The Studio – youth engagement, design practice and learning contexts

The Studio is a practice-based project in the framework of the Erasmus+ youth in action program where three European design studios from Oslo, Paris, and Berlin­­, have come together to share knowledge around common values on eco-design, learning, and inclusion of youth in creative processes. The project’s main intent is to reflect on learning and design. In a world where we constantly distance ourselves from the physical and the tactile, the goal of this publication is to reclaim creative spaces through material, physical, and design-based explorations. We believe that with the use of crafts, engagement, and sustainable design we can develop creative learning methods and inspire anyone working with youth.

You can download the publication here

Using art and design as a tool to transform our physical surroundings opens new spaces for collaboration and wonder. One of the outcomes of this two-year exploration and exchange between the three studios is the following publication, where we illustrate how to engage youth through diverse examples and methods outside academic frameworks. The Studio explores and gathers a number of activities and reflections that can empower and have a lifelong impact on young people. How do we include and engage young people on their own terms? Throughout the pages of this publication, we share examples that encourage anyone working with youth to create learning contexts that foster possibilities and autonomy, with the aim to inspiring youth and young adults to be critical, discover and reclaim their agency, and take care of their spaces, subjectivities, and networks, as well as cultivating a sense of belonging in their local communities. In this publication readers can find a compendium of examples and reflections on youth engagement in design praxis, ecological approaches, and the revision of urban contexts as an extension of educational frameworks. The publication has been a collaborative and international endeavour. The three studios invited a graphic design studio, an illustrator, and an editor to contribute and participate in the codesign and realisation of this editorial project. We hope this publication serves as a catalyst and springboard for many projects and ideas, for both youth workers and youth alike, for large institutions and small community groups, for all our dreams and the much-needed change we seek.

A publication by: Byverkstedet, forty five degrees, Premices and co
Edited by: Alkistis Thomidou and Berta Gutiérrez Casaos
Copyediting: Daniel Lacasta Fitzsimmons
Graphic design: Buero Bum Bum
Illustrations: Pauline Escot
Printing: Gutenberg Beuys Feindruckerei