Day 1 – Setting the brief and exploring the site
Day 2 - Developing design ideas
Days 3 and 4 – Modelmaking and refining presentations
Day 5 – Final presentations
Our class of 2025
Summer School 2025
This July, we welcomed a new group of 15–17-year-olds from across the West Midlands to our annual Summer School. It’s always a highlight in the Howells calendar—a chance to introduce young people to the creative, stimulating, and inspiring world of architecture.
This year’s challenge was to design a pavilion for a plot in Paradise, Birmingham, aimed to be a destination to draw in visitors, commuters, locals and city workers. Students were encouraged to reimagine Paradise and provide a creative and inclusive space for all.
Our team provided tutorials on perspective drawing, modelmaking and a guided tour of Paradise and One Centenary Way’s Arup office, to help the students gain new skills and inspiration. The week finished with a design crit for students to present to a team of judges from Howells, Arup and Birmingham City Council offering advice on their designs, presentation skills and critical thinking.
Feedback from the young people has been overwhelmingly positive, with comments praising the full mix of sessions:
Mina said: “What surprised me most was learning about one-point and two-point perspective. I didn’t expect they would teach us that because most people are really good at art already, but it’s actually something many of us aren’t confident about. I feel it helps a lot because in architecture, you must understand perspective and it helps demonstrate our design a lot more easily and that’s something I really liked.”
Kate said: “For me, I really enjoyed going to site because we’re able to see the transition from before to after. It was really nice to have a walk around the buildings, and see how they go from being models to real life buildings - and they were very similar as well.”
Amber said: “I loved looking round the city and Paradise as that was a new experience for me but I think my favourite part was the modelmaking and seeing your vision actually come to life.”
Written on 15.07.2025, by Lucy Swift
