Future cities reimagined by young designers in Wellington

Every class at Te Kura o Tawatawa - Ridgway School took part in a hands-on, imaginative design project led by author and illustrator Steve Mushin. Through drawing, model-making and futuristic thinking, students became ‘ultrawilding’ designers, dreaming up cities built for all species – not just humans.

How can we reimagine cities as thriving habitats for all species, not just people? That was the question posed to tamariki at Te Kura o Tawatawa - Ridgway School, who took part in a 13-day workshop series exploring a new way of designing urban environments.

The workshops, which have made their way across Australia and New Zealand, are led by Wellington-based designer and author Steve Mushin, whose book Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan to Rewild Every City on Earth uses science, engineering, illustration and wildly imaginative ideas to spark thinking and explore the possibilities of high-tech urban rewilding, which he calls ‘ultrawilding’.

Steve invented the term ‘ultrawilding’ to describe using technology to help transform cities into ecosystems that are as ‘wild’ as possible for humans and other species. And he encourages ākonga to have equally wild ideas.

“The goal of my book and workshops is maximum craziness to engage kids with science and engineering ... Research suggests that having crazy ideas, having fun and being playful is an incredibly powerful way to build our creative thinking.”

Steve worked with every class from Years 1–8, bringing the school’s 200 students into a schoolwide inquiry project about how we design the places we live.

Each workshop began with a big question: ‘what species do we design cities for?’

Some students noted they hadn’t thought of humans as a species before, or hadn’t realised how few urban spaces welcome insects, birds, or native flora. Students were challenged to become ultrawilding designers.

Designing for all species

In sessions with Years 1–4, students brainstormed ideas as a group before sketching buildings and inventions of their own.

For Years 5–8, the design process also included building to-scale models using a wide range of materials Steve brought in, including different types of cardboard (such as bendy cardboard), tiny scalemodel humans, and kanuka branches with leaves.

Students could choose the materials they wanted to use based on their ideas, and the hands-on nature of the model-making helped ultrawilding feel more real and achievable.

“A day isn’t long enough to do detailed design work, but it’s enough to start designing an ultrawilded building,” says Steve.

“The simple techniques I taught are essentially how architects start a model. The process of working with your hands, making mistakes, fixing things up, and trying new things is what gives you a really interesting outcome,” he says.

For students who felt less confident in drawing, model-making offered an equally valid and creative way to engage.

Students were encouraged to see mistakes as part of the process and adapt their designs as they worked. Whether it was flying houses, tree-top teleportation pods, or buildings for glow-worms, creativity was celebrated.

STEM, storytelling and sustainability

The project wove together science, maths, engineering, art, literacy and environmental learning. Students wrote stories for their cities, calculated structural needs for futuristic vehicles, and used systems thinking to solve urban design challenges.

“The kids think about how they could make the future different and better for all,” says Steve. Maths is important. For instance, if you’re getting to school on a flying bike – high above jungles of nīkau, ponga and rimu – you need to work out some details. “A person on a flying bike weighs this much, so how big do the wings have to be?” And creating the story behind the designs is part of literacy learning.

Steve also ran short extension workshops in illustration, storytelling and engineering for interested students.

In engineering, students refined their original designs or created new public buildings. In storytelling, they created comics showing what life could be like in an ultrawilded city, with both human and animal inhabitants.

And in illustration workshops, they drew detailed cityscapes and unique species that might live in their imagined ecosystems.

Each session included kaupapa about designing for all species, rooted in values of kaitiakitanga. Steve talked about the importance of making cities better for every living creature – from huia to insects to humans.

“The design has to be good for all species, and peaceful,” he says. “If a kid really likes machine guns, I might say ‘that’s an amazing-looking gun but could it fire seeds, or launch drones that fly around and look after insects?’”

Culminating in an exhibition

The project culminated in Ultrawilding the Tawatawa/Ridgway: An Exhibition of Future Dreaming, where whānau and community members came to see more than 100 drawings and 100 models on display.

Set to music and ambient forest sounds, the exhibition was a celebration of creativity and future-focused learning.

“It was a joy to witness tamariki completely absorbed in designing, imagining, building, testing, drawing, thinking ahead,” says deputy principal Nathan Crocker.

“You [Steve] created something not just for this moment, but for the future.”

Ngā kōrero a ngā ākonga | What students say

“I used to want to shrink to go into a bird’s nest. My house is a nest in a kauri tree with areas for humans, huia, wētā and insects. There are bird feeders, and animals can climb up a spiral ramp.” – Sabine, Year 7, The Giant Huia Nest

“It floats in the air and can be moved. There are solar panels and pots growing rare trees, a glow-worm farm, and pods that glide you back to the ground.” – Flynn/Aviry, Year 8, The Blimp Treehouse

“I wanted my house to have trees, birds and lizards. Steve helped just enough and talked about Matariki and protecting nature. I didn’t like art before and now I do.” – Spencer, Year 8, Super Slide House

“My treehouse has a teleport station, escalator, nesting room for kea, and a blackout room for kiwi. This project made my imagination bigger.” – Bess, Year 4, Tree House Drawing