A pavilion of ribbons in Hyde Park - Kids Architecture Design Workshops London

Events · BST Hyde Park · 8 July 2026

On one of the hottest days of the summer, Archimake was invited to run a drop-in architecture workshop at the British Summer Time Hyde Park Open House Festival! Over forty young people listened, sketched, lashed willow and wrapped it in colour to build a child-scaled pavilion designed by our own Archimakers.

Words Robert Lingham · Photos Seren Lakey and the Archimake team

Designed by Archimakers

The pavilion we built in Hyde Park started life on paper. It was designed by Archimakers, young people from our own workshops, as a structure sized for children rather than adults: low enough to reach over, open enough to walk through, and light enough to put up and take down in a day.

Setting up under the canopy

Our space was a beige canopy over a carpeted floor in the middle of the American Express area, with food stalls and the Rainbow Stage in the distance. The team arranged the chairs into an amphitheatre facing the screen, after one false start, and worked out where the sun would be when the children arrived.

While Zaki Hassan and Fatim Kamara in the workshop team rehearsed their presentation, Helai Su, Event Coordinator, with Dania Dehlvi and Elise Wong in the workshop team, sorted a vast sack of fabric ribbons and began the pavilion’s foundations: lengths of willow lashed together with twine and set into bright orange bags weighted with water bottles.

Team members sorting piles of coloured fabric strips on a table — Sorting the fabric strips by colour.

Team members filling orange bags with bottled water to weight the base of the willow frame — Weighting the bases with water bottles.

The Archimake team in black t-shirts practising lashing willow rods together — The team practising the willow lashing before the session.

A change of plan

Unfortunately the first school group cancelled because of the heatwave. With everything ready, a small school group joined. Soon after, Alan Bloodworth, Head of Engineering Education, spoke to the teachers of a second school group, who were glad to join because architecture isn’t something their pupils are taught in school. Four participants became forty!

Zaki and Fatim split the group in two. Half joined the presentation and drawing, and half went straight to the pavilion with Alan, Elise and Dania.

Participants

Session

30 minutes

Structure

Willow & fabric

Weather

Heatwave

Talking architecture

Zaki and Fatim took the audience through what architects do and asked them about the buildings they love. One ambitious answer was “the world”. Fatim’s reply: “There are a lot of buildings in the world.”

Zaki presenting with his arms open wide under the canopy — Zaki leading the presentation.

Rows of children in hi-vis vests with worksheets, several with hands raised — Hands up for favourite buildings.

Drawing the pavilion

With clipboards and Archimake worksheets, participants sketched the pavilion and annotated how it would be put together. Drawing first gives young people a way to think through a structure before they touch it, and the sketches went home with them alongside notebooks and a lot of stickers.

The teachers completed feedback forms during the session, covering the presentation, participation and how the workshop was received. We’ll use them to shape future festival sessions.

A participant drawing on an Archimake worksheet with a pen — Sketching on the worksheet.

Preparing the willow frame

Alan, Dania and Elise showed the group how to tether the willow together, then handed over. Children tied their own lengths of twine and added rods to the frame, working out for themselves how to make a joint hold.

A participant holding a willow rod and fabric strip while a team member watches — Adding a rod to the frame.

A group of children in hi-vis vests each holding and binding willow rods — Binding the willow with twine.

Alan helping a child tie a joint on a tall willow rod — Alan helping with a tricky joint.

“I think I’m doing it bad.”
“There’s no bad way.” A participant and Robert, mid-lashing

Wrapping it in colour

Once the frame was standing, the children wrapped it in fabric strips of pink, blue, yellow and orange, threading and tying them between the rods until the willow skeleton became an enclosure. It’s the same idea as SelgasCano’s coloured skin, made by hand at child scale.

Looking down on the pavilion: willow rods wrapped with pink, red and blue ribbons, children tying more strips on — Ribbons going on, seen from above.

A child bending under a canopy of hanging coloured ribbons — Working inside the structure.

A dense mass of pink, blue and yellow ribbons on the frame with children around it — The finished wrap.

Beauty within

Half an hour later the session was over, and the children stood back to look at what they had made: a multicoloured, ribboned structure of their own building, plus a pile of sketches. It wasn’t polished, but every child had been engaged and learned something about how a structure comes together. As Cheryl put it, “it had beauty within.”

The day also carried a reminder about climate. The first group cancelled because of the heat, and the festival itself was run carbon-neutral, on batteries and solar power instead of petrol generators, with canned water instead of plastic bottles. Those are the same choices about materials and energy that architects make, and that our Archimakers practise when they design with willow and reused fabric.

The Archimake team standing behind the completed ribbon pavilion under the canopy — The Archimake team with the finished pavilion.

Thank you to the BST Hyde Park team for hosting us, to the teachers who brought their classes over, and to everyone who helped on a very hot day: Alan, Dania, Elise, Fatim, Helai, Robert, Seren and Zaki.

Teachers: bring Archimake to your school

Architecture isn’t on most school timetables. Archimake runs hands-on architecture and design workshops for pupils aged 7–18, in schools, at events and online. Pupils sketch, design and build together, just as they did in Hyde Park.

New Archimakers can start with a £1 Trial Guided Workshop at join.archimake.org.

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