Latest MOBIE News

MOBIE Chief Executive, Mark Southgate, recently contributed an opinion piece to Futurebuild on how we all need to make the built environment more visible and attractive to young people.

If we are to deliver the new homes that we need, and to retrofit 27 million existing homes, to meet the environmental standards that we expect, then we are going to need a lot more workers with the right skills! To attract more young people, we need to tell a more compelling, modern, joined-up story about our industry. It is not that young people don’t want to work in our industry, rather they don’t know about the built environment and the range of jobs available. 

Fishing in the same talent pool will not increase our labour force.  We need to attract a new cohort to our industry.  To do that we need to tell a better story – a compelling story about the positive impact that we have and how our industry is changing and modernising. 

During NCVO Volunteers' Week 2024, we spotlight the amazing contribution of our young volunteers. We can’t thank them enough!

They have helped us to judge young persons’ design challenges, assisted in running design workshops, been experts for videos about home and sustainable development, run mini-consultancy projects, presented their thoughts and ideas to industry events and conferences, produced video and animations and even pitched MOBIE innovation proposals to industry for support!

Lauren Gower and Tom Rutter (pictured with George Clarke) discuss their recent voluntary roles for MOBIE.

MOBIE has launched free workshops in home design, sustainable development and green skills to primary and secondary schools in South and West Wales.

The workshops are offered as part of the Swansea Bay City Deal ‘Homes as Power Stations’ project. They are open to schools in Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea and are being funded through the generous support of the MCS Charitable Foundation.

The workshops provide an opportunity for young people to think about how we can deliver our future housing needs whilst protecting our planet. They use practical exercises to help students appreciate key design principles and emphasise the importance of homes and buildings in helping us to address climate change and other environmental challenges.

The winners of the Design Future London challenge 2024 have been announced at City Hall by George Clarke and Jules Pipe, Deputy Mayor, Planning, Regeneration and Skills.

Now in its third year, the challenge is run in partnership by MOBIE, the Mayor of London, C40 Cities, Minecraft Education and the Local Village Network.

This year we asked entrants to pick a site in their neighbourhood, to identify a problem and to create a design to help address the problem. The finalists’ designs addressed community, diversity, environment, greenspace, places for people to relax and connect and housing for everyone. The challenge was open to primary and secondary school pupils and students in college or at University.

MOBIE has launched its latest design challenge with Edmundham Developments, a joint venture between national housebuilder Lovell and Suffolk County Council that will develop new, high quality homes on a number of Council sites in the coming years. We are inviting young people from across Suffolk to design green homes and green spaces for a site in Newmarket.

We are asking them to design the homes of the future, focused on saving energy, resources, and the planet as a whole. Following the three basic principles of the circular economy, the young people involved will explore how homes can be designed to eliminate waste and pollution, incorporate reused and recycled materials, and regenerate nature. The challenge is open to primary, secondary school and college students aged 5-18.

MOBIE wins at Inspire Future Generations Awards

MOBIE has won the 'Best Established Not for Profit Organisation' at the Inspire Future Generations awards created by the Thornton Education Trust.

The Awards, now in their third year, are designed to bring together a new ‘community of practice’ and recognise and celebrate the excellent projects and programmes, energy and passions of the many organisations working with young people in the built environment.  They recognise achievements in engaging and empowering young people so their voices are heard on the built environment

George Clarke has returned to his roots to help his hometown kick off its 60th birthday celebrations

In recognition and celebration of the 60th Birthday of Washington New Town, Sunderland, George Clarke’s charity MOBIE and Sunderland City Council are inviting young people from schools across Washington to come up with their own vision of an innovative residential community for the next 60 years.

Young people taking part in the competition are being asked to design a 21st century super sustainable 'courtyard' style housing scheme, with houses for all ages, designed around a pedestrianised courtyard square - in line with the essential features of the original 1960s plan.

MOBIE is launching a short design challenge for colleges as part of Colleges Week 2023. The challenge, in partnership with Association of Colleges and Pearson, is asking college students to design a sustainable home and community of the future.

We are asking you, 'What do you want from the homes and communities of the future?'. As our future designers, creators, planners and builders of homes we want you to consider the issues and present some solutions to our housing challenges. The Hackathon is open to all colleges and is suitable for design, environmental and construction related disciplines.

George Clarke has launched a new design challenge for the young people of Birmingham at UK Construction Week at the NEC. The challenge is being run in partnership with the housebuilder Lovell and is asking young people aged 11-18 to ‘Think Circular’ and design a sustainable future home and community for the city, that reduces energy use and recycles and reuses materials wherever possible.

The winner of the design challenge will be announced in July 2024.

The winners of the Ecofix radical retrofit young persons' design challenge have been announced by George Clarke.

The challenge with international architecture practice Grimshaw and international consultancy and construction company Mace , asked young people to design innovative and inspirational ways to reuse existing homes and buildings to reduce their energy impact.

The winning designs included the conversion of a terraced house, adapting it for disabled occupants, the reuse of an old mill building as a family home, a historic hospital as an elderly community and the conversion of former Cold War aircraft hangars to apartments for young workers.

The winners of Design Future London Young Londoners' challenge were announced on Friday at City Hall..

The challenge inspires young Londoners into future careers in the green, tech and built environment industries. The winning submissions focussed on the reuse of buildings, supporting a circular, more sustainable economy, and bright, new spaces for the community, such as rooftop gardens and facilities for young people.

George Clarke crowns the winners of a creative young persons' design challenge that will inform the design of a new £28 million complex-needs facility in Perth, Scotland.

Joint winners Isla Bethune, Bertha Park High School, and Tassi Forbes, Perth High School, both wowed the judges with their innovative designs. As well as winning category awards for Design and Sustainability they were judged the joint overall winners.

She only went and did it! In June Angela Drakeford of a+a property stagers took on the Montane Full Summer Spine Race - 270 miles up the Pennine Way from Edale to Kirk Yetholm in 155 hours, day and night, and all in aid of MOBIE.

What an achievement. Congratulations Angela and thank you for choosing to support MOBIE!

Angela Drakeford takes on the Montane Full Summer Spine Race, covering 270 miles in just 156 hours. This unsupported challenge requires immense strength, both physically and mentally. Angela's motivation lies in supporting MOBIE. Help her make a difference by donating today!

MOBIE and Capability Scotland have launched a creative challenge for young people in Scotland to submit designs and ideas on creating a sustainable and affordable community at Bertha Park in Perth. The challenge is open to schools, universities, colleges, and individuals. It provides a unique opportunity for young people to shape the future of an inclusive and sustainable community.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has teamed up with best-selling video game Minecraft for the launch of this year’s 2023 Design Future London Schools Challenge. Young Londoners will design sustainable changes to a Minecraft version of Croydon town centre and submit a two minute video entry.

MOBIE teams up with Grimshaw and Mace to fire the imaginations of young people to generate new ideas to fix our existing homes, buildings and streets to reduce their climate impact

Talented primary school children produce inspiring designs for Wates place-making challenge

On the 5th of July Mayor of London and MOBIE founder George Clarke crowned the first winners of the Design Future London young persons' challenge.