‘Door to Design’ successful take-off with more than 500 school children and over 50 parents.

Linked to the exciting Exhibition Road development to create a new entrance and courtyard for the Museum which is due to open later this year, the V&A’s Learning Department has received funding for the next three years from John Lyon’s Charity to support its programme for Primary Schools and Families.  The grant funds ‘Door to Design’ a learning programme working with three local primary schools and their families.

Using the V&A’s Exhibition Road entrance project as inspiration, ‘Door to Design’ will teach children about architecture, heritage and engineering. Each year, pupils and teachers from three schools will work alongside an architect, artist or designer to explore how the new entrance welcomes visitors and to inspire their own architectural designs and projects.

The project will culminate in a display and a Family Celebration Day in the John Lyon’s Community Gallery based in the V&A’s Sackler Centre, which will open at the same time at the new entrance and courtyard. The aim of the Family Celebration Day is to bridge the children’s lives at school with their lives at home, raise aspirations and enable a broader range of people to engage with heritage and design.

‘Door to Design’ also aims to inspire the teachers from the schools taking part with new ideas and skills. Last week, ‘Door to Design’ hosted a training event at the V&A for the teachers and artists involved. Teachers had the opportunity to explore the Exhibition Road development works, to discover the learning programmes at the V&A, share their experiences and get creative with hands-on sessions with the artists.

The day presented an opportunity for teachers to raise their ideas and thoughts around the project as well as creating a positive sense of community for everyone involved in ‘Door to Design’.

After meeting the teachers, we can say the project finally took off this week when the artists went to the different schools to present the project.

We are proud to announce that for Year 1 ‘Door to Design’ is working with:

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School and Bethan Durie, a visual artist focused on illustration, textile design and printmaking. Her prints vary from domestic interiors to deconstructed patterns constructing narratives through colour and pattern.

Bethan will work with Year 4 through observational drawing and artist sketchbooks to create new tiles inspired by the V&A collection and the Exhibition Road development.

St Mary’s gave Bethan a warm welcome with more than 300 students, 22 teachers and over 30 parents. Bethan shared her passion for the V&A collections and the students had the opportunity to ask her lots of questions.

Holy Trinity CE Primary School working alongside YOU&ME, is a multi-disciplinary architecture platform based in London and Athens.  Established by architects Alicja Borkowska and Iris Papadatou, their expertise lies in retail and commercial interiors, exhibition design, public realm installations and high street regeneration projects. YOU&ME will bring to ‘Door to Design’ ideas inspired by playful dream and hidden spaces.

Holy Trinity welcomed Alicja with students from Year 3 to 6 and their parents. Students had the opportunity to understand the role of architects and how the V&A building has been designed over different periods of time.

Barlby Primary School and Kaleidoworks, an art collective established by Lydia Cs and Betsy Dadd working with film, animation and drawing.

Kaleidoworks in collaboration with the students from Year 4, will explore the past and present of the V&A building by collecting, responding and remaking ideas in order to create a ‘future floor’ of virtual tiles inspired by the Exhibition Road development.

Kaleidoworks visited Barlby last week and had the opportunity to discuss ideas about art, museums and present their own work to Year 4.

These three schools will visit the V&A on a regular basis on the upcoming months to work together with the artists towards the exhibition display for the Family Celebration Day.

We have the first sessions scheduled by the end of February/ March and we can’t wait to get started!