2024 Young City Makers

Congratulations to Cyril Jackson Primary School year 6 students who won joint first place in the Open City Young City Makers engineering category at a celebration event at Tower Hamlets Town Hall on November 25th.

As the school’s partner this year, ritchie*studio led a visit to the studio’s projects in Covent Garden and two in-school interactive design workshops in September and October.

The Young City Makers from Cyril Jackson Primary School transformed the Limehouse waterfront, Limekiln Wharf and Ropemakers Fields into a fun-filled friendly neighbourhood of floating markets, multistorey treehouse homes, a kid’s football league stadium, pyramid shaped schools, biodiverse wildlife forests, vertical farms and new healthcare spaces all connected by a local monorail. Our Young City Makers learnt how environmental, social and cultural activities come together to enhance a neighbourhood.

They began by learning what the built environment is, designing fantastical ways to connect their journey from home to school. Then, democratically voting, to decide what to design and build using as many materials and paper shaping techniques they could, resulting in their colourful and texturally rich neighbourhoods, with sharp attention to detail.

The creativity, enthusiasm and energy of these young designers and makers has been an absolute joy – a wonderful collaboration.