Lisa Raynes Appears At The Manchester School Of Architecture’s (MSA) ‘Meet The Practice’ Event

What Is The MSA?

Manchester School of Architecture is an innovative collaboration between Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Manchester currently placed 7th in the world in the QS 2022 Architecture rankings. They unite two schools with more than 100 years’ experience, over 100 experts in their architectural fields and more than 1000 students from over 80 countries producing creative, challenging and academically rigorous work and research in the heart of Manchester.

On Thursday 9th of June, 2022, Lisa Raynes appeared at the MSA’s ‘Meet The Practice’ event. The event was a showcase of some of the biggest names in architecture across Manchester and the UK as a whole, such as OMI, AEW, Simpson Haugh, Associated Architects, Aecom, BDP, Bowman Riley, and many more. The event was ram-packed with architectural students from different stages and years in their studies, all eager to gain some deeper knowledge into working at architectural practices and what will be expected of them at the larger practices.

Lisa was able to secure a corner booth in her signature red colour, and began setting up immediately, making sure to bring some of the most important tools of the trade, and a few things to catch the eyes of the students, like her esteemed Lego house set, a perfect tool to illustrate some of the basics of architecture to clients with limited knowledge of home renovations and building regulations (As seen in this Pride Road article!). It performed its’ job quite well, and drew many bright-eyed, inquisitive students, wondering what it’s uses and functionality were, and whether she actually modelled projects with Lego (Spoiler alert: She doesn’t, unfortunately!)

Lisa also took the time to catch-up and reconnect with some of her former mentees, and see how their studies in architecture were progressing, and to take a few pictures with them to ensure the moment was captured. Here are some of them above:

Throughout the day, Lisa was swarmed with students enquiring, asking for internships, mentoring, catch-ups, work-shadowing etc, as many of the students were intrigued and excited about Lisa’s alternative method of working in architecture, as many had never heard of an architectural practice franchise before, let alone one that focuses solely on residential work and extensions/renovations. They also said the work-life balance aspect of the franchise was extremely appealing to them, and the equality/diversity/inclusion that the brand is built around, was just the icing on the cake.

Suffice to say, it was a very successful event for Pride Road, and we managed to secure the interest of a large number of students for future connection/franchising opportunities!