Archimake’s informal learning workshops introduce architectural design to children from diverse backgrounds so they can contribute to the city from an early age. The workshops enable children to communicate using tools of professional designers, including drawing typologies, models and presentation methods. This helps to bridge the intellectual gap so the conversation between children and professionals is a meaningful one.

Category: Informal learning activity

The Architectural Thinking School for Children in Belarus was founded in 2016 by architect Alexander Novikov and art critic and designer Elena Karpilova as an institution of supplementary education. It teaches architectural thinking as a tool for understanding the modern global world, taking the range of knowledge and skills of an architect and applying it to different disciplines. It has 50 tutors and more than 3,000 students across 5 years of work.

Category: Best organisation

Architecture At The Edge (AATE) is a not-for-profit organisation based in Galway, Ireland dedicated to the promotion of architecture as Culture. To support this AATE is driving the concept of ‘Design Lab – A Space for Belonging’. The Design Lab showcases how architecture needs to consider the notion of emotional inhabitation in order to design spaces that support our mental health. Three Galway schools were involved. Up to 50+ Transition Year students in the 14-16 age bracket participated.

Category: Best organisation

Arkki, the School of Architecture for Children and Youth, founded in 1993 to support and develop teaching and educational work for children and young people related to architecture, the built environment, and the ecological foundations of construction. Arkki International is an off-shoot and probably the first organisation spreading architecture and design education for CYP worldwide. It has created for ages 4 to 19, providing creative education through architecture and is licensed worldwide to local partners, training local architect teachers to deliver the educational content.

Category: Best Organisation

Arkki´s New European Bauhaus project asks pupils to imagine and create within the given guidelines of the EU initiative; beauty, sustainability and inclusivity. The online and on-site project engaged 250 children from Finland, Greece and Czech Republic. The methodologies used were design thinking processes, including emphasis on experimenting, drawing and model-building. The 4–14-year-old pupils expressed their thoughts through various means; with comic strips and 3D models of future cities and buildings.

Category: Informal learning activity

Beyond the Box’s People’s Pavilion design competition aimed to flip the script on who designs and curate spaces in London. To make spaces truly accessible, equitable and fit for long-term use, the design should receive input from a variety of users, a diverse community, and crucially, young people. They tested a new approach to genuinely co-design with young people, whilst collaborating with a multi-disciplinary, diverse team of collaborators

Category: Youth programme

Since arriving in Brixton, London in 2017, Squire & Partners has recognised the importance of engaging with and supporting local CYP. Inequality in the sector and the local area has driven them to initiate several programmes which have invited young people to collaborate with them on various creative projects such as the Brixton Boundaries event in 2019, Winter Windows 2020 and Who Cares? in 2021. Each have given local young people the opportunity to engage with creative architectural learning and their built environment and have required extensive research to create pertinent activities that create impact and have tangible effects.

Category: Diversity in action

The Build Up Aldriche Way project supported 88 young people on a housing estate in East London to have a genuine say over their local area by designing and building a piece of prominent public realm. It enabled them to influence local regeneration, gain practical design and construction skills, build confidence, and learn about careers in the built environment.

Category: Youth programme

This research by Nicola Antaki of the University of Sheffield explores how architecture (an activity and a setting) can be considered an educator. It is a response to how the environmental and social crisis urgently needs addressing; education must adapt so that young people can learn how to create change, and design has the potential to develop their agency. Situated in Mumbai, it investigates how children can be involved in designing their environment to encourage learning, democratise the city, and develop practices of responsible citizenship.

Category: Research

The Giant Dolls house project is an international social arts project by Catja de Haas Architects that gives a voice to marginalised communities such as refugees, immigrants or homeless people. It asks participants to make a dolls house in a shoebox, any way they want to. Workshops with the community take place alongside the installation. The project has held installations in the Museum of Goa, in Dubai, in North Carolina and across the UK, and has included refugee-specific work at the charity Shelter’s headquarters.

Category: Diversity in action

IAF created ‘Youth Manifesto! Architecture in a Climate Crisis’ to centre the voices of young people around architecture in the age of a climate crisis, as part of the Open House Worldwide (OHWW) Virtual Festival, 2020. A series of virtual workshops supported this objective, with young people developing and articulating their arguments and creative solutions. The young people presented a live, virtual ‘Youth Manifesto’ as part of the OHWW Virtual Festival in 2020.

Category: Best organisation; Informal learning activity

The LNS provides the opportunity for everyone in London’s built environment industry to support diverse young people through their studies, making a tangible impact on their lives and career opportunities. Project teams across London’s neighbourhoods will be able to use the LNS to deliver tangible social value to specific local communities where they are working. Most importantly LNS will change the lives of the scholarship recipients, creating a level playing field for them to perform alongside their peers and giving them the opportunity to get the best out of their education without the distraction of financial pressures. This concept was created by Stitch Architects

Category: Diversity in action

The LSE Cities Apprenticeship Programme in City Design is is an exploration into alternative ways to work and engage with young people and what this means for a university and for a developer. The Apprentices are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, paid a living wage and come from London Borough of Brent to learn through practice at the LSE. Their methodology is also helping to shape 5 public space projects at Wembley Park and undertaken by the developer Quintain.

Category: Diversity in action

MATT+FIONA is a child-centred build project - a collaborative venture between architect Matthew Springett and educator Fiona MacDonald. Their work asks young people how their built environment might be improved and empower them to bring that vision to life. Each project has a clear pathway: brief, design and build, with the children and young people at the centre of every stage. They have completed more than 15 ‘builds’ at different scales and see their impact on many levels.

Category: Best organisation

This summer school in Bulgaria, founded and run by Birmingham City University lecturer Simeon Shtebunaev, is the first summer school of its kind in the country. The purpose is to expose young people between the ages of 10 and 17 to professional subjects which would not normally be covered in school. Shtebunaev has based research papers on case studies of the summer schools, examining concepts such as the value of architectural education in the pre-university stage and the value of the external tutor to the educational process.

Category: Informal learning activity

Mountford Growing Community is a resident led community organisation. It responds to a situation where many youth clubs have closed and local young people don’t have the spaces to meet - whilst the architectural industry lacks the diversity of their community. Taking a learning by doing approach, this project took a group of local underrepresented young people from a council estate in Hackney, London to explore how to reinvigorate the community hall. It introduced them to architectural skills while working alongside professionals and building portfolios.

Category: Diversity in action

Accelerate by Open City is a well established annual outreach education and mentoring programme which champions diversity and inclusion in the built environment industries. A 9-month programme for 16-18 year olds from underrepresented backgrounds in London who have expressed an interest in a career in architecture or a related field, it delivers 12 workshops and facilitates mentor partnerships with architecture practices across London and hosts a public exhibition.

Category: Youth programme

PLACED Academy was founded in 2019, a free to access creative programme in the North West of England to develop young peoples' skills and confidence, support diversification in the sector and help create empowered young citizens who know their view matters. Participants take part in design workshops, skill sessions, mentoring, 1-2-1 support and work experience developing significant skills. They have shared their views on projects and plans, from regeneration schemes to Spatial Development Strategies, gaining confidence from having their voices heard by decision makers.

Category: Youth programme; Best organisation

Through a program of workshops and skills training in ‘Bringing Home to the Unknown’ POoR worked with a small team of young people in London in order to produce an installation that encapsulates how young people wish to dwell, interact and play within space. POoR and the students went on a journey together to discover what taking up space as a young person in the city means. (in associaton with RIBA Learning).

Category: Informal learning activity

RE—SET—GO is an initiative by We Made That dedicated to tackling the lack of diversity in architecture, making space for excluded voices and piloting ways to build more progressive and representative architectural communities. It has delivered a number of activities, including paid work placements, 1-to-1 mentoring sessions, CV surgeries and participative workshops. The individuals involved in the programme have gained confidence, skills and connections to prepare for employment.

Category: Diversity in action

School for Creative Thinkers grew out of the UK’s Museum of Architecture's family workshops. It aims to provide young people with opportunities to innovate like a designer, observe and learn from the world, and use their imaginations to create, test, discuss and share their creations and solutions with peers and family. Their children's workshops, holiday camps, subscription activity kits and events offer a strong learning opportunity for exchanging ideas, respect for others and self-expression.

Category: Best organisation

231 Old Kent Road is a community space established by Southwark Council in London where local people can share ideas and build awareness on the future plans of the Old Kent Road regeneration. Research with the local community and young people revealed that regeneration was perceived by many as a threat, with concern over future employment opportunities, housing affordability, and whether developers are including local needs in their development plans. Young people in local schools were able to co-design their ‘ideal’ place through team work and urban design mapping.

Category: Youth programme

'The Workshop Recipe: lessons from informal workshops for pre-university architectural education’ is an MArch Architecture thesis by Elliot Nash at The Bartlett, UCL, London. Its ideas were born out of a frustration at the little current academic discourse which covers the practices and methods of architectural education for pre-university students. The research pieces together and reflects upon knowledge and experience from teaching 16-18 year olds over the last 3-4 years. Five diverse workshops were deconstructed in terms of their teaching methods and output.

Category: Research

Urban Learners deliver bespoke architecture, art and design learning and outreach programmes for schools and communities on behalf of cultural spaces, places and built environment industries. They believe that connecting architectural design methodologies with art and design to create engaging and informative creative learning activities, and delivered by architecture students alongside experienced architecture education practitioners is the right formula for best practice in architecture education for children and young people.

Category: Best organisation

VOP is a free toolkit designed to normalise youth participation in the development & management of places. It’s been created for professionals –developers, designers & councils - that want to do planning properly & give everyone a voice in the process. 140 young people have now taken part in the VOP process across the projects in Mayfair, Aberfeldy and Nottingham. In the world of policy, VOP has started to influence conversations in the GLA and in Whitehall, directly prompting reference in the planning white paper to the need for more youth engagement.

Category: Online

This project by the ‘Little Architect’ schools programme for the Architecture Association aimed to address how women are under-represented in architecture by offering new role models for children aged 4-11. Over two years, family workshops at the AA and schools programmes in deprived areas of London demonstrated women in architecture in action and teaching.

Category: Informal learning activity

Young V&A in London is a new national museum of creativity for young people. Its creative learning programmes include ‘Summer of Play’ which involved research into creativity through physical play, in response to design and architecture, using live, practice-based R&D. The research explored the impact of COVID-19 and children’s need for collaborative and social experiences that could also support mental wellbeing. Enquiries included how to navigate post-pandemic public and urban spaces with children through creative construction play, and the value of creative open-ended play.

Category: Research

"Architect Alexander Novikov and the art critic and designer Elena Karpilova founded the Archiectural Thinking School for Children in Belrus in 2016 doing everything – from teaching to cleaning.

They were the first ever and only to introduce architectural thinking in children education and developed a unique methodology and designed a huge amount of fascinating projects (https://aschool.by/en/projects). They have implemented architectural research in children education and created Minsk Eye interactive map (https://aschool.by/en/minskeye) plus educational videos

The Architectural Thinking School today is a highly recognized institution in Belarus and Europe with around 50 tutors and more than 3,000 students over 5 years of work.

"Emilie Queney is an architect and collaborative artist based in Hackney, London.
She uses play and craft to engage people with their architectural surroundings.
Emilie is passionate about the relationship between architecture, libertarianism and play. Keen to broaden engagement in built environment, Emilie has dedicated a large part of her practice to sharing her passion for architecture, craft and art, focussing on young audiences. Emilie aims to empower diverse communities to explore and express ideas about the architecture that surrounds them.

Emilie's playful practice works at scale and creatively engages communities with their built environment, supporting social cohesion, the development of design and architecture literacy, and the growth of practical creative skills. Her imaginative interventions are inspiring and impactful. Through this award, her approaches could be more widely disseminated supporting further growth and innovation of important work in the sector.”

“Hamza is an exceptional young architectural practitioner, mentor and role model; and would be a worthy recipient of the Inspire Future Generation (IFG) Award. At practice, Make, he was part of The Future Spaces Foundation generating new thinking and research. An outstanding student and peer, while studying at Westminster Hamza set up a successful architecture podcast series, ‘Two Worlds Design’, discussing pressing topics and is now a leading exponent of the use of social media to expand the reach of architecture, with a popular Instagram ‘drawing journal’ and an educational YouTube channel."

"Simeon is an educator and researcher with passion for youth inclusion. In 2018 he was awarded a STEAM PhD scholarship. His research focuses on the role of teenagers in the development of future city vision in Spain, Bulgaria and the UK. He is one of the few emerging researchers internationally to work within the space of teenager inclusion in the planning. Simeon has strong belief in live pedagogy and has published papers on architectural education, specifically researching the Sheffield Live Project’s model and podcasting as method in planning education.

In 2016, he co-founded and runs an annual summer school in Bulgaria, teaching urban planning to teenagers, now in its sixth iteration. .

Most recently, he secured funding from the AHRC to work with young people in Balsall Heath to explore built environment climate research and create a climate action game to serve as learning tool. Simeon is a role model of an engaged, action-driven and multidisciplinary researcher."

"Venetia Wolfenden, an architect, Founding Director of Urban Learners and co-leader of Celebrating Architecture initiative, has become a mentor to so many architectural graduates she’s worked with. She gave many graduates under her wing the opportunity to engage with real projects in a space that was dedicated to delivering an educational programme that would open young people to understanding our built environment. She facilitated the curriculum for the Camden Highline Education Programme in February 2020 and she ran a programme that would provide young people within Islington and Camden an introduction to architecture at such a pivotal age.

Venetia’s commitment to architecture and engaging with young people in the community in which she has grown within herself has opened one’s eyes in a manner that makes an architectural education accessible for us all.

Through her work, she has taught one in many ways that change is possible when you are in service to the community of young people you choose to uplift."