ACE Team 2

Week 8 – January 16, 2017

Team 2 returned to their childhood roots this weekend with a trip to the Lego Lab at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The group started off with an activity to get their creativity flowing. First, everyone was give 1 minute to create a duck out of legos. Then, everyone passed their ducks to the left, and were given 2 minutes to improve upon the duck. The ducks were then passed again, and participants were given 4 minutes to turn the ducks into hotels. This fun and lighthearted activity illustrated the design process– from initial concept, to peer review, to design changes.

After the duck activity, the focus shifted to city planning. Groups brainstormed buildings and city elements necessary to have a successful and prosperous neighborhood. These included utilities, a grid system, grocery stores, and public spaces. Then, groups were given 30 minutes to create their ideal city out of legos. With the limited time, students did a great job of pre-planning and organizing their cities to be functional and ideal. Groups then presented and received feedback from their peers.

This fun activity helped put students in the programming mindset– designing with an overall purpose in mind. This is an important concept to master for the CIRT competition.

Up next: floor plans and massing.