Students of all ages get stuck in with SHEDx

Students from around the borough from Primary Schools to Kingston University have been making their first waves as part of SHEDx. The inspiring, creative ideas that young people bring to the project are key to our success and we are delighted by this huge, first bustle of activity and the enormous promise of what is yet to come.

Hayatsu Architects have worked alongside Kingston University Architecture students to design, prototype and begin to build our Green Shed which through their research and development process has become four 'Green Pods' on bicycles which can come together to form the Green Shed. Feedback was taken from the Tolworth Community during an engagement event at the top of Tolworth Tower and the mobile pods ended up taking inspiration from bikes around the world photographed carrying large loads!

They have been busy sketching, creating 3d models, unearthing clay from the local area to create pigments, creating natural paints and testing all sorts of elements to the build including the first road tests.

With the prototypes created and tested they are now moving on to building the four final pods with help and contributions from local primary schools. Knollmead Primary School have already been busy during two shingle decorating workshops and have created over 550 of the shingles which will adorn the surfaces of the pods.

In other elements of the project Kingston University Graphic Design Students have been visiting 3 key areas of the project; Tolworth Station, Tolworth Broadway and Corinthian Casuals Football Ground. The students have been asked to "look, observe, interrogate and explore" their site and find either love, utopia or rebellion. They will then share their findings with the Tolworth community through a piece of visual communication. The students have now all visited their site and seemed excited and energised by their task ahead - their final work will form an exhibition which we will of course invite all of our blog followers to attend!

Kingston University Human Geography students also got cracking this week on undertaking a healthy street audit to help us collect data throughout the life of SHEDx. Additional Human Geography students later in the year will work on a live brief to develop a community project to encourage residents to pass the barrier of the A3 to be pitched to The Community Brain with the aim of implementing some of the best ideas as a project as part of SHEDx. A variety of Design students are also about to embark on a project to help us use digital tools on data and feedback collated throughout the project to re-present, respond, develop and add to the base line data whilst engaging the community through these digital tools.

It's fair to say we are hugely excited and energised by the influence of these fantastic young people in the project. The ideas they are beginning to bring to the table at this early stage are ambitious, bold and unique and we cannot wait to see where they will take us over the coming months, weeks and years.

We will leave the final word to some of Kingston University's First Year Graphic Design Students....