church to serve as a hub for community learning and sustainable practices, alongside the creation of a new ‘Smart Village’ curriculum.

COYO is the rural social enterprise that provides the award winning DEC Learning Programme which enables young people an unique pathway into Architecture, Engineering and Construction. They aim to empower and educate people to design, engineer and construct an extraordinary future.

The collaborating cohort divided themselves into two groups to hold a one-week design competition to renovate the church with the goal of empowering the students to envision the architectural feasibility of adapting the church to meet the evolving needs of the community. The competing designs were then presented to the collaborators and students.

The Sabden Smart Village initiative is set to generate significant social benefits fostering community engagement, enhancing social cohesion, and embracing diversity.

HPA are now leading a feasibility study and repair strategy working with Sabden Church Working Group and this work prepared by students at Alder Grange and MSA will form the basics of this study.

For further Information on this project: MSA Class of Your Own Sabden Church Project

Latest News

Sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date