DESIGN STUDIO
Where Ideas Take Shape.
A hands-on design studio for curious minds aged 7–12.
Children explore space, materials, nature and stories through designing, making, testing and rethinking.
"DESIGN IS NOT ABOUT GETTING THE RIGHT ANSWER.
It's about learning how to explore an idea."
WHAT HAPPENS IN A POTABELLA DESIGN STUDIO?
A Design Studio is a place to think with your hands.
Each project begins with a question, a material, a story, a place or a problem.
Children investigate the possibilities, develop their own ideas and turn those ideas into something they can see, touch and test.
There isn't one model everyone has to copy.
Instead, we encourage children to make decisions, try things out, notice what happens and change their ideas along the way.
Design Studio is the continuing studio. Each Design Experience brings a new brief to investigate.
Some ideas may unfold over one session. Others develop across several.
The project changes. The design process stays.
"There is more than one way to make something work."
Through Design,
Children Practise
1. OBSERVATION
Learning to notice details others may overlook.
2. SPATIAL THINKING
Understanding how people, objects and spaces relate.
3. MATERIAL THINKING
Discovering what different materials can do.
4. PROBLEM SOLVING
Trying different approaches when something doesn't work.
5. ITERATION
Understanding that the first idea doesn't have to be the final idea.
6. CREATIVE CONFIDENCE
Learning that their own ideas are worth exploring.
Next Design Experience
WHAT CAN YOU MAKE A BOX DO?
Ages 7–12 · 2 sessions
Saturday 24 & 31 October 2026
9:30–11:30am
What if an ordinary box could become something completely unexpected?
A secret hideaway?
A tiny world?
A place to enter, hide, meet or look out?
Children begin with one ordinary cardboard box and discover how cutting, folding, opening and moving can transform the space inside.
SESSION 01
OBSERVE · WONDER · IMAGINE · MAKE
Take a closer look at an ordinary box.
What is already there?
What could change?
Experiment with cutting, folding, opening, closing and moving.
Turn the box into a new kind of space and discover what happens when you change it.
SESSION 02
TEST · RETHINK · REFINE
Who might use your space?
What could they do there?
Build a little life into your design and test how someone might enter, move, hide, meet or look.
Try it out. Change something that doesn't work. Rethink your idea and make it better.
TAKE HOME
Your own transformed architectural space — made from one ordinary box.
Through hands-on making, children discover how small changes can create big differences in space, movement and experience.
There is no single answer to the brief.