A visit to My First Skool

Children are great teachers.

Since 2017, BuildBuilt has always stayed true to her purpose: creating better experiences through meaningful relationships. Without understanding who we create spaces for, our work is meaningless! Therefore our work has to transcend the traditional boundaries of interior design and construction. Our commitment to making design accessible and impactful extends far beyond the daily humdrum of work.

A mission recently led us to My First Skool, a beacon of early childhood education in Singapore. We started this project to meet two goals. 1. We wanted to reach a broader community with our design work. And 2. we wanted to stretch our team's creative boundaries. At the same time, we aimed to ignite a love for design in the hearts of these young learners. (A huge bonus was that the compound and interiors were impressively designed by local architects: LAUD Architects. Indeed, a ‘site’ to behold.)

As a company, we’ve interacted with children before, and every encounter has been a delightful revelation of pure, uninhibited creativity. As we shared in our blog 'Be Bold Again: Have Child-Like Creativity', engaging with these little design maestros has often left us awestruck. They remind us of the boundless creative spirit that we adults sometimes lose touch with in the rigours of everyday life.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." – Albert Einstein

During our recent visit, the children's dexterity at constructing models was nothing short of impressive. They were tasked with the challenge of building houses using cleaned-out Pringles cans, bringing them a taste of our everyday work. Their enthusiasm, creativity, and delight in creation left a deep imprint on our team.

Alfred and Rachel doing a condensed introduction of BuildBuilt

This workshop served as an enriching platform to introduce the children to the concept of sustainable design. Rachel, our commercial director, joined by our other colleagues, conducted an engaging session. They shared about our jobs as interior designers and explained what sustainability meant. It was hard to simplify these complex ideas easy for kids to understand, but it was a good experience. It reminded us of why we work to make design easy for everyone to access. This was both humbling and enlightening for the team.

"Children are not only innocent and curious but also optimistic and joyful and essentially happy. They are, in short, everything adults wish they could be." – Carolyn Haywood

Indeed, we believe that the conversation about our built environment begins early in our lives. And this dialogue continues to shape our interactions and relationship with the spaces we inhabit as we grow. These workshops let kids experience sustainable design for themselves. We believe this is a good way to help them appreciate sustainable design from an early age.

As a heartfelt response to our workshop, the children, assisted by their teachers, crafted a thoughtful thank you gift. The children’s gift to us hangs on our wall now. It reminds us every day of our promise. We work to make design more than just about physical spaces.

Maeve and Nadia supplying the lil builders with raw materials for their homes

We exist beyond our studios and project sites. We’re explorers and learners. We’re builders of communities. We always want to understand more, even if it means we learn from children’s free and creative thinking.

Our vision extends beyond executing projects. We want to make a lasting impact. We want to challenge ourselves. We want to grow by connecting with a diverse people, and a wider community.

We invite you to discover how we design and build spaces with children in mind. Explore how we approach designing spaces for children for their mental and physical well-being.

BuildBuilt is more than a company. It's a philosophy, a journey. And we believe every journey is enriched by companions. So, come, join us in this voyage of exploration. Let's build a better future, together.

Rachel

Every kid has their own creative mind, we should let them explore the way they want to. As adults, our creativity is limited due to the everyday regulations and restrictions. These children's inventive-ness are endless!

Having 3 kids on my own, the planning process for this activity was quite a breeze. I was more focused on getting materials ready and making sure that I am heard by the children, talking to them using simpler words and hoping that the instructions were clear.
The end results of how the "house" would turn out, was not the priority, but getting engaged with them was more important. It was a fun experience!

Lucas Tan

Having worked with children previously in designing Singapore's first upcycled playground, it was refreshing to see how each child interpret and story tell their dream home using the recycled materials commonly found in our home environment

Michelle

It was pretty mindblowing to see what the kids came up with, with just a pringles can and some decor materials like paper and leaves!

Xiao Wei

Volunteering at My First Skool has pushed me out of my comfort zone as I normally take time to warm up to strangers. However, the kids were adorable and easy to interact with so it was an enjoyable time together! This experience left an indelible impression on me, inspiring me to be as confident, creative and curious as them.

Bao Yee

It was great witnessing how much the children can achieve when given the freedom to explore and express themselves through art. I’m quite amazed when they fearlessly explored different materials and colors, creating unique masterpieces with their own little hands :))

Xin jie

All in all, I genuinely enjoyed attending this volunteering event. The children that I were looking after were really entertaining to be with. Albeit being young myself, that childlike innocence these kids possessed was refreshing. They were extremely resourceful and thought out of the box. One decided a single-story house was not enough and demanded a second pringle can! Another asked for more paper and proceeded to paste layer upon layer around her pringle can house, and promptly asked me to teach her how to draw different animals and people to cut and paste onto her creation. It was great fun seeing how the kids used the materials around them to portray how they perceived the world.

Katherine

I feel that it's a very meaningful activity and feel happy to be able to impart some life values to the children, especially from when they're young, the concept of sustainability by teaching them to reduce waste and the concept of re-using items around them by giving second thoughts before throwing things away, to repurpose them into artwork which explores their creativity at the same time!

Alfred

My key takeaway from this session is the sense of fulfilment of seeing the kids enjoy what we have prepared for them. And I’m really amazed by the creativity the kids have - some of them have a whole story behind their creations, or what they draw is based purely on their imagination, without thinking of the limitations of real life (which is a good thing!)