Team 4 spent week 6 exploring the concept of modular design. Since the year’s project will be a modular school design, the students worked on creating small, conceptual models of spaces they thought could be repeated and work into a flexible school environment. They started out doing this individually and then later on broke into 5 teams to share their design. The teams used aspects from each individual’s design and combined their ideas to create 5 designs. The teams then presented their designs to the group and discussed the pro’s and con’s of each design.

Team 4 kicked-off week 2 with a fast and furious two phase design activity. After a presentation from Cannon on “What is an Architect?”, the students were split into two groups for Phase 1. Each group was tasked with designing a sculpture for a local highschool. They received a box of materials and instructions, but the catch was that they could not build anything. They had to create a design deliverable that included:

• A description and explanation of the concept behind the sculpture
• Sketches of the sculpture
• Instructions and details on how to build the sculpture
• A list of materials

After the first hour, it was pens down. Arup gave a presentation on “What is Engineering” and then Phase 2 kicked into gear without hesitation. This is where it got interested…. Each team now had to build the other team’s design using the materials and their design deliverable. They were allowed to pick a representative to work with the other team and explain the design and given an hour to construct the sculpture. To our surprise, both teams finished their design! The project was intended to get everyone working together and show how communicating a design is not always the easiest thing – but it looks like we have quite the crew of students who are willing to go above and beyond!

Team A tackling an issue with the Team B design – one wall was supposed to be made of a stack of books.

pin-up materials

Design Result from presentation to the owner’s rep.

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