About the event

We're excited to be hosting a brand new free summer school in furniture design with London-based art school Store! Designer and material scientist, Georgemma Hunt, and designer-builders, Flimsy, will join the students to experiment with materials made from wetland plants, and to design and prototype functional, playful furniture.

“Deep in the Cambridgeshire fens, where wild wetlands once supported rich biodiversity and stored carbon, the land has now been altered into a dry arable farm-scape. Draining the Fens causes the decomposition of 1-2cm of peat every year. This incredible carbon sink is being lost 10-20 times faster than it has historically been built up.

Paludiculture (farming on wetter peaty soils) promises new hope. It balances the demands of modern agriculture with the need to reduce carbon emissions. Researchers are investigating several wetland crops that can be farmed on wet peat soils and used in novel applications across industries including textiles, construction and design."

This is a free, four-day furniture making workshop at the Ramsey Heights Nature Reserve using natural materials. Over the course of four days, you will learn about how biobased materials are driving landscape regeneration across farms in the Fens. Join us on a journey from crop to chair (and table). Look forward to experimenting with bio-composite materials from wetland plants and prototyping functional, playful furniture pieces.

We will be using materials constructed from crops harvested at European paludiculture farms. These are plants that grow in wet peat, meaning the peat is protected from drying out, oxidising and contributing to climate change.

This event is for you if you are age 14-18, attend a state school, interested in design/furniture, material science/development and architecture. 

To book, please email school@storeprojects.org. 

Georgemma Hunt is a designer and material scientist undertaking a PhD within the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) at the University of East London. Georgemma is working with The Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs and Northants to research how crops grown at our wet-farming trials in the Great Fen can be transformed into a low-carbon multifunctional building material. Read more about this project in her blog.

Flimsy are designer-builders who make spaces that connect communities to the natural environment, developing designs closely with end-users and for self-builders. Their projects make the most of existing or readily-available materials, arranging these with care to make playful structures that touch the earth lightly and tell stories about places and the people who use them. 

STORE is an association of artists, architects and designers working between London and Rotterdam towards a common goal: supporting more young people from underrepresented backgrounds applying to creative courses, and addressing the social imbalance in art, design and architecture education. STORE projects comprise three core elements: an educational programme, socially engaged practice and diverse public events.