UDesign

Design is a drastically undertaught subject, often only available in private schools or as a paid extracurricular. It is common to consider art and design only something for talented kids with the necessary skills and portfolio for the application process. In the end, consideration of art, architecture, and design is missing from the critical decisions in the fields of economics, politics, and investment creating a vicious cycle. But design surrounds us every day - it defines our behaviour, activities, and quality of life. It decides how inclusive and sustainable our cities are, and who and how can use them.

UDesign provides design and architecture education for youth from 4 to 16 years old in Prague focusing on inclusion, safety, and sustainability. Through our project, we aim to widen the accessibility to design education and help youth influence their built environment as design professionals or citizens.

Our program is divided into 3 age groups - 4 to 6 years old, 7 to 10 years old and 11 to 16 years old - each with its own unique brief and semester project. Younger students build critical skills in design-oriented thinking and learn the importance of recycled and upcycled materials. While older students use those skills to work on solving a real-world problem. They redesign a real location to better fit the needs of residents and make it safer, more inclusive, and welcoming for all groups of people. Now we plan to scale to a one-year program that will include theoretical frameworks, design projects on real sites, presentations to local communities, and learning to petition for the change of the public space.

UDesign began with the idea that to best teach the art of design, one must be immersed in the tools of design, and the implications of creative activities. And so our project innovates in a few key ways.

First, the curriculum of our classes is unique. The curriculum is robust and cutting-edge, including technical drawing, multimedia presentations, physical and digital models, and even AI. Importantly, we teach architecture and urban planning with an emphasis on real locations. Students immediately see the implications and importance of design as they reimagine the spaces around them. And they do so in a project format, at the end of each semester the students present their creations to residents - teaching important project management and presentation skills.

Second, students in our classes engage with local community and local issues. Currently, we connect with bookbinding, animation, and graphic design studios to learn new skills from local business owners and learn to use upcycled and recycled materials. Students’ final presentations took place in the Center of Architecture and Metropolitan Planning of Prague where design professionals, investors and municipalities also presented their projects to the public.

Finally, our program is taught by students and young professionals from the fields of design and architecture who become real-world role models to our students.

We started the project in March 2022 by holding design workshops for Ukrainian displaced youth who arrived in the Czech Republic. Since then the project team organized more than 200 creative workshops, over 20 excursions, 6 public presentations, an exhibition showcasing children's projects, and a complete festival in support of the project. We have more than 25 volunteers in our team and 3 organizers, who all together have experience of more than 400 teaching hours. We have received a lot of positive feedback from students and parents, and most importantly students kept coming back each semester and our attendance rate was over 90% which identified that the program was very important and students didn’t want to miss anything. Some of our students after attending the course now are planning to apply to study in design and architecture universities.

As the project evolves and continues, we’ve realized that our classes are suited to all students who are unable to afford or are underrepresented in art, architecture, and design classes. To contact those groups we plan to partner with local NGOs and communities, such as Viet Up, who represent the Vietnamese population of Prague, to ensure our classes are inclusive and open to everyone. Over the past 1.5 years, the UDesign project has secured and effectively utilized funding from the STO Foundation, the US Embassy in Prague, Foundation Via, and the Integration Centre Prague.

We collect feedback from students and parents at the end of each course, here are a few from past semesters:

” We would definitely recommend it because it is interesting, educational, a friendly team, professional teaching and a sensitive attitude towards children. Children do not feel themselves as students but as individuals.”

“This is a place to expand your worldview. A successful combination of creativity and responsibility.”

“My child was given information that will be useful to her for the rest of her life, even if she does not want to do it in the future.”

“The child received a lot of valuable knowledge and skills in the field of architecture and design, learned to work in a team, express and defend his opinion, do photoshop, create a dream house”

“My son developed his own individual style, vision and sense of beauty”

“She became more open, and again returned to the creativity that she was engaged in in Ukraine."