Our Year 10 and 12 Built Environment learners recently participated in a dynamic Employer Led Project, facilitated by Carla and Richard from the Urban Land Institute. This project tested their skills in urban planning through a realistic simulation of regenerating a fictional city centre site, Ellham, where they competed to design viable commercial and residential spaces.
The Urban Land Institute, renowned for being the world’s oldest and largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use professionals, provided the perfect backdrop for this project. The company's mission - to have a transformative impact on communities - set the tone for our learners' projects.
Reflecting the pressures of real-world urban planning, our learners navigated financial, design, ethical, and environmental challenges to devise a viable mixed-use development scheme. While typical urban planning projects span 5-10 years, our learners faced the exhilarating challenge of compressing this extensive process into just four hours. This accelerated simulation not only enhanced the excitement but also tested their ability to work collaboratively under tight deadlines, competing against other teams to achieve the best solution for the fictional city centre site, Ellham.
"Our role-playing as different heads of the department was intense but incredibly insightful. Managing our time effectively to meet the project deadline taught us a lot about the real challenges in urban planning," commented one of the learners involved in the project.
Carla and Richard guided the learners through key considerations of urban planning, including stakeholders' minimum requirements and preferences, the overall vision for the project and employability skills to ensure learners were well-prepared before diving into their roles. Each learner assumed a critical position within their company and were chosen to fulfil the following roles: finance director, head of marketing, head of community, head of planning and head of environment. Giving everyone specific roles ensured a holistic development approach.
Throughout this project learners worked together with their team to try and achieve their vision for Ellham. They were supported by two industry professionals, Nigel and Martin, who work in the urban planning sector. Our industry professionals, who would later go on to decide the winning property development company, went around the room and interacted with each team to help them consider the decisions they were making when creating their developments.
By the end of the challenge, learners worked together produce amazing results. Each company created a plan to regenerate Ellham, alongside a 3D digital and physical model. With such innovative and differing approaches to this challenge, our two industry professionals had the difficult task of choosing the best concept for the fictional site in Ellham.
After much deliberation, oour judges decided to award Kayda LTD as the winning group. Our judges shared that this group considered what makes a successful city, ensuring their proposal had great transportation networks and infrastructure that supports economic activities and enhances residents’ daily lives and social cohesion. They loved the way their city are laid up with incluscity and the people's wellbeing in mind.
Nina, who assumed the role of head of marketinng in the winning team, expressed "I really enjoyed being a part of such an interactive session and it was great to recieve feedback from industry professionals and win the competition."
Andrew, our Built Environment teacher, praised the project's alignment with the curriculum, stating, "This employer-led project not only brings to life Unit 2 Construction Design on the curriculum, but also highlights the integral role of teamwork and cross-disciplinary thinking in building sustainable communities.”
We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Urban Land Institute for providing such a hands on learning experience.
