Key Stage 4
Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment, Design and Technology, and Geography
Led by Solent Centre for Architecture and Design.
The youth groups were set up to increase student:
- confidence and ability to speak out and represent the views of young people
- knowledge about built environment careers
- achievement particularly in relation to the Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment
Work by the SPUD Youth Group on display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery © CABE
In Space, Placemaking, and Urban Design (SPUD), Solent Centre worked with a consortium of schools, bringing together three groups of students based in Eastleigh, Southampton, and Portsmouth to work on live design projects.
Each group had the opportunity to work with an architect and other built environment professionals. The students rose to the challenge of these collaborations, producing work and ideas that exceeded their own expectations. Faced with the task of re-imagining a public space it’s tempting to advocate dramatic and expensive changes – the complete redesign of existing buildings or the construction of entirely new places. One of the many interesting aspects of SPUD was the way the students’ ideas grew increasingly complex and sensitive. They moved away from the ‘big wins’ to the kinds of interventions that take an holistic view of the space, and that use the existing infrastructure to the greatest advantage.
Students in the Southampton group have each been able to follow their own interests. These will be woven together to create a proposal for the redesign of part of the city. Through the support of the SPUD workshops, one student has started working on a new lighting scheme, whilst others have focussed on the relationship between the water and the city centre.
What this project demonstrates is that students can become engrossed in built environment work whilst improving a broad range of skills. Given the right opportunities and encouragement they can quickly aspire to the most sophisticated view of the process.
Read how this project developed
Look at the SPUD youth group’s website
