Streets Ahead: Empowering Young Changemakers Through Design at V&A Dundee

What if we gave young people the tools to redesign the world around them? What if a museum wasn’t just a place to look and learn, but a launchpad for tomorrow’s problem solvers?

At V&A Dundee, Scotland’s design museum, that “what if” became a call to action. Through the ambitious Streets Ahead programme, students across Scotland were invited not just to imagine a better future—but to prototype it. Presented at the Museums & Schools Summit by Schools Development Officer Gary Jamieson and Learning Programme Manager Julie Muir, Streets Ahead shows how design thinking, co-creation, and creativity can unlock student potential and shape entire communities.

This was no hypothetical classroom project. It was a museum led national initiative with real stakes, real outcomes, and real-world learning at its heart.

Redefining What a Museum Can Be

V&A Dundee was always intended to be more than a museum. Dubbed the “living room for the city,” it’s a bold experiment in accessibility, energy, and purpose. Through deep partnerships with schools and education bodies, the museum spotted a worrying trend: today’s students weren’t being equipped with the skills they’ll need tomorrow.

Forget rote memorisation. The world is changing fast. Skills like critical thinking, adaptability, problem solving, and collaboration are becoming non-negotiable—especially in the fast-moving world of STEM. But what’s often missing from that acronym is design: the creative force that binds innovation to human need.

Enter Streets Ahead

Born out of this insight, Streets Ahead brought design into direct dialogue with science, technology, engineering, and maths. The challenge? Redesign your local high street in a way that supports sustainability, accessibility, and community wellbeing.

Rather than offer a one-size-fits-all template, V&A Dundee empowered students to make it personal. Each project drew on local research, data collection, and interviews to understand what communities truly needed—from safe spaces and green areas to inclusive mobility and food security. Students weren’t just asked to speak up; they were given the tools to make a tangible impact.

Designing the Experience

To make this bold idea work, the team built a robust ecosystem of support. An advisory board of educators, designers, and community leaders helped shape the project brief. Lesson guides were created for teachers, using objects from the Scottish Design Galleries as provocations. Online “ask the expert” sessions and regular check-ins kept the learning journey collaborative and evolving.

And then came the recruitment. V&A Dundee pulled out all the stops—emails to every secondary school in Scotland, outreach to education leads, LinkedIn networking, personal contacts. The result? Sign-ups from 64 schools across 22 local authorities, eventually narrowing down to nine finalists for an unforgettable design jam at the museum.

From Idea to Exhibition

At the design jam students built prototypes, solved problems on the fly, and brought their visions to life in an exhibition at V&A Dundee. Thanks to support from Sky Up Academy, each team even produced professional television news style videos to accompany their designs—adding polish, purpose, and powerful storytelling to the mix.

The winning team were given a week-long work experience placement at NCR, a global tech leader with a research hub in Dundee. There, they learned how design thinking drives industry and got hands-on experience applying their skills in a professional setting.

The Ripple Effect

The project’s impact didn’t stop at the museum’s doors. It sparked a wave of enthusiasm among students, teachers, and even local councils. Some schools, like Mackie Academy, embedded the project into their year-long curriculum, while others used it to rethink their entire approach to cross-subject collaboration. Teachers reported emails from students during school holidays—eager to keep working on their ideas.

The project also gave freelance designers and young creatives a chance to mentor students and share their lived experience. The exhibition itself was designed by Woodcock & Ellis, a young practice, with graphic design by DJCAD graduate Lucy Steel—making the entire initiative a showcase of emerging talent and intergenerational creativity.

What Did It All Achieve?

At its core, Streets Ahead aimed to do three things:

• Make design accessible to every student, showing its relevance across subjects and in daily life.
• Encourage critical thinking and teamwork, asking students to reflect on their communities and role in shaping them.
• Build confidence through real-world problem solving, inspiring the next generation to see themselves as innovators, designers, and change-makers.

Design isn’t just about what looks good—it’s about what works. It’s about people. It’s about communities. And when young people realise they can be part of that process, something powerful happens: they stop seeing the world as it is, and start imagining what it could be.

Looking Ahead

With continued funding from NCR and a new collaboration with Dundee City Council’s Sentinel Pedagogy Team, Streets Ahead is just getting started. Plans are already in motion to roll out an SCQF qualification, expand the reach of the programme, and deepen the impact through teacher training and scalable project-based learning.

And if this year’s ideas are anything to go by—escalators for accessible travel, community-led food initiatives, and Minecraft-modeled streetscapes—the future is in very good hands.

–

Gary Jamieson and Julie Muir from V&A Dundee shared the Streets Ahead programme at the Museums & Schools Summit 2025.