Design Future London Young Londoners' Challenge Winners announced at City Hall

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

The collaboration between Mayor of London Minecraft Education C40 Cities Croydon Council and MOBIE inspires young Londoners into future careers in the green, tech and built environment industries.

The youngest entrants produced short videos of their vision of a greener Croydon using Minecraft while older students created physical models, computer designs, videos and presentations. The designs were superb and the presentations on the day simply amazing.

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 Finalists' designs .

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said:

“We were blown away by the fantastic ideas and designs young Londoners came up with to create the Croydon town centre of the future, from sustainable housing and community spaces to art and transport"

He added:

“Partnering with Minecraft Education has made this challenge even more fun and engaging and I congratulate all the young people who took part. They will be designing the homes and green spaces of future generations and I hope will continue our work to build a safer, fairer, greener and more prosperous city for all Londoners".

George Clarke said:

“Inspiring young talent to help define the communities of the future and reshape and improve existing places is a real passion of mine. Creating places that are innovative, beautiful, genuinely sustainable, and transform the quality of people’s lives is why we hold these challenges".

He added:

“I was so impressed by the variety and quality of entries to Design Future London. Young people are certainly not short of brilliant ideas about how to transform our built environment for the better based on the amazing finalists' schemes we saw today".

Mark Watts, Executive Director of C40 Cities, said:

“C40 Cities is thrilled to have worked with Minecraft Education and the Mayor of London to give young people the chance to reimagine Croydon Town Centre. Youth voices are vital to the future of cities, and this challenge helps to make sure they are heard. The winners exemplified what a greener, safer future could look like through their innovative ideas and people-first designs".

*Executive Mayor of Croydon, Jason Perry, said:

“This was a fun and accessible way to introduce town planning and regeneration to young people. Congratulations to all the winners. Croydon has the largest population of young people in London, so it was the perfect place for this competition.”

A big thank you goes out to all our amazing entrants and to our judges - Wei Yang, Anjali Raman-Middleton, Hannah Martin, George Pope, Aman Sahota, Zaid Ismail, Emma Foster, Gerry Ruffles, Darnell McKenzie and our young judges Gabriella, Hayley, Johan, Raven and Aleksei.