SKNF Flagship, for Same Kids, New Futures, is a concept for a new kind of youth space in London: part creative studio, part tech incubator, where young people learn to build with AI. The client needed a design that could sell the idea, so the brief was to show what the place could feel like before there was a building to put it in.
To test the concept I applied the program to a typical single-story brick warehouse on Fish Island, by the River Lee Navigation, one of London's Creative Enterprise Zones. The aim was "industrial warmth": keep the raw brick and steel of the shell, and soften it with timber, planting and warm light, so the space reads as a professional workplace rather than a school.
Instead of corridors and closed doors, the 500 m² floor is organized as a small village. Services, staff and toilets line the street edge as an acoustic buffer. The AI lab, podcast and filming studios, auditorium and breakout rooms sit as curved glass cells in the middle of the hall, and the open space between them becomes the central hub, a market square with a café, shared tables and bleacher seating. The glass keeps everyone visible, which gives passive supervision without feeling controlling, while the cells stay quiet enough for focused work and recording. The hub holds around 115 people.
I delivered the concept strategy, the layout and a set of renders in three milestones over December 2025 and January 2026.
