Learning Through Making: GRAS at Leith Academy

For the past two years, GRAS have been working to develop an educational outreach initiative with Leith Academy, a local comprehensive high school. This has been an incredibly rewarding venture for the members of the GRAS team that have volunteered their time. Leith serves a diverse area of the city and there are often social and economic barriers for students looking to study architecture. We are keen to share our experience and provide guidance on alternative routes into the architectural profession.

As we look forward to the start of the new school year, we want to take time to reflect on the workshops that we have undertaken. In February 2024, Charlie Porter and Catriona Wright hosted a model making workshop with the S5/S6 Creative Thinking class. The students were working on a ‘Van of Dreams’ project, designing a community space in a converted van. We spent time with each student to provide advice on their design proposal and how best to present the concept in the form of an architectural model. Andrew Morgan, Catriona Wright and Jessica Gear returned to the Creative Thinking class in March 2025 to host another workshop. We were once again struck by the creativity of the students as we reviewed inventive designs for various characters including a musician, a gamer, a martial arts instructor, a plumber and a fashion designer.

In August 2024, GRAS hosted a site model making workshop which involved several classes. The students worked in groups to create one large site model which could be used as context for their individual proposal, a café in the school grounds. The workshop touched on site analysis, thinking about sun paths, trees, access and users.

The 2025/26 school year will see GRAS return to Leith Academy to provide further input. The Design Engineer Construct (DEC) course is a national programme that provides students with a route to gain formal qualifications in building and infrastructure design. GRAS will be working with the school to identify potential brownfield sites for a sustainable classroom and share some of the community engagement knowledge that we have gained through our own projects.

The team have thoroughly enjoyed sharing what we do with the students of Leith Academy. It has been fantastic to hear that some students are now considering careers in the built environment. The aim of the initiative is to share our professional knowledge, but we also want to learn from the perspectives of young people approaching our industry for the first time.

Andrew Morgan, Catriona Wright, Charlie Porter, Jessica Gear and Dr Stewart Stirling.