2026 MAMMOTH design mission launches

This week Building Plymouth is hosting it’s annual ‘Mission Mammoth STEAMFest’ which will inspire and engage over 600 primary school aged children with the world of construction and the built environment.

Working together, volunteer construction professionals including architects, engineers, project managers, landscape designers, sustainability champions and surveyors, will be working alongside the children to help shape their creative ideas to design an imaginary new iconic landmark in the city or surrounding area that will encourage more visitors to Plymouth.

Hosted in partnership with The Box and Arts University Plymouth, this is the fifth year of delivering Mission Mammoth STEAMFest which is designed to offer the children an exciting experience of hands-on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) activities, whilst also promoting the careers involved and raising aspirations for undertaking these critical subjects.

Morven Maclean, Construction Coordinator at Plymouth City Council said: “Our annual Mission Mammoth STEAMfest is always such a brilliant opportunity for raising the aspirations of our children and to make the vital subjects of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics exciting and vibrant, as well as showing how they could play their part in building the world around us. Huge thank you to our partners and the local construction industry for their commitment and generosity in investing time, resources and money into delivering this free, fun action-packed week. I am always so impressed by the insights that this design challenge presents in showcasing a breadth of careers to enthuse our future budding architects, engineers and creatives.”

Take a look at the briefing video that is played for the children in the Plymouth Arts Cinema before they set off on their mammoth day!
Click here

Over the course of this week children from 15 schools and 2 home educated groups are supported by over 80 construction friends from 40 individual businesses across the 5 days to work on 4 different activities – Click here to watch the video to show you how they got on and all the fun they had!

We can’t wait to see all the design competition entries and look forward to our celebration evening in October.

This year marks an amazing achievement as Emma Hewitt MBE, Skills Lead for Plymouth City Council and the brainchild behind Building Plymouth was awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours list for her services to skills.

Emma developed the idea for the original Mission Giant Squid STEAMFest and now Mission Mammoth STEAMFest. A MAMMOTH congratulations Emma from everyone supporting Mission Mammoth this year and especially Mildred!

This event has been fully funded by the construction industry with sponsorship kindly received and volunteers supporting across the busy week.