Gravity Young Persons’ Design Challenge
The Gravity project will establish a smart campus that delivers a new era of possibility for social interaction, economic growth and sustainable environments.
It is located near to Bridgwater, south of Bristol. It will establish a smart campus – a place to live, work and play. Gravity is an amazing development that will create a new location for clean, large-scale advanced manufacturing industries and it will enable people who work on the site to also live there – it is ‘a blueprint for a smarter, greener future’. It will be one of the most sustainable and smart campuses in Europe.
Gravity wants to design the area in a way that benefits humanity, reduces our environmental impact, including delivering on mitigating climate change, and responds to future demands of people by creating a brilliant new place and space. The focus is on creating a UK destination for inward investment and specifically to target large scale advanced manufacturing. Gravity’s ambition is to create a sustainable, connected campus and community, which will create around 4,000 jobs.
Watch the Gravity Video Tour
The Design Challenge
This challenge is inviting young people to play a part in the development of Gravity. We want you to create houses and spaces that you care about and want to live and spend time in.
We are asking you to look ahead and contribute your ideas on the future of Gravity. We want you to design a place and a home in that place that are environmentally ‘super-green’, creatively employing sustainable building materials and methods, energy and smart technology, and with an emphasis on health and well-being of people, the community, and our planet.
The design of every new community needs to consider the people who will live, work and play in that new place. Good design should help drive behaviour that protects the planet, promotes clean growth and inspires businesses and people to want to work and live there. Key ingredients of this challenge include designs that encourage human connection and that support healthy habits for individuals, the wider community and the planet, such as reducing the need to travel and use of sustainable modes of transport. Your design needs to consider the use of technology in a way that is aligned with humanity’s best interest and that creates spaces where people can thrive.
In designing your home and place, think about how the house will be built (the method of construction), the building materials to be used, use of energy, the relationship of your home to workplaces on the site and how people will get around. Think about how the home and space will be used and how it might change over time.
Your Home Design
Your challenge is to design a great home in this new community that is zero carbon and meets the needs of the future. We want to see your home design and the layout of the surrounding space and place. This should include outdoor spaces such as gardens or shared spaces for socialising and relaxing in the open air.
You must decide who you are designing the home/living spaces for. You must show how you have thought about the people who will use your home – how will they live, work and play in this new place. What is important to them now and what will be important to them in the future? Explain how your ideas support living that is aligned with humanity’s best interest, that reduces our environmental impact.
Your house plans must explain the layout of the living spaces and how they will be used (resting, socialising, working), over what floors, inside, outside, private or shared? Your ‘masterplan’ will show the house and its relationship to work, amenities, communication routes, green spaces, etc.
Submission Details
There are three age groups: 9 - 11, 12 - 15 and 16 - 18. You can submit a physical or digital entry. Please include:
- A sketch or drawing of your home – you can free draw, use a computer or create a story board or booklet. A story board might include pictures from magazines, the internet, photos, or anything else that has inspired you. Think about your house layout, what rooms will it have, how it will work for you and your family and what will it look like?
- A plan showing your home within your area and community thinking about places of work, leisure and amenities, green space and transport and connections
- Write a short piece that explains what you have thought about and proposed in your project
- You could make a model to show what your home will look like and how it will be used. You only need to submit photos of your model (but keep it safe as we may want to display it later)
- Show the research that you have carried out that has led to your ideas and designs. This could be telling us about your reading, or about examples you have seen around you, or in books, on the internet or films and TV, or asking questions of your family and relatives. Please tell us how you have changed your thinking and design along the way – even the things you decided not to include in your final design, this is all part of the design process
- Tell us about the building materials you have chosen to build your home and why you chose them
- Finally create a logo and a name for your home
This design challenge is open to schools and colleges located near to the Gravity site, in Sedgemoor District, near Bridgwater Somerset.
Please send your submissions to home@mobie.org.uk By Friday, 11th June 2021
Register to Enter
Download Secondary Challenge Brief
Download Primary Challenge Brief
Download Gravity Brochure
Watch the Site History Video
Watch the Gravity Challenge Briefing Video
About Bounce Forward
As part of the Design Challenge, Bounce Forward will run three webinars aimed at secondary school students to support their involvement with the competition. Bounce Forward will also host further webinars to support teachers’ personal development. Lucy Bailey, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Bounce Forward, explains:
“Our overall aim is to help young people develop resilience, not just to overcome setbacks, but to solve problems and think creatively. In the context of this competition, we want to support students, and their teachers, to be open and curious to new perspectives and have the confidence to let their imaginations go."
Bounce Forward – is a charity dedicated and passionate about resilience as the key to personal development of students. They believe that teaching resilience is essential and should be a core feature of education. Yes in schools, colleges and universities, but also within any development journey.
Bounce Forward’s core principles:
- Resilience is about thriving and making the most of opportunities as well as overcoming setbacks.
- Sound research, theory and evidence informs everything we do.
- Teach skills and strategies that work in the real world
- The adults matter: their role is vital in helping children and young people be resilient and thrive
They create the conditions for a radically reimagined 21st century where young people drive the change towards more helpful and less harmful behaviour.
Visit the Bounce Forward Website
Register to Enter The Gravity Challenge
Please fill out and submit this form to register for the The Gravity Design Challenge.