EDGE – Architectural Adventures

Over the last two weeks our First Year EDGE Digital & Innovation classes have taken a trip to London to visit the office of Arcadis architects and to be inspired on a walking tour in the area around King’s Cross. Whilst in the offices, pupils met with architects, engineers and those on apprenticeships just starting their professional journey. They learned what architects and mechanical, electrical and public services engineers do and the skills they needed to develop in order to be successful in their chosen field. They also launched our next EDGE project to the students, which is to design a space in the proposed Innovation Centre building at Caterham. Each of the five First Year classes have been given a different space to design and will make a pop-up book to showcase their ideas. Each group will pitch their design to their EDGE teacher and the winning design from each class will pitch to the architects themselves! They have been asked to be innovative, creative and encouraged to not simply think about what a classroom or learning space could look like now, but what it could be in the future, whilst thinking carefully about sustainability and ethical design.

Mrs Brown Head of Careers and some of our Lower Sixth Design and Technology and Art pupils joined us this week, and got a real insight into future careers in these fields, getting a tour of the offices and the opportunity to chat with a range of industry experts. On our tour around London, we were fortunate to view the developments in Coal Drop Yard, R7 and the Wellcome Collection in the brilliant sunshine, with pupils using their devices to take interesting photos to provoke further thought and spark the imagination. We will now go back to the classroom where pupils will develop their project management skills as they map out the route to creating their final product.