Students design Jamie Oliver restaurant
Education consultancy and social enterprise Class of Your Own (COYO) has launched a new school programme in collaboration with Jamie Oliver Restaurants.
The 'Design a Jamie Oliver Restaurant' initiative aims to inspire young people by offering them a hands-on experience in the built environment sector, combining food, creativity and well-being through the lens of real-world professionals.
The programme is the latest in the COYO's suite of Designer Engineer Construct! (DEC) Awards and will be available free to schools. The programme offers students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the design, engineering and construction of sustainable spaces while reflecting on Jamie Oliver’s own principles of balanced, health-conscious living.
Led by COYO founder and President of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (CICES), Alison Watson MBE, the programme is supported by leading professional bodies and builds on the success of the original challenge, opening the door to a range of built and natural environment careers.
Design a Jamie Oliver Restaurant challenges students to design a four-course menu for Jamie Oliver’s restaurants, applying Jamie’s ethos of nutritious, balanced and delicious food. From there, students will take the next step in their project by designing a restaurant space that reflects Jamie’s commitment to well-being, sustainability and community-focused spaces.
By connecting food with architecture and engineering, the award showcases how the built environment directly influences health and wellbeing. The programme provides students with a deeper understanding of how the spaces we design can positively affect both the people who use them and the environment they inhabit. It offers a hands-on, creative pathway for students to explore careers in design, engineering and construction.
On 17 October, a special preview at Jamie Oliver Catherine St, Jamie’s new Covent Garden restaurant, brought together industry and education leaders, including representatives from RIBA, RICS, IAT and DATA, plus professional body presidents including Eddie Weir PCIAT, to celebrate this exciting new initiative and highlight the importance of supporting digital, creative and technical education in schools.
They discussed how Design a Jamie Oliver Restaurant could reunite the construction industry around the shared goal of inspiring future generations, ensuring that young people can see the possibilities of a career in the built environment.
COYO CEO, Alison Watson MBE said:
Different sectors offer a variety of activities to engage young people, but with so many choices, schools can often feel overwhelmed. This new initiative offers a solution by allowing children to take ownership of their learning and create their own exciting project that taps into a wide range of skills and knowledge. Wherever their interest lies, this award helps them start crafting a career pathway based on their own passions and strengths. The future professional will cross disciplines, and this new project aligns with all our projects, supporting interdisciplinary learning to educate the future of construction.