Architecture for kids podcast with Charlotte Keime Senior Architect & Community Engagement Lead at Jestico + Whiles

Jestico + Whiles' Charlotte Keime joins us to discuss the practice's approach to mentoring, which focuses on working with young people from non-traditional backgrounds to build knowledge of the architecture and design industry where they have been historically underrepresented

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

you

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of Architecture for Kids podcast. I'm your host, António Cablão. I'm a trained architect, an architectural educator and founding director of award-winning Architecture for Kids CIC. In this podcast, I'm going to talk to practitioners and creatives that share the same passion as I do, to inspire and to engage children and young people to shape their built environment and the creative industries. The podcast is brought to you in collaboration with the Built Environment Trust, the Thornton Education Trust, and the Wells School of Architecture, Cardiff University. My guest today is Charlotte Kame. Charlotte is an integral part of the Senior Architects team, and since joining Jessica& Wilders in 2018, has been actively trying to marry her passion about the impact the built environment has on society with her day-to-day work. Her approach to architecture focus on people and their places, and alongside a project work, she dedicates the time leading Jessica and Wyla's community engagement. Community engagement and outreach are central to Jessica and Wyla's architect's ethos. In the past year, over a thousand hours have been dedicated to outreach programs, including several open city programs, being Matt and Fiona's industry champions, and mentoring students from sixth form to university. Charlotte, thank you for coming to talk to me today, and I'm very much looking forward to finding out more about the community engagement and outreach projects at Jessica& Wireless, such as the Open City Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, the Real World Reading Program, and the Barclay Promise.

SPEAKER_01: 2:00

Good afternoon, Antonio, and thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 2:03

What subjects were you good at at school? What were your favourites, if they were different?

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

That's an interesting one. I was particularly good at sciences, I guess, math in particular, but I had a specific interest in history. It was good as it, but yeah, I liked history. I liked the, I've always been interested in looking at the places and the context that those places grew from, understanding the, yeah, just, yeah, all the history behind places and the impact that that has on the way that people live their lives. It's always been something that's fascinated me.

SPEAKER_00: 2:38

And how did that inform your career choices?

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

Yeah, I don't think it had a specific influence. I think I was more kind of, when it came to choosing a topic or something to study and to work for the future, I kind of thought, what is it about these things that I like currently at school or in my life? And what are the communal common threads in them? And then the sort of jobs that that can lead towards. So with history, like I said, I liked understanding the context of places. buildings or how people live around so that kind of linked to the built environment and then I also realized I quite liked working with people being part of a team developing like working on a project with sciences I mentioned I liked I like physics I like all of these things which might not seem really relevant to architecture I guess but I liked the you work on a project and you kind of see how that develops and then you get an end result and then when you work on a building you are as part of a team and you kind of

SPEAKER_00: 3:41

build that project up. William you decided that architecture was what you were going to pursue?

SPEAKER_01: 3:46

16 or 17. So in my school, we had to do, I guess a lot of schools do this as well, but we had to do work experiences for a couple of weeks. So I was originally quite interested in education as well. So I went a couple of weeks into school and realized that although education really passionate to me, it wasn't something that I wanted to pursue as a job. And then I had a few, I knew a few people that I did study architecture or work as an architect or in the built environment. And I just really liked listening to how they described their day-to-day. It wasn't, they were going on site, they were talking to different people, either working in a team, both internally, but also loads of different consultants and clients. And it's not, yeah, I liked this. So then, yeah, I guess around 16, 17, then spoke to my teachers about it. They supported me with this, with the application process. And then university onwards.

SPEAKER_00: 4:43

Did you tell us a bit about your trajectory until where you are now with your careers?

SPEAKER_01: 4:48

Yeah, so university, it was like I expected in a way, but also there were some differences. It was, yeah, there was, you were a lot, at least in the universities I went to, we were a lot left to ourselves a lot more than I was used to, especially in the friend I went to a fresh school. So we are very, it's a very rigid educational system when you're at school. So being to university, we were in a lot more freedom. But yeah, so a couple of years of university for part one and then part two to different universities for both because I wanted the different approach. In my part two, I went to Sheffield specifically because of the social agenda that they focused on. And they offered the opportunity to work on life projects for both years of your master's. So you got to choose kind of the community. Again, you were part of a group and you worked as part of a community and you had a real project for, I think it was eight weeks that you worked and developed alongside this community. So the one that I worked for, that I really, really liked was working with communities on the outside, on the outskirts of Sheffield, mainly an immigrant community that had their community centre lost funding. So they needed some work to be done to that, both to restore the facilities. So as a group of students, we dedicated eight weeks working with them, getting funding, developing drawings and a master plan strategy on how and why this space should be kept and why it's important to the local area. First-hand experience on how, as architects or as built environment professionals, your work has such or can have a really strong impact on

SPEAKER_00: 6:29

people. So do you want to tell us a bit about, well, maybe to begin with, what's your role at Just Fun Wireless and, you know, and how you're developing the community and outreach work?

SPEAKER_01: 6:40

When I joined Just Fun Wireless over five years ago, I joined the company because I really aligned with their social values. They already were doing quite a lot of outreach programs. And then when I joined, so I joined as an architect and working mainly on the education sector, working on schools. Alongside that project work, I kind of took a leading role in those outreach program and coordinating, reaching out to other organizations, some of which I think you're discussing with as well as part of this this podcast series who will do really pretty good work trying to get some work with the youth and getting them involved in the built environment so yeah I've had quite a lot of freedom as part of my project work to develop these connections develop some programs and really try and have a positive impact there's quite a big variety of programs that we take part of there's a couple that you mentioned at the beginning. I guess the common theme along that is trying to diversify is the construction industry. So the SCND program, the Bullet Promise, and the Real World Learning program, they're the three kind of programs that focus on that aspect of diversifying the construction industry. So they're really interesting. Which process

SPEAKER_00: 8:03

are you working at the moment?

SPEAKER_01: 8:04

So the Open City SCND program, we've done it for three years now. The first one was in 2019. I mean, four years now. I personally, to me, it's one of my favorite ones. I find it really rewarding. The way that the program works, again, it's really nice because we're working with an artist and a musician. So it's got that side of things of exploring it through other senses that we don't necessarily do all the time. And that's really, really important when working with students with special educational needs and disabilities. So working with that musician and those artists was added another dimension to the program, which was really, really rewarding. And then we did a series of five workshops and an additional session, which was usually a building visit. So we tend to go to the design museum, for instance. And those workshops, there's always a common, there's a theme that just keeps a common thread throughout those workshops. So we've done build a home, for instance, that was one of our first one. And so we, through exploring textures and colors and reflections and So really playing with the senses, we look at what makes a home, what makes you feel comfortable and start exploring architecture in that way, which is a really interesting and I'd say quite unusual way of approaching it, which I really like. It's got its challenges, but I find it really rewarding.

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

That's specific. Where the idea came from to set up this project? Is it always a musician or is it a different type of art?

SPEAKER_01: 10:08

The idea for this program was, it came to us through Open City so we've been doing a lot of workshops with Open City that we take part of the Accelerate programs, the architecture in school programs so we already had quite a good relationship with them and at the time back in 2018, 2019 the contact that we were talking to was trying to set up this special educational needs and disabilities architecture in school program and she was for it to happen she obviously needed funding so she to get that funding agreed she needed to have architects and professionals like ourselves agreeing to dedicate the time and take part of the sessions to get that program running and luckily it all happened so they got funding for a couple of years and it's now 2023 so four years later still running and as far as I know it's going to keep going which I hope it does because it's a really good one.

SPEAKER_00: 11:07

How many children do you work in this program?

SPEAKER_01: 11:10

This program is about around 10 students. It's smaller than the other architecture in school programs that we take part in. The other ones would be more kind of an entire class or closer to 20-30 students. In the SCND architecture in school program it's reduced because you need a bit more dedicated attention to the students. So it's usually we've got two volunteers our end, a member of Open City, an artist and a musician alongside like 10, around 10 students.

SPEAKER_00: 11:44

And they are all London-based?

SPEAKER_01: 11:46

The ones we've taken part of are in London. Do

SPEAKER_00: 11:47

you have other kind of arts as well to participate in the program?

SPEAKER_01: 11:53

Yeah, so we always have two other professionals with us. There's always a musician and always a kind of visual artist, I guess, that does those of painting and drawings. But then these, from one year to the other, the specific of which musician and which visual artist it will it will vary so the team itself is not always going to be the same although we have worked with the same musician a couple of years but yeah it does we always have a musician visual arts architect kind of that core team and then the individual members and why the musicians interesting question I wondered the same when I read the program description if I'm honest it was I think because they the special educational needs respond to it's a way of communicating with them So we started the session always with a, he, the musician, he developed a kind of a welcome song along the theme of build a home. So there was an anchor point at every session. We started the session with that song. And then as the project, and same, we had an ending song as well. And as the project developed, it was, yeah, he, there was always a different, a different approach. He had a different approach to things. He would always relate things back to how they're heard which obviously we as architects we try and think about all of the different senses and how a space is experienced in every way but someone that is completely focused on the visual art of things or the visual aspect of things it brings another kind of always grinds you back to this aspect which is interesting and it's a really good communication tool with these students which I think is kind of the key point to these sessions is how you effectively communicate with them.

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

Keith's from very The

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

program, they do it in various schools, but each team, so the team of the architect, musician, etc., will always be, you'll do the series of five workshops with the same school. So you have that continuity with the students, which is very, very important because they need that connection. Even throughout the series of the five, six weeks that we work with them, we notice a difference on how comfortable the students will be from week one to week six there's already quite a big difference. So I think for the program to be successful, you do need it to be in the same school and try and create those links with the students.

SPEAKER_00: 14:24

What is the receptiveness to the project as well as what do you think is the impact that it has on them?

SPEAKER_01: 14:31

I think they generally seem to receive it quite well. So I'd say we've got to be really careful that they don't perceive it as something that's quite overwhelming because it's quite a specific... visual arts, creativity, architecture, it could be seen as a little bit niche. It's not necessarily something that is, I think, in the curriculum as much as it could be. So you need to approach it in a way that's not really seen as too overwhelming. But they respond to it really well generally. You can see the smile on their faces when you show them, I don't know, how the light will reflect on a specific kind of material. We always bring a foil or the light comes through some translucent materials we bring loads of material with us and when you play with those materials or have the children touch them and experiment with them well they one first that they use it in a way that you never thought to use it which is great to see and then they yeah they just seem really they seem to have a lot of joy and sometimes they'll realize something and you can see the pride in their face and it's just yeah I think it's really well received

SPEAKER_00: 15:43

we could talk a little bit now about the real world learning program so tell us a little bit what is that about

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

yeah so that's um that's another quite exciting one it's a new one for us it's the first year that we're taking part in this project in this program um so school 21 they um they're running this program uh and they've got it's not just built environment related they've got tons of different industries involved in it it can be some students have been to the met police or a bank or those are different things um built environment included. So when we first heard about this, we kind of thought that I guess the core value behind that program is they understand the value that a work experience has when you're a student at school. Having a work experience is really important because it gives you a first insight on what the day-to-day of a specific person in a specific industry is. Like I said at the beginning, I wanted to be a teacher. I did a work experience. I realized I I like education, but I don't want to do that specific job. So work experience are incredibly valuable. What School 21 is trying to do is they want to have a different spin from the standard one or two weeks. So a student might be kind of thrown into a workplace and they might work on a kind of a made belief brief, which is great. Those experiences are needed, but it's generally made belief specifically tailored for a work experience coming for a week or two. and then they get some support they get some training but it's not necessary although it gives the student an insight on the profession it's not necessarily resulting on in an end product that's of value to that the student can kind of show that they've worked that they've produced or that the practice can then reuse and so school 21 wanted to develop a work experience format that was of value to the student and to the practices which is why they stretched it over 14 weeks weeks. So the student come, we've got six students that we're working with. They come to our office two hours every Thursday afternoon and that gives them time to really work on a project from start to finish that we've developed for them. So in that specific case, we've asked them to do a post-occupancy evaluation of a school that we've built.

SPEAKER_00: 18:09

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01: 18:11

I thought you might have So post-occupancy evaluation, it's something that's really critical to an architect or anyone working in the building industry, really, especially in today's climate with all the climate change, et cetera. We need to really understand how the buildings that we're designing and building, are they actually performing both from a social and energy point of view as well? as they are intended to. And the only way you can really understand this is to go back to the building once it's been built and used, talk to its users and get information from them. Is it working as it should? Are they satisfied with the spaces? What's the energy consumption of the building? Are they like, yeah, just getting that understanding of how the building is performing. We as architects want to do that. to do a lot more of this. The students, they're still at school. They're sixth born. They're the sixth born mage. So they're familiar with the school environment. So we thought it would be good. And we, as I said, as a practice, design a lot of schools. So we thought that for them, it'll be good for them to be in a familiar environment, which is a school, the school space. They have first-time experience on what makes a school design successful, what they would like to see more of, what they would like to see less of, what, yeah, they're the end user. So we thought that was really relevant for them. So we contacted one of our world schools that we've designed and asked them if we could, along with those six students that are doing the work experience with us, come along and interview some of the teachers, some of the students, some of the staff, and film how the space is being used, gathering that data that would then create that post-occupancy evaluation and then the students would be back in our office and we'd kind of edit the footage with them and at the end of the 14 weeks they'll have a film to show for it and as a precursor to this obviously we're not just throwing the students into here do a post-occupancy evaluation of our building we've introduced them to school design what makes it successful also take ideas from them because like I said they're the keys of it. We kind of had a one-on-one session with one of our directors on, yeah, just all the, all the criterias that we're trying to do for school design. We, the project architect of that specific school that they're, they were evaluating, went on site with them at one of the early sessions and did a site visit of what the design intent was so that when the students come to actually evaluating it, they've got all of that information and knowledge of what the design was intended to be so they can ask the right question and then form an opinion as to what could have been made better, what was successful, what worked well. And then for us as a practice, then we've got some data on how we can improve future school designs, which is really important information.

SPEAKER_00: 21:28

And I think what is interesting as well about that project is the medium that you chose to kind of work with, which is the video, creates that incentive. At the same time, they're going to learn also another new skill, because even if architecture doesn't become it, they could be become videographers you know so it's an interesting kind of combination of multidisciplinary kind of approach.

SPEAKER_01: 21:50

Yeah no completely and I think one of the key things like I touched on when we spoke about the SEND architecture in school program is whenever you work with young kids you need to really find the best way to communicate with them so that they stay engaged and so with the SEND program it was one way with the school 21 real world learning program that was another way because one they're older and they've got different interests and I think in today's climate phones and filming and recording the visual arts has placed such a big importance it has such a big role and it's something that they really connect with so that was one way to engage with them and then like you say it might not mean that they end up being architects but they have seen how architecture I think it gave them a good kind of overview of those different aspects of architecture. It gave them a review of the school design on how filming can be used as a tool in architecture to communicate some ideas. It gave them an understanding of what post-occupancy evaluation is, which is important just generally. Editing skills is something that they'll learn as well. How to interview someone effectively in one of the sessions before the students go to the school and do the interview, kind of the final interview. We did some tests with them of what sort of questions would be useful to ask, how do you want to ask them, the sort of posture, etc. So our office is near the Barbican, so two of my colleagues went with the six students in the Barbican, and they stopped people in the space and started asking them questions, and that was great actually, because one of the, funny enough, one of the person they stopped to interview was a a reporter at the BBC so I had great knowledge onto all of the filming and was able to give them loads of tips and they were really yeah they were really interested in that whole session and they came back with loads of ideas on how they can tweak the questions for the future for their own interview sessions later on so it's really really interesting and quite

SPEAKER_00: 24:02

a varied set of skills. So a Bartlett Promise scholarship so tell us a little bit about who can apply or how does

SPEAKER_01: 24:09

that work? That was developed in 2020 alongside, well, alongside the ballot, they, again, with the idea to try and diversify the construction industry. So we at Jessica and Miles are funding one person's entire bachelor's degree. And so giving someone the opportunity to go to university that might not have the opportunity otherwise, because it's an expensive, yeah, it's an expensive route, unfortunately. So yeah, opening a route to some who might not have this opportunity otherwise, which is really, really important. I mean, I think like most people, I'm sure everyone should have equal access to education and it's such a shame that just cost is what's holding you back. So we're doing our bit to try and open doors to someone. But in addition to this, we're also offering, we're not just doing financial help. The person that we're mentoring will have access to our office throughout the entire degree meant train our facilities they can come and work in our studio so they not only get access to the education but they also get the insight of what actually the role of an architect is which sometimes you can study a subject and when you come to you finish your studies you get your degree and you get your first job and you realize that actually it's not at all like what you expected or what you've been told at university and it can be quite of a shock for some people so having this this introduction to what actually the day-to-day role of what you're studying is is invaluable and that's I think that's a really really important program and they've got a designated mentor that they can talk to in the office and so they're not just kind of thrown into this big space of we're quite quite large-scale office it's about 75 75 of us so it can be quite intimidating for someone to just walk in there so they've got this point of contact they can you print they can use the printing facilities we've got a model making They use the laser cutting facilities. Yeah, so there's kind of two sides of it. There's the financial help to open the doors to the person, but then there's the ongoing support throughout their education, which is,

SPEAKER_00: 26:25

yeah. You also interior designers. Do you do the same for interior design?

SPEAKER_01: 26:28

We do offer work experiences. So the Barlet Promise is a specific scholarship that we're talking about because it's kind of, it's a big one. We're offering mentoring for mentoring and funding for an entire degree but then we have both in the architecture and interiors studios we constantly have work experience students that come both from just people that we know of or that we went to university with or friends of etc or it can be speculative we sometimes get a message from someone saying hi I'm looking to apply at university in architecture I'm not quite sure if it's really something I want to do could I come for a week in your studio and I If we have the availability, by that I mean if we don't currently have another work experience, then we will open our doors and then support them.

SPEAKER_00: 27:21

Is there a question I should have asked you that I haven't asked you? And what is that question?

SPEAKER_01: 27:26

We as individuals taking part in these programs take from it. I can only speak for myself or the feedback that I get from the people, my colleagues that take part, but just generally it's just incredibly rewarding. I know that for me, just seeing that light in the students' eyes when they realize what they've done or when they work something out, that's great. Or some... we spoke about the SCND program, Architecture in School, but we also do it in mainstream schools. And I don't know, I remember it's such a silly example, but because they were quite young, you can't go through the basics of what is, like, how do you get light into a building? What is an architect? Or transparency, openings, all of these things. And there was this seven-year-old that just raised his hand and started talking to me about blueprints. I was like, how do you know about blueprints? I don't know. I think you're too little. But he was so passionate about it because his dad was redoing their house and he'd kind of seen the plans laying on the table and he started being interested in it. And I guess that, yeah, you don't realize how they're sponges. These young people, they're absolute sponges. So everything that they see, whether you're aware of it or not, they will absorb it and retain it. And it's got such an impact wherever, whatever we do around them has such a big impact. So I find that particularly rewarding. being part of that journey and having it. Thanks for having me, António.

SPEAKER_00: 28:54

Thank you very much to my guests today, to all the listeners. And please subscribe to Architecture for Kids podcast and leave your rating and the review. Recommend us to your friends and family. And to find out more about it, visit our websites, antoniocaplan-portfolio.co.uk, buildingcenter.co.uk, thorntoneducationtrust.org, Thank you very much.