How Places Work launch speech

John Sorrell, CABE chair, explores how the national programme intends to bring young people closer to great buildings and public spaces.

Thank you very much for joining us for this launch of CABE's new education programme, How Places Work. We are grateful to the British Museum to allow us to use the wonderful space of the Great Court.

And I am delighted that one of the country's most inspiring architects is here today to help us launch the programme - Norman Foster.

Over the next two years, in partnership with the Architecture Centre Network, CABE will give 12,000 young people (like these pupils here) the opportunity to see great buildings and public spaces in the company of 'inspirers' - individuals, architects and designers.

Architects like Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Amanda Levete (Future Systems), Michael Hymas (Brighton Library), Sir Richard MacCormac and Will Alsop. Plus landscape architects, artists, dancers and others who are passionate about a building or space - for example Tim Smit of the Eden Project. They will all be leading visits over the next two years.

We know that design matters to young people - they certainly care about the design of products such as trainers and mobiles. Yet too few have the chance to experience amazing architecture and design.

At an age when there is added pressure on children - they are tested at 11 and then again at 14. How Places Work offers young people an experience that stands outside an often overloaded curriculum. It will help young people understand how buildings and spaces are created, get excited about the built environment that surrounds them and - this is the best thing - demand more from it as a result.

With this programme, CABE wants to raise the status of architecture within the national curriculum. One of the great things about using architecture as a teaching resource is that it's all around us. Bricks and mortar, glass and steel, facts and figures - like the number of panes of glass in the roof of the Great Court - these are good ways to bring the national curriculum to life.

The time is right. Education policy is starting to embrace extended learning and learning outside the classroom. The government is soon to launch a manifesto on Education Outside the Classroom. By 2010 every school will be expected to offer a varied programme of extended learning, including visits.

How Places Work is the first national programme for schools and teachers to deliver on these new expectations. We hope that the inspirers will form on-going relationships with the schools so that every pupil in the country can benefit from this experience.

This whole idea is very close to my heart. I think that engagement is the key to young people understanding topics as complicated as urban design. And what better way to engage young people than having inspiring people talk passionately about a building or space when they are standing right there in it?

At CABE, we want a new generation of young people to feel the impact that buildings and spaces have on their lives. We hope that as adults, they will then be equipped to be discerning about where they choose to live and work. And we should remember that in the not too distant future, it is these young people who will be deciding what our towns and cities will look like.