Creating future spaces that support ever-changing lifestyle needs
PriestmanGoode’s latest collaboration with the National Saturday Club Masterclass programme involved a future focused-brief set by Transport for Greater Manchester, encouraging young people to co-create and co-design of future transport hubs, for the benefit of everyone.
As part of our ongoing campaign supporting creative education PriestmanGoode has hosted another design Masterclass with the National Saturday Club. National Saturday Club Masterclasses connect Clubs with an extensive national network of industry experts and professional practitioners. Each Masterclass is bespoke, giving Club members and tutors rare access to some of the UK’s most creative minds and showcasing how skills developed at the Saturday Club’s weekly classes can be applied in the real world.
For this most recent Masterclass, PG partnered with Transport for Greater Manchester in a collaboration saw young people from across the Clubs at Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Bolton follow a brief to re-imagine a community space, and in doing so, consider their future lifestyle needs and how transport hubs and shared mobility could help with that. Club members, who are aiming for careers in Art & Design and Science & Engineering were introduced to the breadth of design practices across transport design, urban planning, interior design, fabric and materials development, and product design.
The ideas generated were wide ranging and included social seating and charging stations, hidden technology in plant inspired sculptures, bike hiring and storage stations, fractal inspired public art, a ‘worker bee’ inspired architectural structure, and a ‘decompression zone’ underlining the importance of wellbeing for this generation.
PG’s participation in the Masterclass programme is part of our inclusive approach to design. We believe that everyone is creative, and we advocate for the importance of creative education and the need to bring more socio-economic diversity to the sector. Across the studio, our designers are always eager to offer their time and insights to drive change and help describe pathways towards a design career. We’re very grateful to have the support of our friends at Transport for Greater Manchester to give a local context through a brief that places the future in the hands of young people with aspirations for a career in design.
The outcomes of the workshop featured in the National Saturday Club Summer Show at Somerset House, London, 15-18 July 2023.
“The world is changing so quickly, at TfGM it is our role to ensure we are creating future spaces that support these ever-changing lifestyle needs. We are interested in understanding how we can enhance these points of interchange with sustainable public transport, new green infrastructure and new non mobility related services future users might want. We want to understand how all these different elements can be brought together to form a community hub.”
For me, the main success of the session was witnessing how we can enhance the co-creation and co-design of future spaces for everyone through effective collaboration. It was about creating an engaging and safe environment for young people to envision and contemplate the art of the possible. The session provided them with the opportunity to express their hopes and desires, breaking free from conventional thinking. The world-class designers from PriestmanGoode did an amazing job at educating and helping the young people to apply design thinking. I was blown away by the quality of the final outputs and the many surprises that came in the presentation session, and I am excited for future Masterclasses and working to ensure we can utilise these outputs to build the Greater Manchester Bee Network.
Sam Li, Senior Innovation Officer, Transport Strategy, TfGM
“It was truly inspiring to see the boundless creativity embedded within each of the team’s designs. From gardens to a giant bee sculpture, which was a nod to Greater Manchester’s industrial heritage, and a public piano, they really thought of everything. Each team’s design had strong environmental themes and a focus on creating a public space where you would want to spend time, rather than just passing through. What really struck a chord was that none of the designs were car-centric; instead, they embraced the role of public transport and active travel. As the session went on, we became abundantly aware that the future will be in the safe, creative, and capable hands of these designers of tomorrow.”
Marie Godward, Shared Mobility Lead, TfGM
All of us at the National Saturday Club so greatly value the long-term support that we have received from PriestmanGoode who have generously led Masterclasses for Club members from across the country over the last nine years. It is so critical for young people from a breadth of backgrounds to have access to opportunities to engage with the future world of work. PriestmanGoode’s innovative and creative approach to Masterclass delivery showcases the breadth of opportunities open to young people within the design sector, some of which they may not otherwise have been aware of. It’s fantastic to be celebrating these partnerships at the end-of-year Summer Show with all Club members’ work on display at London’s prestigious Somerset House.
Lucy Kennedy, Chief Executive, National Saturday Club
