We were delighted to welcome Abi, an early career architecture graduate, to spend a busy few weeks with us. Her placement came at a perfect time while we have been working with architects and museum designers on our Yarmouth School Development, providing lots of opportunities to gain experience and feed into our planning for interim use of the site. Here, Abi tells us more about her placement:
Kicking off 2026, I was lucky enough to complete an architecturally focused internship at the Maritime Archaeology Trust. Post university (MA Architecture), and at the beginning of my professional journey, this gave me the opportunity to develop my academic experience within a real-life project.
The project itself is in two phases, relating to the development of a former school into a centre for maritime archaeology on the Isle of Wight. The long-term goal is for an internationally renowned placemaking museum, with facilities for temporary and permanent exhibitions, education, research, events, archives, and a cafe. In the meantime, the building will be used for smaller scale introductory exhibitions that can give an overview of themes and share the spatial vision, for community engagement. (Find more info here)
The two weeks was a fabulous experience that began with a site visit to Yarmouth – seeing the existing school that is soon to be developed into a museum and centre for maritime excellence. Being on site I was able to shadow the pre-application meeting between the architects and planning advisors, which helped me understand the realities of the process and importance of managing the impact on the surroundings. This also gave me time to familiarise myself with the building, from which I was able to use detailed survey drawings to develop a 3D CAD model of the school for the MAT team to use for spatial planning and visualisations.
However, the physical building is only one aspect of the site, and later in the week I was able to meet with the volunteers who are working tirelessly to make it into an interim exhibition space and future asset to Yarmouth itself. Some of these volunteers had previously attended the school, and I enjoyed hearing their memories and the importance of the centre being rooted within the town. Over the following week we integrated their thoughts for the scheme into our planning.
I was first familiarised with the plan for the future centre during a full day workshop at the National Oceanography Centre, with the museum designers, architects, staff, and trustees. Being able to witness this dynamic was my first experience of a collaborative design process, and has foregrounded my understanding of the working methodology in the architectural world.
The team at MAT were brilliant throughout my placement, and I was pleased to have been able to assist with the creation of visual resources about the existing building, applying the skills I learned at university. It was a great experience to work alongside passionate and talented professionals, and to contribute to such a valuable project while preparing myself for the next step in my career.
Best of luck to everyone involved – I can’t wait to see what happens next!
