Architecture for kids podcast with Joshua Brooks Architect & Learning Manager at the Royal Institute of British Architects

With several years of experience as an architect in the education sector, and currently serving as the Learning Manager at RIBA, I have had the privilege of witnessing the truly gratifying sight of children engaging with architecture and the built environment. I am immensely grateful to accept Antonio's invitation to join this Podcast series, as I hope to inspire fellow professionals in the industry to embrace outreach programs aimed at educating children and young individuals about this crucial subject matter.

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

you

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of Architecture for Kids podcast. I'm your host, António Cablón. 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 Joshua Brooks. Joshua is a fully qualified architect living in Cardiff and is currently working at the Royal Institute of British Architects as the learning manager after working as an architect in practice for nearly five years. As a hybrid worker, he travels to London one or two times a week as well as other locations around the country and is responsible for leading the national schools programs at RIBA, creating and delivering innovative projects that aim to inform and inspire children and young people about the role they can have in shaping the spaces that they live, learn, work and play. Joshua, thank you for coming to talk to me today and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here on a lovely day in Cardiff, Antonio.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

What subjects were you good at school and what's Subjects did you enjoy most?

SPEAKER_00: 1:45

Subjects that I always enjoyed were non-academic subjects, so things kind of using my hands, design technology, art, even a little bit of drama, I guess, but maths, English and languages, history, not so much either. More practical subjects for sure. And how did that influence your academic studies

SPEAKER_01: 2:03

around

SPEAKER_00: 2:03

Korea? I've met a lot of architects in recent years, however many years, and I always find that a lot of people tend to know that they want to be architects from a young age or primary school or their dad was an architect or something like that for me personally I wasn't really exposed to architecture at a young age I didn't know anything about it I didn't really know it existed it didn't really spark until I went to college I went to school I did my GCSEs and for the benefit of this podcast it's probably worth saying that I didn't do very well in my GCSEs whatsoever which meant I couldn't go and do A levels like a lot of my friends that meant I went to my local college in Leamington Spa and I studied 3D design because as I mentioned I loved doing practical subject, making models and animation and things. So 3D design at college kind of catered for all these kind of modules and subjects, interior design, animation, graphics, illustration, even pottery making. And architecture was one of these subjects as well. And when I came to that point at the end of the two years, what do I want to do at university? Suddenly I was there applying for UCAS and I was like, well, I really enjoyed the architect module. It was a module based on architecture. We learned how all about sections, plans that are based I think I designed, I maybe designed a cafe at the time. We were quite fortunate to have this amazing workshop where I got to make models, a number of models, and I think that was where I kind of really excelled and I ended up getting a really good grade for that in the end, which enabled me to study architecture at university. For all those reasons above, I guess that's what led me to choose to do architecture at Portsmouth University.

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

When you started studying architecture at university, did the course match your expectations? Was it completely different?

SPEAKER_00: 3:39

Was it more challenging? For me personally, I was the first person to go to university in my family and then even at GCSE age I didn't really consider going to university it was never really spoken about I guess in my circle to be quite honest I had no expectations whatsoever university especially that first year was mind opening on a whole different number of levels basically but the course itself didn't have any expectations everything I did it was all very practical in the first year and very conceptual which I really enjoyed and it was a lot of it was using hands making models coming up with concepts and getting used to working in teams basically and team workshop. For me, yeah, I didn't expect much. I didn't know what to expect, but it was great. When you were

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

describing your study, I was thinking of when I do work with kids, our amazing model makers. And when I say to the teachers, this people or that people, they were really amazing. They're the best. Teachers get really shocked because they are bad at the subject of the curriculum.

SPEAKER_00: 4:32

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 4:33

me too, personally, when I was that age as well. How did your work as an architect pan out? And projects were you involved with?

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

I graduated from a part two And I got a job at a local practice in kind of Portsmouth Ferrum area, which was an eye-opening experience. And then for a number of other reasons, I kind of moved to Cardiff and moved to a more renowned architecture practice. And I was brought in as a part two. And I started in the healthcare sector, which after, I guess, a number of months, kind of quickly realised I wasn't truly passionate about it. And I spoke with my director at the time and was asked to be moved to the education sector, because I think at that time I might have had some dealings with some outreach projects. programme. I can't remember what spurred me on to go to education. I'd done something with the school and I really enjoyed teaching people about architecture and it kind of filled this, I guess, this little hole in me. From then on, I guess for the following number of years, I worked in education and retrofitting for projects at Cardiff University, did some work in this building. I moved on for retrofitting into new builds, designing schools, mentored quite significantly by my peers at the time, which was great. And then I used one of those projects to do my case study for my part three. And it was then doing research for that project. where I was starting to understand a lot more about myself and what my passions were, especially in education and teaching.

SPEAKER_01: 5:49

You carried on in practice and you now joined RIBA. But you are already working with RIBA. You're part of the school program as an ambassador.

SPEAKER_00: 5:56

Yeah, once I became fully qualified, which was probably about three and a half, four years ago. As I say, the more schools I worked on, they kind of had these social value initiatives with a lot of schools. So it means you kind of have to do these outreach programs at some of these schools that you design or you're a part of. I would always put my hands up to get involved in those things. and did a fair number of them, not off my own back, obviously under the architect's at the time name and went to schools to teach these children about what an architect is and tell them all about their new exciting school, which always went down really well. Really, really, really enjoyed doing that work, probably arguably more so than perhaps my day job, which led to me understanding this new passion I had. That led me to, I can't remember how the circumstances came about, but I came in contact with REBA and for the last 18 months before this job, I was doing a number of outreach programs with REBA based in Cardiff and the surrounding areas. And again, the more and more I did them, the more and more I became passionate about wanting to teach the next generation about architecture and the built environment. And it was just, I'd go home with a smile on my face. And I felt I'd done something worthy of my time in that day. Why do you think it had that impact on you? Personally, I think it comes down to not my upbringing, but my experience of being in the school when I was younger and not having these opportunities. Again, like I said at the beginning, I wasn't aware of architecture. I wasn't aware of all the jobs in the construction industry. was very much one directional. And when you spoke to a careers advisor, it'd be, did my work experience at a skateboarding shop. There wasn't much outside of that. I think being able to take part in these workshops and teach children about architecture and all the other jobs in the construction industry makes me feel passionate about it because I can relate to not having that experience when I was their age. That's probably, I think, where it stems from, at least anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 7:35

Let's talk about your role as a RIBA learning manager.

SPEAKER_00: 7:39

Yes. At some point last year, I was starting to realize what my passions were and what my future should be and I guess you know I start to think about exactly what I want in my career in my professional life and trying to think about what truly makes me happy and again these outreach programs I was doing review at the time for one reason or another it just got to a point where I thought wow I'm slowly falling out of love of being an architect and falling more in love with teaching and becoming more passionate about working with young children basically and for a good while I was in a bit of a headspace that I didn't really understand I know I want to teach I know I want to still be an architect or being an architect, but I just didn't know what that job looked like. I didn't know if it existed. It was a bit of a, not a testing time, but it was just a time where I just, I really wanted to do something else, but I didn't know what that was. And I knew I didn't just want to go to another architecture practice, which was the important thing for me. I was on Twitter one day and I saw AI had read my mind or something like that because the brief of this job was virtually everything I was looking for. I applied for the job and rethinking I get it, not thinking too much into it. The interview, and then all of a sudden I was working as an architect on a Friday. and started as REBA Learning Manager on the Saturday. It came about very sharply, very quickly. Tell us about this role. As the REBA Learning Manager, I run the National Schools Programme. I'm about a few different themes. The main theme being the Architecture Ambassadors Programme, whereby I have practices, well, actually, schools either approach me or us via our website, where they want to have basically architecture workshops for their children in whatever year group. It could be Key Stage 1, 2, 3, even colleges. And I aim to link those schools that come to us with architects local to them in their area and that could be kind of anywhere in the country I think the majority that I've done so far have been in London but we've done well in my short time we've done some in Birmingham one in Bristol and a couple in Newcastle as well that's the architecture ambassadors program which I try to go to one school on a weekly basis and it's basically trying to teach children about architecture and the built environment whereby the architects who come along who are locals to these schools develop workshops either based on the national curriculum by which we have conversations with the teacher before these workshops happen to make sure that everyone's on the same page but sometimes they can just be one-off architecture workshops teaching children straight up about architecture but sometimes it can be linked to the curriculum could be about greek architecture egyptian architecture and romans etc the main core of what i've been doing and what i will be doing for the next academic year in particular i also run the raba youth forum the youth forum is a group of young teenagers who have got an interest in architecture and they see it as my job to help and ignite that slight interest or that slight passion for architecture and meet once a month on a Saturday for a few hours whereby I aim to do either fun workshops with them, either collaborating with other architects or other interesting things that are going on in London, obviously based on architecture and hopefully help inspire them. But obviously I've only been there a short time. We've only done one so far. I was aimed to just a bit of an icebreaker session at the RABA at 66 Portland Place just to let everyone meet each other, learn about who our favourite architects are, what we're going to be doing for the next year. And I think the aim towards the end of that kind of year that this cohort is currently a part of. I want to be able to help give them support, writing their CVs, getting their portfolios ready for university and things like that. This is something that we do and we will do every year, but this is from May. This is kind of the new cohort. What are their age groups? Sorry, yeah, 16 to 18 year old and there's 17 of them. And it's been really fun because I just think that they're a perfect age where you can really help inspire them to get into architecture and not necessarily even architecture, into the construction industry in some way and just making evidence that If they study architecture at university, be it the first three years, undergrad, it doesn't mean you have to be an architect and do those seven. However, let's be honest, it's never really seven years. That initial undergraduate course opens up the door to so many different

SPEAKER_01: 11:25

other careers. Someone is thinking about architecture. At the moment, you study three years as part one. You have one year, year out, which you go and practice at a practice and come back and you do two more years. Some places, they get a diploma. Some, they go with a master's. You get your pre-beta part two equivalent and you go and work for a practice for maybe a year or two and do your part three and you become a fully qualified architect.

SPEAKER_00: 11:46

On paper, when you see that written down, it's seven years. I have to say, I think I might have only come across one, maybe two people in my short career as an architect, at least anyway, who have managed to do it in the seven years. Usually it is longer and I think that can be quite off-putting, especially to younger people. When you start to talk about architecture, you say, right, it's going to be seven years, but actually it could be longer. I think that's why I make the point of saying just because seven, eight years doesn't mean you necessarily have to do that. You can just do those first three years and just see where your passions lie and if architecture is something that you feel passionate about then you can absolutely carry on and go the additional extra years and do the year out and do the masters otherwise you can go and practice as an interior designer you can go and practice

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

there's so many I mean for me it took me 10 years and I never did part 3 I will not do part 3 but between part 1 and part 2 I took 2 years out one to work in a building site and another one to work in an architectural practice and then I came back to do part 2 and I failed the first year and to study so it took me three years to do the two years. By the time I was done was 10 years and it was a long dive.

SPEAKER_00: 12:47

And I can understand that. I think what I, I don't know if it's my personality as such. Arguably, I would advise that once you've done your year out after your part one, just get straight into part two and just do it because I fear for myself and I think I've seen it happen to other people. You take another year out and you might take another year out and then you might take a bit more and then it's that painful thought having to go back to university, do it again. I would always try and say just...

SPEAKER_01: 13:10

But I didn't know what I was drawing That's why I had to go and work in construction because I did not know how things were put together. I couldn't really design because I couldn't make things. I need to have an hands-on experience. I need to go to a building site and see how this building is put together in order for me to understand what I'm drawing. And I don't regret it. 10 years is a long time, I know, but I don't regret it because I did lots of stuff. And I always run my own little project. I had clients. First year, I was already doing planning applications and loft conversions and things.

SPEAKER_00: 13:40

I think you make such a good point about you know you said you did a year in construction I'm not necessarily sure at my university we did much it is fairly technical based but I think a lot of universities some that I'm aware of are far more conceptual a little bit more kind of pie in the sky and don't ready those students enough for those practice environments and especially detailing and things like that but yeah I think that construction experience obviously helped you and I think should be part of the university curriculum or whatever you want to call it especially in those first three years as undergrad if not especially a master's it needs to be a part of it absolutely One

SPEAKER_01: 14:12

of my students this year, she's first year and she's been working in a practice and she came back to me and said, I still don't know how to put things together. I said, look, you need to go to a construction site. For her, as a female, it'll be much harder. First is the hurdle of women architects, but in terms of construction, it'll be much harder. And I think the university or the curriculum should look into that kind of scenarios. And to RIBA learning, are you doing workshops that people can access online or everything is in person?

SPEAKER_00: 14:39

No, no, no. It's a little bit of both. I've got a lot of online resources especially for teachers to be able to take a number of topics that are based on the curriculum the English curriculum in particular there's a lot more especially as I say for teachers there's also a lot of online resources for younger people and children who want to learn about architecture at home but we also got a coordinator who's Elizabeth she runs a lot of online workshop whereby you can learn about architecture online she also does and runs a lot of skill up workshops again where children or young people can come along to 66 Portland Place and learn about architecture and person and I think additional to my role we also have the CLAW learning space at 66 Portland Place which is an amazing teaching space that has been kind of newly prefurbished by CLAW and out to the CLAW as similar to the architecture ambassadors so for the CLAW sessions teachers sign up to bring their schools and their year groups into the CLAW into 66 Portland Place and we give them a little bit of a whirlwind tour of the building because obviously it's an amazing building for me to work in is amazing but also as a young child I can just imagine entering that building this would be quite amazing it's kind of where we start off and then we base our workshops on the exhibition at the time that we have at RIBA or we go up to the floor learning space and we'll we base the workshops obviously on the age of the children.

SPEAKER_01: 15:48

And what are the activities that you do on those workshops?

SPEAKER_00: 15:51

Everything that I do I introduce architecture and what an architect is just a little bit about myself so I can start to relate to the children the younger people a little bit more again if they're slightly old children we'll teach them a little bit about plan section elevations but we usually we always do model making in some format because when I was at school when I was at college at university model making was just where I truly excelled and also just it just helped me understand what I was designing and how things went together so again for these children I think model making is the most useful format for them to understand architecture and they evidently absolutely love it and it creates absolute carnage in the floor and in the classrooms but I love it the kids love it maybe the teachers maybe don't love it as much but I'm sure they love that their children are so excited about a particular subject One of the things that I would

SPEAKER_01: 16:37

like to find out a bit more about is why mainly London as well as if there's a plan to go nationwide and How has things evolved? I know you are relatively new in the position, but I'm sure you will have an understanding of how things evolved since RIBA set out this program, which I think was 2015 or 2016, until now.

SPEAKER_00: 16:56

As I say, it's mainly in London. There was, 18 months or so ago, there was a slightly or significantly bigger learning team. We're able to cover a lot more of the country, a lot more of other things outside of children and young people. We did communities and other things. That isn't necessarily so much anymore. The learning team is essentially myself and Elizabeth, who is our coordinator. Capacity is probably the biggest issue. And I think a lot of the interest that we do get is from London schools being that the REBA is obviously based in London, especially with those course sessions. We do have, as I mentioned, a number that have fallen outside of London in the north, the environment there. I think during my time there, especially for the next academic year, I'd like to try and branch out as much as I reasonably can. But if there are schools that have signed up on a website that we haven't been able to do an ambassador session before, it's a little bit of first come first serve basis as well. Because I wouldn't want to say no to a school just because they're in London and I want to do one somewhere else. else. But I think I am conscious that I would like to do more outside of London, especially kind of more towards this way. If I could do any in Cardiff, that would be absolutely great. But I think I know it's something that me and my team are conscious of. But again, I think it relates mostly to the team used to be much, much bigger. And why was that reduction in the team? Can't say for sure, because I know probably a little bit of a tricky subject, but I think it was probably due to the pandemic, to be quite frank.

SPEAKER_01: 18:07

When you are designing the school programs, there is some alignment with the curriculum. Is it certain programs or is the school Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 18:16

when we start these ambassador sessions, the contact will either come from the school or I will contact the school. Nine times out of ten, the school contacts us. Once I find an architect ambassador local to them, either via Teams or in person, although they are mostly Teams, we'll have a discussion. So I act as a little bit of a mediator between the architect and the teacher and just help formulate the workshop and help formulate an understanding between the architect and the teacher. One of the first questions I will always ask is, at what point in time do you want this workshop? Which will mean, because that back point in time will relate them back to you. the teacher's curriculum during the academic year and if it falls at a certain time where as i say for example they're learning about egyptians then obviously we're going to do something based on egyptian architecture if it happens to be a little bit of not a slow play period in between the curriculum where the teacher feels like they just want to learn about architecture and just do some model making and just do something a bit different basically it comes from those initial conversations it derives mostly from the teachers basically whether they want to base these workshops on their curriculum or whether they want to just do an architecture workshop that's just either based on sustainable or just architecture in general. I'd say it's about 50-50, to be fair. Is

SPEAKER_01: 19:17

children and youth engaged outreach work, do you think

SPEAKER_00: 19:20

it's on the rise? That's hard for me to say, I think, considering I haven't been in the job long. But I tell you what, there is a lot of interest. There is already quite a lot, I think, in terms of capacity. And we do have to say no on a number of occasions, unfortunately, as much as we want to say yes. I would probably say it's on the up, to be honest. Because I think the more the teachers talk with their teacher friends or people in the industry, oh, we've done this workshop with Rebirth, it kind of gets round.

SPEAKER_01: 19:44

yeah, more interest coming out. Do you think the curriculum in general, let's say the national curriculums in general, could they do be doing more creating this interest in outreach work with children and young people about the built environment?

SPEAKER_00: 19:58

Yeah, absolutely. And again, you know, it's not even just about architecture, it's about the built environment, it's about the children's local communities, this awareness of their surroundings and helping children to feel like they've had a say in something in their surrounding area. And with these workshops, they're mostly based on architecture, but you could easily focus them on other subjects whether they're in town planning history and things like that I think I would argue that the children learn a lot more from doing practical subjects than probably core based curriculum as much as they probably obviously do learn from that I think there is a massive gap in the curriculum particularly in England with regards to practical workshops and teaching children about the built environment but I think what's most important is teaching them about the built environment around them and helping them to understand their local communities helping them to understand how the buildings that they that they use on a daily basis are used and how certain things affect perhaps the way they feel or the way people use.

SPEAKER_01: 20:47

Yeah, work on their local identicals, which is very important. What do you think, in your opinion, needs to shift?

SPEAKER_00: 20:52

As you said at the start of this short bit, it's becoming a little bit more progressive and understanding that children learn a lot from doing these, not only these outreach programs, but also collaborating either with other professionals, not only in the construction industry, but other industries as well. And I think that helps them have people to look up to. It helps them have role models and not so much learning about things that arguably they might not use in their later life if that makes

SPEAKER_01: 21:16

sense. Absolutely project-based learning because it's the way you learn best and you learn about the things that interest you and that is most important. True though, project-based learning is exactly what the curriculum needs more of, 100%. What, in your view, is the impact of having children involved in the shaping of the built environment and how do you manage that relationship between the city experts and the experts of the city, the term by Jeremy Till?

SPEAKER_00: 21:42

I think it's just exposure, more and anything exposed on them. I mentioned before their local communities and their local surroundings. And the younger they are, when they have an understanding of that, when they're older, they care about it more. They care more about their environments and where they live and their local communities. Arguably, at the moment, there isn't such a focus on that. There's a lot of antisocial behavior and things like that because children don't necessarily care or have learned about their local communities and things like that. If it was brought in at an earlier age, more of an understanding for younger children especially, I think it would have a much, much bigger impact for them growing up. having that awareness and understanding of their local communities and, as you say, of the built environment. Is there a

SPEAKER_01: 22:19

question I should have asked, I haven't asked? And if so, what is that question?

SPEAKER_00: 22:23

Yeah, good question. You could ask me how I find it moving from purely office environment to hybrid working between London and Cardiff, perhaps. I think that was probably part of the reason why I felt like I needed to change as well. I think I had grown so used to an office environment that's in front of a cube computer, you know, almost every day. So then obviously going to the pandemic and working from home... And then I just got more and more used to working from home to the point where I was working at home too much. I think I would roll out of bed and just go straight on my laptop or computer. There was a consensus at my practice at the time, try and come in as much as you could. I don't think it was laziness as such. It was just, I don't know what it was, but... It just got more convenient. I think it's convenient, but I think it was maybe just a little bit of a lack of passion. I don't know. I think it is probably more related to that. I didn't go into the office so much and I was stagnating on my own. I knew I had to go in, but I didn't. And I was just in this headspace going from that to being in london once or twice a week to traveling only working from home really once or twice a week because i'll be out and about it's been totally refreshing for me personally and also my mental health to be quite honest me i speak with a different person almost every day or people every day i meet different people almost every week and this job there's quite a lot to it there's so much to it that doesn't allow me time to overthink which i think personally i kind of really appreciate at this moment i'm really enjoying the work life i've worked in london before a London. I'm fairly confident travelling around London and all those things. I really enjoy just meeting new people and I think the one thing that really spurs me on and keeps me sane at this point in time is just the passion from the people that I work with also wanting to do things for good, for wanting to teach people and younger people about architecture. It's always a positive outcome of every meeting I have and everyone I meet. It's always wanting to do something positive and I think that makes me. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 24:11

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 cardiff.ac.uk and follow us on Instagram Arch for Kids Thank you.