As part of Sugar & Spice, we invited students to look more closely at Portsmouth’s buildings and the stories they tell. Working alongside a local architectural historian, students explored the city’s historical, cultural and social heritage, from its maritime and defensive architecture to the buildings and spaces that bring people together. The session encouraged them to consider what makes a place meaningful and what is worth protecting.

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Students then chose a local building that interested them and began to reimagine it through bamboo. Working with a simple, lightweight and renewable material gave them the opportunity to experiment with structure, scale and form, learning through hands-on making rather than simply drawing or modelling digitally.

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The workshop was also about collaboration and exploration. Working in teams, students shared ideas, tested different approaches and solved problems together, developing their own interpretations of Portsmouth’s architecture. These first bamboo models became a starting point for the next stage of Sugar & Spice, where the students transformed their ideas into edible gingerbread structures.