We understand the value of work experience. That’s why we welcome students to the studio every year to shadow architects and learn about working life in the built environment. However, due to the past year, shadowing simply wasn’t possible. Therefore, we made the week a little different.
Working in partnership with Speakers for Schools, and receiving over 120 applications, Hawkins\Brown welcomed 30 students aged 14 to 18 to spend five days gaining a (virtual) broad overview of the practice – what we do, how we work and why we do it.
With a mixture of talks and tasks run by staff from across the practice, activities included site analysis, architectural drawings and explorations on materiality. Each day, we focused on mostly analogue tasks to help the students develop skills in hand drawings and sketches, collages and model-making, as well as building their confidence in presentation. The students were encouraged to look, explore and study their surroundings: drawing plans and sections of their desk, photographing and researching local materials. We sent the students a pack of model-making materials that allowed them to make a scale model of Park Hill using lasercut card pieces, asking them to customise the façade with their own design. We encouraged the students to discuss their ideas and give feedback to each other.
Talks were topic-focused in the morning, covering subjects such as ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Selling your Scheme’. In the afternoon we focused on careers advice and covered topics including ‘Routes into the profession’, ‘Next Steps – Portfolio Tips and Tricks’ and ‘How to Run a Business’.
The students showed a genuine passion, interest and enthusiasm for learning about the architectural profession. Although the experience was remote and delivered online, the virtual format enabled the students to meet more than 20 of our staff across the week, ranging from our architects, urban designers and modelmakers to our Communications Manager and finance team. We feel that they received a broader understanding of the variety of roles and careers available in the industry as a result. The virtual week also allowed us to reach more students from across the UK, engaging with those who might not have had the opportunity to travel to one of our studios. It also allowed a wider range of our staff to get involved and share their experience, skills, and knowledge with the next generation of potential architects.
Top Tips From Hawkins\Brown
Establish ground rules on Day 1:
Encourage students to turn on their cameras and ask everyone to introduce themselves. Our students needed encouragement to speak up, but they became more confident with presentations as the week progressed.
Keep the days short:
We found that 10am-4pm worked best, allowing staff leading the experience to have time to keep things progressing with their own projects.
Regular catch-ups:
Each student was assigned to a small group with a mentor, who had a daily catch ups with the students.
This smaller forum allowed the students to ask questions about their tasks or about aspects of the talks they had found interesting.
Provide a physical pack to students ahead of the week:
Our students really enjoyed the model-making activity using the laser-cut pieces that we sent to them. The pack also included paper and different types of pens for the architectural drawing tasks. Providing materials puts everyone on a level playing field and gives all the students the chance to achieve a good result.
Keep presentations short and interactive!
The Google Classroom interface allows you to run polls and quizzes throughout the talks and activities. Using the chat function to participate in the larger group sessions was also very successful.
We couldn't be prouder of what the students managed to achieve - we are already planning our next virtual work experience week for this summer!
Feedback from students:
"The experience has shown me what a workplace actually looks like, the different roles within architecture and how the different paths I could take to become one. It's had a positive impact on me, definitely narrowing down my potential options for what I want to be in the future"
“I found the Work experience week Hawkins Brown a great learning pathway for understanding possible routes into architecture and engineering in the future. I really enjoyed the model making workshop as the kit was well designed and easy to use and made the session feel more interactive.”
Contacts at Hawkins\Brown:
Xuhong Zheng xuhongzheng@hawkinsbrown.com
Fiona Stewart fionastewart@hawkinsbrown.com
Interested in getting work experience or hosting a virtual work experience? Find out more about RIBA Learning's partnership with Speakers for Schools.
