parxx & rec

type. live project

stage. five

date. may 2022

description. ​

The brief for this project was for a group of other Masters students and I to engage in practice-based research to organise projects for Bachelor of Architecture students, working with external partners locally and globally to create social impact beyond architectural education. My group and I collaborated with Make Space for Girls, or MSFG, (registered charity 1193772) for the purpose of encouraging the design of public spaces, specifically parks, with girls in mind. MSFG were very open to the us steering this project in the direction which most interest us, whether this was design, consultation, activism, communications or something else entirely. As we were creating a brief for first and second year architecture students, we thought it would be prudent and exciting to form a design project, with aspects of consultation and communications. Our project examined Hulme Park and investigated how it may become more welcoming to girls. This is in response to a massive and overlooked inequality, which is that currently most public park facilities for teenagers are dominated by boys, and no attention is given to the inclusion of teenage girls. We called our project Parxx and Rec because we wanted to take inspiration from the show Parks and Recreation created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, with a feminist twist (hence the XX).

Deliverables for this project included a blog where we posted everyday, and a booklet (seen below).