OCA Interior Design: Interior Spatial Design Creative Workshop June 2026

In June 2026 Interior Designs’ Programme Tutor and Programme Leader, Sam and Catherine, spent a day with Sixth Form students at Barnsley College, facilitating an Interior Spatial Design creative workshop. 35 A Level Art students took part in the day-long event, joining in with loads of enthusiasm and making spatial interventions that impressed us no end!

Alongside a day of creativity and fun, the purpose of the outreach workshop was to show younger students the many career opportunities that are possible with a spatial design education; so we started with a brief introduction to see what interior spatial design is all about, and then shared our own education and employment experiences with the students. Although we both trained as architects, we also both had much broader hopes and dreams as 16 and 17 year olds – forensic investigator, football boot designer, wicket keeper, sandwich shop owner and designer of pasta shapes were all considered as future careers… and by being open in this way, we were hoping to show that higher education and eventual career pathways are not always a linear journey.

Working in groups, all students took part in three defined activities, each focusing on a different approach to the process of designing built spaces. They explored ideas around inhabiting an existing space, transforming an existing space, and creating a completely new space using a limited kit of materials. The students’ energy, and response to these activities, was really encouraging to see and they made some very beautiful interiors.

To explore the possibilities of inhabiting a space students were given an empty cardboard box to represent an existing interior, and then built structures and objects inside that space (at scale) to create walls, levels, openings, lighting and furniture for usable spaces. Each group had a novel idea and they made a range of ‘liveable’ spaces including a shopping mall, a castle (with working drawbridge), a dolls house and a party house. They took the time to imagine themselves inhabiting these spaces, and also thought about structure and staircases, to make the new spaces function really effectively as miniature interiors.

When asked to come up with ideas to transform the internal courtyard at Barnsley College, they let their imaginations run wild – thinking up swimming pools, giant bubble machines, waterfalls, secret escape hatches and revision pods suspended from above. Encouraged to explore the concept of something parasitic growing from the existing structure, their transformations were really varied and exciting. This was a quick sketch drawing exercise with students working iteratively on tracing paper, over photos of the existing space, just as professional interior spatial designers do in practice.

The final – and arguably most fun – activity was to create a completely new inhabitable space, using a kit of materials comprising 6’ bamboo canes, gaffer tape, newspaper and yarn. The first two groups got off to a flying start creating an inverted pyramid, and a more traditionally shaped tent-structure. For reasons of practicality the second two groups were then tasked with adding an ‘extension’ to each of these existing pieces, and joined a second room to the tent with a fireplace for warming the hands, and a floating pyramid to balance the original inverted one.

The last two groups built structures in the spaces that were left over, and adjusted their ideas to fit those available spaces. This meant that instead of making something with a large footprint one group made an entrance tunnel to the composite spaces, and the last created a central vertical piece joining everything together. We ended up with a giant hybrid structure that everyone in the class had contributed to.

The final task of the workshop was to dismantle the whole structure, and tidy the classroom ready for the next day; some students were understandably disappointed to lose their work so soon after making it, but we took plenty of photos to record their excellent creativity.

We had a great day imagining new spaces with the students at Barnsley College, and owe huge thanks to their teacher, Chloe Moulding, for helping to make it happen.

All images by C Byrne and S Eadington 06/2026