High School students design ‘nurture centre’

Not content with recently being awarded the Northern Ireland and European Innovative Teaching Award from Microsoft, Mr David Young Technology teacher from Limavady High, is in the midst of another project involving his pupils from the Year 13 Graphic Products class.

Their company ‘Infinity Architecture’ have unveiled a spectacular ‘Nurture Centre’ for Oakgrove Integrated Primary School which they have designed and modelled themselves. This innovative project is to help the children in the centre gain the life skills they so badly need in a building designed for their needs. With a specially designed layout and working closely to the client brief they were given, the Year 13 team have come up with a very innovative building.

Their hope is to replace the existing out of date portacabin with their state of the art design. They have received the support of the Senior Cultural Programmer, Mr Martin Melarkey and the ‘City of Culture’ team as well as the MP, Mark Durkan. Both individuals are very keen to see the project built to full scale and were very impressed by the design, particularly as it is pupils from a local school behind the plan. Furthermore, John Peto and his team who run the local ‘Fab Lab’, which provide local solutions for local problems, hope to manufacture a full scale model of the building using their new 3D equipment.

This project has also involved five local primary schools sharing their ideas in a design competition to help our pupils further their understanding of what was needed in a building designed for younger children. ‘Infinity Architecture’ thanks Ballykelly Primary, Cumber Claudy Primary, Roe Valley Integrated Primary, Drumrane Primary and Drumachose Primary for their inspiring ideas related to the project. And not content with the above, they have also commissioned the GCSE Graphic Products team ‘Ergo Designs’ to model the interior of the building!

This project shows education can be at the forefront of design as Mr David Young and the Technology department at Limavady High push the boundaries and strive to make their subject extremely relevant to the real world.