Foster and Partners work with local children at Telferscot Primary
School for Big Arts Week.

Foster and Partners volunteered to run a week-long architecture programme at Telferscot Primary School, London this week.

Part of the nation-wide Big Arts Week initiative that connects the creative industries with local children, the programme will enable the children to design buildings and structures for eight contrasting sites. Ranging from a desert sanctuary, to an underwater building and a
flying house, these creative projects aim to help the children celebrate and value the arts - to inspire the talent of tomorrow.

Foster and Partners has been involved in Big Arts Week since it began three years ago. It has since involved over 8,000 schools, 4,600 creative professionals and 150,000 young people. From 20 - 24 June 2005 a wide range of creatives, including musicians, visual artists, photographers and designers, have volunteered to share time with local children. Addressing the need to complement the often minimal arts education provided in most schools, Big Arts Week is a bid to provide children with an stimulating introduction to the creative world.

Foster and Partners' creative project involves 8 classes of 30 children. Each class will be given a site model, with space for a new building or structure. These consist of varying climates and topographies - a mountain, a riverside location, a desert, a seaside environment, an urban quarter, an underwater or floating site, an air-bound space, and a dense forest. The children visited the practice at the beginning of the week as an introduction to the programme.

Lord Foster and Partner, Narinder Sagoo, will subsequently visit the school to oversee the projects. Working in small teams, the children will be encouraged to develop ideas by drawing sketches and plans, and finally building models to place on their 'sites'. The week will culminate in a prize giving to the best of the 8 schemes.