About the Minecraft Street Builders
The Minecraft Street Builders aimed to improve the skills, confidence, and experience of highways engineers so they can meaningfully engage with the diverse communities they design for. Also encourage young people to discover and engage with highways engineering so they understand the impact and relevance of the profession.
The project focused on children’s designs based on the theory that “children are a kind of indicator species, if we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for everyone” – Enrique Penalosa.
Sustrans has linked 17 engineers from 3 London boroughs (Newham, Hounslow, and Haringey) with a diverse range of year 9 students from their area so they can learn from each other how to design their dream streets, using Minecraft.
In September 2023, Sustrans delivered a training workshop for engineers which included:
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Designing for different users: considering how people with different identities and needs experience public space, and how this and other factors influence their travel mode choices.
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Benefits of engagement and co-design.
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Best practice engagement process and methods.
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Skills and facilitation tips for working with young people.
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Minecraft as an example of digital engagement.
After this training, an interactive workshop was arranged with 30 year 9 students in each borough, where engineers and councillors met young people and heard about their needs and wants when it comes to street design. By using Minecraft as a tool to design, young people quickly became the design experts as they created their dream streets. Engineers listened to the students, while providing design support and assistance.
These workshops were an opportunity for young people to meet engineers and learn about their role in the communities they serve. Students learned about the design process and its creativity, people-centred focus, and intrinsic ties to wellbeing. This also led to increased awareness of career paths from STEM subjects at GCSEs.
Key outcomes
The outcome was that engineers became aware of the creativity and relevance of young people’s ideas and gained confidence to meaningfully engage with them in future projects. Young people have been listened to and inspired by professionals, raising awareness of the importance of street design and career paths.
The students have had exhibited their designs to the school and wider community and engineers have expressed an interest to bring these students into future projects being delivered by the borough.
