Title: Outdoor Classroom Size: 36 x 24 Medium: Digital manipulation Completion date: April 2023 Exhibition Text: This is a space that was designed to help students feel more comfortable and productive. The designs were made to increase engagement as well as a feeling of comfort, allowing a student to focus on the lesson being taught. It is also meant to be a space for teachers to customize and make into something that best suits their teaching style as well as the contents of the lesson at hand. It provides plenty of room for adjustment for any school to change it to better suit the climate that the school may be in most frequently, or, if it's a school in a place such as Wisconsin, it can be made to easily adapt to the weather and provide a comfortable temperature despite the extremes that may be outside. |
Inspiration
Part of the initial inspiration was the people around me, we would bounce ideas off of each other, and then we would find inspiration to help us express those ideas. I went around and asked friends, family and teachers what they do and don't like about classrooms, then went from there. This was the foundation of my plan, and allowed me to come up with ideas that would be beneficial to everyone and every class.
Once I had the foundation, it was time to find who I wanted to use to translate my ideas into reality. That was when I found Philippe Starck. I chose Starck because his designs were sleek, rounded and simple. They wouldn't be distracting for students, and I could easily make changes to the designs to make them work better for the purposes of education. |
Andreu World by Starck
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Forest (Andreu World) by Starck
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I was most interested in how he was designing seating, because I though that a few changes to it could make it perfect for a learning space. The seats would be comfortable, look nice, have a space to write on and could have storage for books and classroom supplies. The other thing that I was really interested in was the tables. He really liked round tables made of glass, which could also be perfect for my design with a few modifications. |
Titos Apostos, Table (Driade) by Starck
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Amor in Farm, H-Farm Campus
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Amor in Farm, H-Farm Campus
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The final idea that I wanted to address was how he designed a small restaurant for a college campus. It was a clean looking design that had a glass building and an area attached to the building with a wooden awning over it. I really liked this idea, and thought it could be perfect for a more laid back learning area. |
Experimentation and Planning
Most of this project is experimentation and planning, it's all about sketching and figuring out what would work out, what wouldn't, why, and when we are going to show our ideas. There were several different steps to this project, creating different segments of experimentation and designs. These segments were:
- Talking to people around me
- Laying out ideas
- Receiving feedback
- Making a plan to present
I will address each of these segments individually to give a better and more in depth explanation of the formulation of ideas and plan.
Talking to the people around me When doing this, I had a paper that I would use to get a general idea of what to ask, and where to categorize the answers. The paper basically asked what people did and didn't like about classrooms (excluding a teacher), and what their senses need to feel for them to be engaged in the activities and learning. I filled out the sheet, after which, I answered questions like what I was surprised by, and what was predictable. |
Laying out ideas After answering the questions and filling out the sheet, it was time to make a mind map of what I thought would be good for an outdoor classroom. This allowed me to see my ideas in front of me and organize my thoughts. Then, there were large whiteboards that were rolled out, and the students all drew their ideas out, and showed them to the class. |
Receiving feedback After we made our sketches on the white boards, we went around and gave different students feedback on their ideas and presented them to the teacher as well as an industrial designer who was helping to guide the students. Presenting allowed us to take in what we were sketching and what people had said about them. I personally, didn't receive a lot of feedback, but there were other students who did. |
Making a plan to present Making a plan to present at MIAD pushed us to go further into this project, and made us really go into our ideas and refine them into one singular idea to present and show the the rest of the class and teachers. When making our boards to present, we had to make clear and concise drawings to include so your board didn't look messy and unplanned. This gave us a reason to go more in depth with our plans. |
Later, we were informed of our next project, which was to create a poster that further showed our plan. This was the final step in our project, so it needed to be as clean and informative as possible. To prepare for this, we learned how to draw straight lines, how to efficiently create clean and organized sketches, as well as how to format and present plans for a poster. While learning these different techniques, we were also working on various other projects, so we were also learning about how to manage our time while still creating well planned and high quality sketches.
Process
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After filling out the sheet, it was time to think about what we would like to create design, or add to a classroom to make it better. This started with more talking to others, the making a small mind may to put our ideas in order. This also prepared us for the next class we had, where we had to go to large white boards, put down our ideas, and present them to the class. |
We received feedback after those presentations, and with that feed back, we began to map out out ideas and design a poster to present to professors at MIAD. In these posters, we were to include a few designs that we liked, reasoning behind these designs, what other students though, how to carry out the design, as well as a reflection on the project thus far, and what we could do to improve. For this poster, we were also given instructions as to what the rough layout should look like. For this, we also had several examples, a few real proposals, and a sketch out out version that was explained to us as it was made. I looked at these posters constantly to make sure that my poster turned out well and had all of the information that I wanted to share.
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After presenting, it was time to really improve and try to perfect that sense of layout, to create a professional and clean proposal for the professors and outside parties. We started this process by learning about creating straight lines, then going on to turn those into squares. From there, we learned how to use those to make even grids as well as circles. Finally, we began to explore orthographic sketches and made sketches of chairs and, if we chose to, our outdoor classrooms.
Finally, we made a final poster to present to professors at MIAD. We were given a template to work off of, and went and planned our designs on Photopea. When creating out posters, we had to include our problem statement, our objective, current solutions, pros and cons of those solutions, our inspiration, our ideation, and finally, our sketches and documents.
Once we finished our posters, they were printed and cut, and we glued them to boards. After gluing them, we had to take a ruler and knife and clean up the edges, and finally, it was time to present.
Reflection
I think I'm happy with the result that came from my design. There are many aspects that may not be very realistic, especially for a school, however, I still had a lot of fun coming up with the ideas. I was able to think about things in a new way that I hadn't before, and I was all because of this project, with is something I find very interesting. I was able to learn about how others felt in a classroom, and that I was not the only one feeling frustrated. Luckily, I was able to find some different solutions to the problems, ones that may be a little more fun for both the students and the teachers. Clearly I'm pretty happy with the ideas, but the poster with the proposal is only decent. I think it gets the idea across, but it's only words. It doesn't exactly draw any attention to it, it's a little boring and lacks any pictures that truly depict the problem. |
Critique
The designs are both similar, yet, unique in their own ways. My design is a mostly glass building that includes a patio for students to go, similarly, Starck creating a building with the same attributes. I also designed tables that have the same general design, but to make it more in line with the field of education, I decided to make them into rotating tables with white boards, unlike Starck's design that was made more for gathering and sitting at the tables. Once again, I changed the design of one of the chairs he created to have more storage as well as to have more space to write. These differences may seem small, but they are what change the designs from a cafe into a work space for students to be productive and engaged.
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Amor in Farm, H-Farm Campus by Philippe Starck
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ACT Questions
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
My inspiration was what made students struggle in classrooms, as well as why they don't enjoy being in school. The answers of the students was what guided me to what my design was going to be, as it was meant to appease the students.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Starck is all about creating sleek, clean and unique designs for the public, and this is exactly what I aspired to do. Starck had also done something similar to what I had done, except, instead of a classroom it was a cafe. He still, however, made it into a productive environment that still looks good.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I've found that people generally avoid classrooms that have too much stimulation or not enough, which is interesting, it taught me that there was an in between for the stimulation for kids. I also learned about how different aspects included in rooms affect a person's mood.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea or theme behind my research is the comfort and productivity of students, as well as clean designs that look ascetically pleasing. I also wanted to include a few nature-like aspects into the design, as I've found that nature makes students feel more positive.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I had to infer the sizes of a lot of different designs, as well as what may or may not affect the temperature of a room.
My inspiration was what made students struggle in classrooms, as well as why they don't enjoy being in school. The answers of the students was what guided me to what my design was going to be, as it was meant to appease the students.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Starck is all about creating sleek, clean and unique designs for the public, and this is exactly what I aspired to do. Starck had also done something similar to what I had done, except, instead of a classroom it was a cafe. He still, however, made it into a productive environment that still looks good.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I've found that people generally avoid classrooms that have too much stimulation or not enough, which is interesting, it taught me that there was an in between for the stimulation for kids. I also learned about how different aspects included in rooms affect a person's mood.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea or theme behind my research is the comfort and productivity of students, as well as clean designs that look ascetically pleasing. I also wanted to include a few nature-like aspects into the design, as I've found that nature makes students feel more positive.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I had to infer the sizes of a lot of different designs, as well as what may or may not affect the temperature of a room.
Citations
“Starck Official Website - Enter Philippe Starck's Universe: Starck.” STARCK Site web officiel. Philippe Starck, 2023. https://www.starck.com/.