Open City Young City Makers

Our education outreach team recently had the privilege of supporting Young City Makers, an initiative by Open City that brings learning to life through the lens of the built environment.

This year’s theme, Play, tackled a pressing issue in urban design: How can we reintroduce joy, spontaneity, and inclusivity into our cities? At a time when public space is increasingly restricted and play is often limited to designated playgrounds, a series of workshops encouraged young people to reimagine the built environment as a place where everyone can engage, connect, and play freely.

Workshop 1 began with a simple yet powerful question: What does your journey to school feel like, and how could it be more playful? From slides between bus stops to trampolines on pavements, students mapped their routes and envisioned joyful, sustainable interventions.

A field trip to King’s Cross explored new urban developments and invited students to sketch and measure buildings to better understand scale. They observed how old and new architecture coexist and how adaptive reuse can open up new possibilities for play and public life.

Back at school, Workshop 2 challenged students to design environments that support living, working, and playing in four extreme climates: Desert, Polar, Rainforest, and Mountain. The group set to making models that thoughtfully incorporated green spaces, public transport, renewable energy.