Young V&A Schools: Design Takeover – KS3 (Autumn 2026)

In this action-packed studio-based workshop, students will be set a design challenge by Christie Swallow Young V&A’s professional designer in The Shed. This is a special opportunity for your class to work with and learn from Christie's practice. 
 
Students will be challenged to design a birdhouse for parakeets through architectural model-making. Expect to get hands-on with our materials library and use a variety of model-making techniques. The workshop will be in the Open Studio (adjacent to The Shed) where students will have the opportunity to see a working design studio and respond to the museum collection within the surrounding Design Gallery. 
 
Key curriculum links: Design & Technology, Art & Design. This session will support students to develop their creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking skills.
 
Each session can accommodate 1 class (suggested 25 students, max 30 students). We have multiple dates and timeslots to choose from. Each session is 90 min long.


About Christie
Christie is a designer, researcher and artist, and a graduate in Environmental Architecture from the Royal College of Art. Engaging with play as a method and ecology as a subject for more-than-human stakeholders, Christie works through facilitation, making and spatial design. 

Over the next six months, Christie will tackle the birdhousing crisis by co-creating sustainable avian architectures with young people, drawing on Young V&A's collection of miniature habitats to design homes for our fine feathered city neighbours. 

About The Shed 
The Shed is a dedicated studio space within the Design Gallery at Young V&A. It has been built into the fabric of this free permanent gallery. This highly dynamic space brings the Design Gallery to life, inspiring our audiences by giving them a rare insight into a busy and active design studio and a contemporary designer at work. Some of the walls include windows to display work and give the feel of a ‘live’ exhibit. 
 
The Shed at Young V&A hosts an annual 6-month Design Placement with a bursary and studio space for early to mid-career designers to develop their practice through collection and audience research.
 

Included in your booking
As part of your booking, we will also reserve a 30-minute lunch slot in our Portal Trust Community Room for your group. You’re also welcome to explore the museum on a self-guided visit before or after your workshop. 
 
You will receive an automated booking confirmation. If the information received is incorrect, please contact young@vam.ac.uk. 
 
Want to know more? Please email yvaschools@vam.ac.uk if you have any queries.