Heather Stimpson

NEST

A creative learning centre for children in London’s Park Royal 


Children’s observations, experiences and exposures significantly shape their identities, aspirations and future opportunities. Socioeconomic background remains one of the strongest predictors of educational attainment, with children from disadvantaged communities consistently encountering structural barriers to higher education. These disparities arise not from a lack of ability, but from unequal access and opportunity.  

The UK’s education system remains largely modelled on frameworks developed during the Industrial Revolution, designed to instil discipline, punctuality and standardisation. Despite extensive social, technological and economic change over the past century, its structures remain strikingly unchanged: classrooms led by a single teacher, rigid timetables, and curricula privileging measurable outcomes over exploratory and creative learning. However, the current context is no longer industrial, but defined by automation and artificial intelligence, where the nature of work and human contribution is being reconfigured as we know it.  

Park Royal, London’s largest and most historic industrial zone, provides a pertinent case study of this transition. As automation and gentrification reshape industrial economies, the skills that remain distinctly human – creativity, empathy and critical thinking – are becoming central to future employability. Preparing children for this landscape requires cultivating these capacities to ensure they thrive alongside technological systems, rather than being displaced by them.  

This project grounds its methodology through lived experience, site-based research, participatory engagement, and workshops with children and educators. It demonstrates how creativity can operate as a bridge between childhood and adulthood, past and future, community and opportunity, tradition and innovation. Embedding educational spaces within post-industrial contexts not only challenges spatial and socioeconomic barriers, but also generates local employment by collaborating with makers, artists and craftspeople. In doing so, it promotes sustainable practices, strengthens community identity, and repositions creativity as a critical tool for social and economic resilience.  
 

Graduation date: 3 July 2025  
Graduation committee: Dafne Wiegers (mentor), Chris Steenhuis, Kamiel Klaasse 
Additional members for the exam: Anna Torres, Paul Kuipers