Budding young designers show us their vision for homes of the future
Aylesbury school challenge considers the future of housing
MAY 27 2022. FOR IMMEDIATE ISSUE
Students from Aylesbury High School gave us a fascinating glimpse into the houses of the future, when they were given the challenge of designing a home, fit for living in years to come.
The competition was open to Year 8 students (age 12-13) and organised by Fairhive Homes, based in Aylesbury and Bucks Skills Hub.
The challenge was to design a home that would be comfortable and practical to live in, feasible to build, energy efficient and as environmentally friendly as possible.
The winners were Thanesa Maheswaran, Isabel Newman and Darcey Sheridan who wowed the judging panel with their innovative ‘shipping container’ concept.
Their eco-friendly house, for a family of five, involved the use of solar panels and windmills to harness nature’s power and 16 glass panels to maximise natural light.
Their design also included the collection of waste water which is cleansed and reused, and a detailed two-floor blueprint design including children’s room and a garage for electric vehicles.
The students had six weeks to come up with their proposals, which could be submitted in any form they chose. Along the way they were visited by experts in the industry to give them pointers as to what to think about.
Sarah Saunders, Head of Year 8 at Aylesbury High School commented: “The students enjoyed the project, particularly the teamwork, and they liked using some of the professional design websites to help create floorplans and graphics to make their work pop.”
Thanesa, Isabel and Darcey all received shopping vouchers for their winning proposal, while the school itself won some wildlife friendly planters as part of an initiative to improve biodiversity across the whole school site and to form 'bug bridges'. Prizes were jointly sponsored by Fairhive and Tilia Homes.
Julie Porter, Fairhive Homes Executive Director of Development said: “Sustainability and environmental impact are critical issues in the world at large at the moment, and are having a huge effect on the house building industry. We received entries from over 50 teams and were very impressed by the ideas and innovation included in the designs, which ranged from wheelchair friendly homes and treehouses to the winning design based on converted shipping containers.”
She added: “It was great to see the students thinking about design and how to draw up plans as well as environmental issues in construction, hopefully we’ve inspired future architects and construction professionals!”
Fairhive is working with Bucks Skills Hub as part of an initiative to provide secondary school students across Bucks with experience of different workplaces and careers options.
Susannah Edwards, Careers Enterprise Coordinator at Buckinghamshire Skills Hub, said: “Working in small groups students acquired employability skills such as communication and teamwork. This was a great display of creativity and design work.”
ENDS
Note to editors:
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact pressoffice@fairhive.co.uk or call Rodney Kumar, External Partnerships Manager at Fairhive Homes Ltd on 07929 065296.
Fairhive Homes Limited (Fairhive) formally Aylesbury Vale Housing is a ‘not-for-profit’ Registered Provider of affordable housing for over 23,000 people living and working in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and South Northamptonshire. It owns and manages over 8,500 homes.
Fairhive make a significant social and economic contribution to the communities in which it operates and its Board intend to build over 1,000 new affordable homes over the next few years.
Registered Providers are assessed and rated by the Regulator of Social Housing to ensure that they effectively manage their affairs and have financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse financial scenarios. Fairhive has the top rated assessments from the Regulator of G1 for governance and V1 for financial viability.