We’ve recently been involved in a range of creative, hands-on workshops with local schools and families, exploring architecture, design and sustainable thinking.

At St Stephen’s CE Primary School, students made plaster casts using egg boxes and plasticine, producing beautiful fossil-like pieces. In the afternoon, they worked in teams to build the tallest paper-straw structure capable of supporting a plaster egg — revealing some clear future engineers!

Through a series of Open Up workshops at Goodrich Primary School, pupils explored ‘eco’ structures, first analysing examples and then developing their own designs. We also later visited the British Museum with students to draw inspiration before creating dream-space models back in the classroom. The Open Up programme, run by Open House, brings architects into schools to unpack exemplary buildings and support students to develop their own design ideas.

We also took part in a drop-in workshop at the Archikids Festival at the Southbank Centre. Families and children built imaginative structures using straws, card and scrap materials. The event, organised by Open City, encourages young people to engage directly with inspiring buildings and public spaces while learning about architecture and good design.

Across all these workshops, the energy and creativity of the students has been fantastic — and it’s been a joy to help them explore how design and sustainability can shape the places around us.