Community Architecture

‘Our Space’ Celebration Event

April 13, 2022 by Megan Ballin

Last month, we ran the ‘Our Space’ celebration event at Knowle West Media Centre. The event celebrated the new artwork created by Yoli Ward-Streeter on the railings outside the media centre on Leinster Avenue to welcome the community inside.

Yoli collaborated with the young people of Jump Studios to create the beautiful artwork and at the celebration event, we invited friends and family down to the media centre to celebrate with refreshments and music performances.

Young people performing for friends and family

The young people co-led the event to showcase their musical talent and share their work that they have been rehearsing and practising over this term at ‘Sound Wave’.

The young people had the chance to share their creative personal projects with their parents and other members of the community. They took ownership of their space and their achievements, the energy was incredible and there was a real sense of pride and inspiration while we celebrated.

Our Space was such an exciting project to be part of, not only through collaborating with the young people but as an artist, I was given an enormous amount of creative freedom and support throughout the project.
Yoli Ward-Streeter

If you get the opportunity, please come down to the media centre and check out the new artwork on display and if you would like any updates you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter.

Jump Studios Summer Programme – What We Got Up To!

September 17, 2021 by Cashell Smith

What have we been doing?

Over the course of 3 weeks, we had a plethora of workshops lined up. This included 2 days of ‘Young People Can Make’, 2 days of ‘Maker City’ and 3 days of ‘Sound Wave’. We had a jam-packed summer, full of fun here at Jump, and we are really grateful to everyone involved, from the young people to the Jump team!

Young People Can Make

Jump Studios, local young people, We Can Make, and Automated Architecture collaborated to create Young People Can Make. The young people learned vital design skills and had hands-on experience working with the construction blocks.

Those that participated in YPCM were given the ability to design and materialise whatever structural or architectural ideas they may have had. Houses, bridges, community centres, and anything else their creativity allows them to manifest.

If you want to see what happened during the days of Young People Can Make, click here. Check out our blog, which reflects the fun-filled time we had.

Maker City

The Maker City Summer Programme welcomed a brand-new cohort of aspiring creatives and makers eager to learn how to create socially conscious products for causes that are important to young people! They developed STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) skills, product design, and participated in digital fabrication masterclasses. The participants also mastered collaborative creative problem-solving tasks, such as the infamous egg drop challenge and building spaghetti bridges that could hold 1kg of sugar! By the end of the two days, new friendships had formed, new skills had been learned, and confidence had been built!

Maker City is where we design products about things we care about.
young creative

We are excited to restart the Maker City programme at KWMC The Factory in October. Please contact clara@kwmc.org.uk if you would like your young person to become part of the Maker City Movement.

Sound Wave

Over the three days of ‘Sound Wave’ in the Summer Programme, young musicians’ musical creativity shone through. Our young musicians demonstrated their musical abilities in a variety of ways, including playing together, conducting the entire room, creating podcasts, and writing and performing their own songs.

The young people started off by building their first beats and exploring the beauty of loops using the FREE web-based DAW(Digital Audio Workstation) Soundtrap. We even saw some future podcasters shine through with podcasts that included facts about bunnies, inspirational quotes, and things they care about within their community and wider Bristol.

On Days 2 and 3, the emphasis was on the students working together to compose their own songs. Our two groups not only wrote the lyrics, melodies, and chord progressions to their songs, but also performed them in front of KWMC personnel, thanks to seminars on rhyming and song writing and performance advice from our music facilitators!

All in all, it was an amazing experience to see such an array of musical talent come through in such a short amount of time.

Not only did we learn about music but we made new friends!
Young musician

To learn more about how you can get involved with Sound Wave in the new term, contact Mike at mike@kwmc.org.uk.

We are delighted to say this summer break has been amazing! With a wide array of activities and endless enjoyment, on behalf of everyone here at Jump we would like to say a big thank you to all involved its been a blast! But even though the summer is over and young people have returned to school, we are returning with after school workshops and half term festivities to carry on the fun!

Interested in coming to Jump Studios After-School sessions in Autumn 2021? Sign up here!

Young People Can Make: Summer Spirit

August 16, 2021 by Cashell Smith

Over the summer break here at Jump Studios, we having been hosting a number of workshops. Most recently, we have been working with the ‘We Can Make’ team to help introduce sustainable community architecture to the young people.

What have we been up to?

Now that the schools have broken up for the summer holidays what better time to get creative with Jump. With our enrichment activities we’ve been organising, young people will now get the opportunity, outside of school, to learn new skills while having fun! By partnering up with the ‘We Can Make‘ project, young people now have the chance to construct sustainable models of their choice. They use a scaled down version of the Lego-like building blocks that those at ‘We Can Mak e‘ are using to build housing amongst the community.

Young People Can Make is a collaboration with Jump Studios, local young people, We Can Make and automated architecture. The young people gained some valuable design skills and were able to get first-hand experience working with the construction blocks. They were given a design mission to re-mix the main studio at KWMC! The final product was absolutely brilliant, they worked so well as a team and combined everyone’s ideas to create a really useful, imaginative design. There was a hangout seating area, different levels and space to display things during an exhibition. They even thought about incorporating a podium for people to present during workings and meetings! The structure they created had three parts and you could configure it in different ways, meaning that it is multipurpose, portable and looks really cool! One young person said “I feel really proud of myself” At age 10 she had contributed her ideas, learnt how to design the app and got on the power tools to fix the final product together.
CLARA COLLETT, Project Manager (Young People and Creative Tech)

What is Young People Can Make?

Young People Can Make is a subsidiary of ‘We Can Make‘ which focuses on involving the younger generation in community driven projects in regards to housing development. ‘We Can Make‘ is striving to create sustainable living firstly within Knowle West then the whole of the U.K, whereas YPCM gets children involved so they can have an understanding of what is going on whilst contributing. At YPCM, those involved are given the opportunity to create and manifest any ideas that they’ve had, in terms of structures and buildings. This could be houses, bridges, community centres and anything their imagination will allow them to produce.

What we aim to achieve?

With Young People Can Make, we hope to guide the new generation with an understanding of sustainable living, as the children of today will be the adults of the tomorrow. It is important for us here at Jump to pass on valuable information which will aid them and offer them the relevant knowledge that could change the world for the better.

It was great witnessing young people’s imaginative ideas highlight what was missing in a space that could be brought to life through the creative process of digital design to physical construction.
MIKE MOAST, Project Manager (Young People and Music)

If you want to follow us for updates on spaces in the sessions, opportunities for young people and sharing some of the work they have been up to – you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter.