Design school for curious hands

Make a
world
from three
shapes.

At Werkraum, children turn ordinary circles, squares and triangles into stories worth walking around in. We draw, cut, build and test ideas every Saturday in our bright yellow studio.

Scroll to put the pieces together

01Loose parts

Scatter · discover · compose · repeat

Small groups, substantial ideas

A table for every kind of maker.

We keep each studio to twelve children, with two working designers in the room. The projects are deliberately open enough for a quiet observer, a relentless inventor and the child who wants to make a very fast cardboard dog.

Ages 6–7 · Saturdays 10:00

Shape Scouts

Notice the geometry hiding in traffic signs, buns, buttons and playgrounds. Then invent a better version.

Ages 8–9 · Saturdays 12:30

Build Lab

Make useful things at human scale: stools, shadow theatres, signs for imagined cities and tiny rooms for beetles.

Ages 10–12 · Wednesdays 16:30

Picture Machine

Use print, collage and a simple camera to turn a point of view into a poster people cannot miss.

School holidays · 3-day studios

Big Works

A proper project with a public showing: this autumn, a neighbourhood museum designed entirely by children.

The Werkraum kit

Tools that invite a second try.

Nothing precious, nothing pre-decided. The material tells us what it wants to become after the first attempt.

Paper that holds a fold

Big sheets, good colours, blunt scissors and the confidence to cut the first line.

Wood offcuts

For prototypes with a satisfying knock.

Ink, rollers & giant type

Letters are architecture for a thought.

Colour light

See what happens when blue meets yellow on a wall.

Questions pinned to the wall

“Could it be lighter?” is a tool too.

Room to make a mess

The useful kind.

A five-minute workbench

Give the pieces another job.

At the start of a workshop, one circle might be a bulb, a wheel or the moon in a small paper play. Pick a prompt and give the same tray of forms another job.

No wrong start. Clear the table whenever the first idea has done its work.

Werkraum workbench / eight pieces

A playful geometric workbench Eight primary geometric pieces form a small lamp. Use the adjacent buttons to arrange them as a kite or a robot, or clear the table.

Choose a prompt

A lamp: shade, stem, switch and one hopeful red book.

Come in, look around

The door is blue.

Families are welcome at our open studio on the first Saturday of every month. Bring a half-formed idea, a question or simply a child who likes to make things.

Book an
open studio
visit ↗

Next open studio

Saturday
7 September
10–13

Find us

Markveien 35
0554 Oslo

Bring

A grown-up, indoor shoes, and a willingness to leave with paint under your nails.