If you’re checking out grad schools for next September, be sure to take a look at the MFA in Products of Design program at SVA in New York City. Chaired by Core77’s Allan Chochinov, the department will welcome guests to its Information Session/Open House on Saturday, November 9th, from 11am to 1pm. Meet faculty and students, tour the department and Visible Futures Lab, and preview projects and the curriculum. Here’s a bit more:
“Please join us for our Open House and Information Session. The MFA in Products of Design is an immersive, two-year graduate program that creates exceptional practitioners for leadership in the shifting terrain of design. We educate heads, hearts and hands to reinvent systems and catalyze positive change.
Students gain fluency in the three fields crucial to the future of design: Making, from the handmade to digital fabrication; Structures: business, research, systems, strategy, user experience and interaction; and Narratives: video storytelling, history and point of view. Through work that engages emerging science and materials, social cooperation and public life, students develop the skills to address contemporary problems in contemporary ways.
Graduates emerge with confidence, methods, experience and strong professional networks. They gain the skills necessary to excel in senior positions at top design firms and progressive organizations, create ingenious enterprises of their own, and become lifelong advocates for the power of design.”
Check out all the goings on at the department goings on at the site and on their blog. RSVP for the Open House/Information Session event here.
Need a nudge to get moving on the graphic novel you’ve been writing and/or drawing in your head for years? First, seek inspiration from Code Monkey Save World. The graphic novel in-progress–based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton, written by Greg Pak, and drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa–completed a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year (earning nearly ten times its original goal). According to the creators, the project was born after Pak joked on Twitter about writing a supervillain team-up comic based on Coulton’s characters. Coulton tweeted back “DO IT.” And so they did. You can, too, and the Mediabistro mothership is here to help with an online course that promises to move your graphic novel out of your head and onto the page–and beyond. Marvel Comics veteran Danny Fingeroth leads the eight-week learning adventure, which will take you from devising a proposal and writing word balloons to surviving Comic-Con and handling Hollywood. Learn more and register here. Sessions begin Thursday, October 17.
London, Paris, Milan and New York are usually the first cities that come to mind as the breeding grounds of art and culture. Yet it’s in Antwerp, Belgium (with a population of around 500,000), where the ); return…
A dollar bill stamped with fact-based infographics from the Occupy George project.
Ready to respond to requests of “Show me the data!” with more than a sad little bar graph? The Mediabistro mothership is now recruiting would-be data visualizers for an online course in infographics that can “engage an audience in your brand, cause, or mission.” Guided by veteran creative director Sascha Mombartz, whose resume includes stints at The New York Times and Google, students will get up to speed with online tools (we’re looking at you Many Eyes) and develop a robust spec for a data visualization. The infographical fun starts next week, and if you register by tomorrow (no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on September 12), we’ll throw in a free webcast. Use promo code WEBCAST at checkout. Then use all of the dollar bills you save to circulate your newly created infographics.
Rotterdam studio Kraaijvanger has added two new buildings to a school in a suburb of the Dutch capital, The Hague, with pitched roofs and rustic materials that reference the site’s original role as a farm (+ slideshow).
Kraaijvanger‘s additions to the American School of The Hague include a sports hall and a larger barn-like building that houses a nursery, 12 classrooms and a gym for babies and children up to the age of six.
The new “barn” adjoins a sixteenth-century farmhouse that the architects are currently renovating. The site’s historic significance meant that the height and shape of the buildings had to correspond with the existing agricultural structures.
“We weren’t allowed to build any higher than the old farm buildings so we had to bury the lower storey below ground,” architect Annemiek Bleumink told Dezeen.
Wood is used for the external cladding to tie the buildings in with their rustic setting, as well as for internal beams and columns that continue the natural look indoors.
“Because the buildings are used by small children we wanted to use warm materials for both the exterior and the interior,” explained Bleumink.
Large windows in the sloping roof fill the nursery classrooms with natural light, while a glazed walkway traverses a void between that part of the building and an atrium housing the main entrance.
A bridge crossing a public road links the “barn” with the sports building, which has sloping roofs covered in plants that further emphasise the scheme’s agrarian aesthetic.
School as farmyard: expansion of the American School of the Hague with the Early Childhood Center & renovation monument farm Ter Weer.
As a farm with several buildings, The American School of The Hague in Wassenaar is expanded for The Early Childhood. This set-up fits the small scale of the area. On the location stood already the 16th century farmhouse ‘Ter Weer’. The farm is restored and incorporated into the whole. The entire complex is integrated into the environment and the landscape. The school has a capacity for 250 children from 0 to 6 years and includes a nursery, twelve classrooms, a gym and a multipurpose room. The entrance is in line with the arrival route over the Deijlerweg and is designed as a monumental glass heart between the farm and the ‘barn’.
Dialogue between old and new
The dialogue between the two buildings, can be felt both inside and outside. The expansion partly deepened to encrouch the monument is not too much. The new and the old are connected to each other by a bridge in the new atrium. The materialization of the new building refers to a barn by applying wood substructures, caps and wooden parts for wall cladding.
Program
The barn houses the classrooms. Because of the inclined slope they all recieve enough daylight. The classrooms are characterized by the entry of natural light, the use of healthy materials and the direct relationship with the surrounding landscape. In farmhouse are located the administrative functions of the school a lunch room for 100 children, a kitchen, a nursery, a library and a local labor.
The sports facilities are housed in a separate building. It contains a gymnasium, changing rooms, a canteen and the clubhouse of the local handball association. The building is designed as two interlocking volumes with sloping green roofs, matching the shape of the extension and rural character of the area. A large window is placed in the gymnasium overlooking the connecting bridge to the main building and offers insight from the school and outside play areas.
Around the school are several playgrounds to suit the different age groups. They are designed by design studio van Ginneken with greenery, seating and educational components such as a vegetable garden. Hedges, wooden fences and gentle slopes locks provide a friendly separation between the different squares. In an adjacent site parking there are gravel pavement and rows of trees between the parking.
The building is fully integrated into the environment and the surrounding landscape. The design of the landscape is based on the objectives of the school. A healthy environment where young children playfully learn why sustainability matters. By using water, natural materials and to show how energy is generated children come in a natural way in contact with this theme. The building makes use of solar energy, LED fixtures, cold and heat storage, wastewater reuse and craddle to craddle materials such as Accoya cladding.
All around the world, children are going back to school, and I cannot help but think that if Dr. Maria Montessori (Italy, 1870–1952) were alive today, designers would be among her top teaching recruits for their skills in observation and empathy.
After years of alternating between user-experience projects in San Francisco and on-call teaching assignments at a Bay Area Montessori school, I’m inspired to share the revelation that they are parallel—yet oddly independent—universes unto each other. In both universes there is an enormous emphasis on design problem solving, disciplined observation and innate empathy, not to mention findings reports.
Underlying both environments is also a fundamental principle of human dignity, with a modest lack of assumption about an individual’s truth; under observation, user testers navigate our prepared prototypes and reveal where our designs match or fail human intuition. Children navigate a Montessori ‘prepared environment’ and reveal their individual selves.
First-time observers of a Montessori prepared environment often witness its effects upon children with jaw-dropping disbelief. It’s not unlike observing a person interact with a fully resolved design. The effect is deepened, however, as we often underestimate the children’s learning ability, when in fact it is greater than that of most adults. Dr. Montessori referred often used the term ‘absorbent mind’ when discussing children’s abiliy to learn.
This wooden nursery and elementary school complex in Lyon by French architects Tectoniques has hilly rooftops carpeted with plants that feature walkways for students to explore (+ slideshow).
Tectoniques built the two schools on a sloping site opposite a wooded parkland in the northern city suburb of Rillieux-la-Pape.
The two- and three-storey buildings were designed with V-shaped plans. The nursery school frames a garden, while the elementary school wraps around a narrow courtyard.
In certain places the plant-covered rooftops appear to emerge from the ground, created a series of slopes and pathways that children are encouraged to investigate.
“One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature,” said the architects. “The structures in keeping with their surroundings are, at times, allowing nature to more or less literally to get the upper hand.”
“The general profile is uniformly and deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise the excavation and foundation work,” they added.
The two schools operate independently, but share some facilities. A communal entrance provides a place for parents to congregate before and after school, and is linked to the village by a pedestrian pathway.
Timber cladding covers most of the building’s interior and exterior, but is interspersed with a few yellow-painted panels on the walls and ceilings.
Spacious corridors run between classrooms and feature floor-to-ceiling windows to increase natural light.
A vegetable garden grows on the perimeter of the school, plus a new gymnasium will be added to the site next year.
Photography is by Renaud Araud and the architects.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Paul Chevallier School in Rillieux-la-Pape
The Paul Chevallier school complex is situated in Rillieux-la-Pape, a northern suburb of Lyon. At 5,034 m2, it is an unusually large project; and this indicates the growing attractiveness of the area. The complex currently comprises a nursery school and an elementary school. In 2014, a gym will be added, which will also be available for community activities. The site occupies an entire block, close to the centre of the district. The two schools are functionally and administratively autonomous. While following on from each other, they make up a continuum, in an overall composition.
They are made up of rectangular modules in “V” formations enclosing internal spaces which, in the case of the nursery school, is a garden, and, in that of the elementary school, a patio. The design takes account of the sloping terrain. The structures in laminated KLH® panels have imposing planted-out roofs with overhangs. Lending its tone to the entire project, this extra “façade” represents the lyrical nature of the relationship between nature and architecture, in a Japanese-inspired atmosphere. It is accessible and visible from inside the buildings via the volumes of the first floor, part of which rises up over the roof and seems to float over this hanging garden.
Integration into the urban mosaic
The site is surrounded by disparate constructed forms that illustrate the historical development of the area. The old village stretches out along the Route de Strasbourg, and on the southern side there is a mix of apartment blocks and private housing developments. Dense, diverse plant life accompanies and modifies this urban environment. Across from the site is the wooded Brosset park, with, on its perimeter, the Maison des Familles, the Centre Social and the Ecole de Musique, whose functions are complementary to those of the schools.
The nursery school occupies a calm, sheltered position in a garden at the heart of the site, with an area of vegetation close to a château and some villas. The elementary school has a façade that gives onto Rue Salignat. The future gym will follow the alignment of the street. A pedestrian pathway leads to the entrance, organising the area where the parents congregate, and linking the schools to the village, as a prolongation to the existing axes of communication. It is lined by the structures themselves, thus leaving room for the playgrounds and gardens on the southern side.
Reconciling architecture and nature
One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature. The structures are in keeping with their surroundings, at times allowing nature, more or less literally, to “get the upper hand”. The general profile is uniformly, deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise excavation and foundation work. The project harmonises vegetation on the upper and lower levels. The volumes in wood are separated by the broad, planted-out roofs, with their waves of colour.
The inclined roof planes and broad overhangs energise the silhouette, and attenuate the massiveness of the blocks. This schema is an encouragement to strolling and dallying. It projects an impression of insouciance that is ideally suited to the world of children. From the inside, nature is framed by the large windows of the classrooms, and its close proximity makes it an element of the children’s educational needs. The landscapers have provided places of discovery and experimentation. There is a vegetable garden beside Rue Salignat, and a discovery path on the way to the canteen in the northern wing of the nursery school. There are also walkways on the roofs, which introduce the children to another ambiance.
Poetry and surprise
The two schools are unified by their broad, pleated roofs, the nursery school being lower down on the slope. The ground plan is simple, so that the children can easily find their way around. The geometry, and notably the passageways, contrast with the spatial intensity. The inner perspectives are telescoped or attenuated, depending on whether the walls are convex or concave. Views onto the outside world, and superimposed spaces, are always different, always new. There are multiple, changing, irregular facets. No two façades are the same.
The complex is labile, asymmetrical, surprising. In terms of organisation, the classrooms are rectangular, and can take thirty children comfortably. The collective spaces (library, concourse, music and computing rooms) stand out, in part, above the roofs. Large windows, sheltered by the roof projections and sunshades, open onto the playgrounds on the southern side. And the nursery school also receives natural light from the north. Access to the nursery school classrooms is through cloakrooms, via yellow perforated metal entry points that indicate a passage from one world to another.
The toilets and dormitories are shared by two classrooms, and there is customised furniture in three-ply spruce, from the cloakrooms to the cupboards in the classrooms. The passageways have their own character, and are the project’s main axes. The galleries, main entrance, hall, covered playground, corridors and terraces are carefully designed, spacious, with natural lighting, for easy occupation.
Wood in depth
Wood is a pre-eminent presence. Tectoniques generally uses wood frames for its school projects, but in this case there are wood panels throughout, for the walls, façades and floors. They are left exposed on the inside surfaces, giving solidity and depth to the walls and partitions. This impression of mass and weight creates an impression that is unusual for construction in wood, which by its very nature is light.
Apart from the foundations, slabs, ground floor and stairwells, everything is in wood, including the lift shaft. The outer aspect of the complex is characterised by overhangs that are 2.4 m long and 0.18 m deep. Structurally, the roof is made of KLH® panels, as mentioned above, while the upper storey has cavity floors in prefabricated laminates between OSB planking on dry slabs, with soft coverings.
The design-construction process is similar to certain techniques that have been used in Austria. Industrially-produced panels and more elaborate components are used for on-site dry assembly. This is one of the most ambitious project of its kind to be implemented in France, using a constructional approach that is one of Tectoniques’ specialities.
In order to ensure that all incoming students are comfortable (at comparable levels of proficiency) with the skills, processes, and facilities they’ll be engaging from day one of their first semester, the Designed Objects program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) recently created the first classroom in the world equipped with a class-count of individual 3D printers with support from Printrbot, Taulman 3D and Simplify 3D. The 11 students were encouraged to 3D print output by proposing textiles, printing intelligence and a future that celebrates the immediate, provisional, and transient. The course is action-oriented and exhibition-driven, and is more about experiencing fast and complete cycles of realization (with idea development de-emphasized in favor of range of exposure).
Although the incoming class participates in the summer intensive every year, this was the first year that 3D printing was part of the curriculum. Instructor Brian Anderson was in conversation with Printrbot for a personal project early in the summer and our exchanges expanded into the possibility of pulling together the first classroom with so many accessible printers, and the desktop 3D printing component ended up taking the final quarter of the six-week course. Here he shares the story behind “Immediate Objects: Explorations in 3D printing.”
Text & Images courtesy of Brian Anderson
Each year, SAIC’s incoming Master of Design students spends six weeks in a pre-term boot camp exploring the how and when of rough and refined design visualization and prototyping. Through daily and weekly projects the class advances digital design skills and gains comprehensive exposure to the fabrication and production capabilities across the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Using these capabilities and tools, students in the course explore approaches to visualization and construction ranging from simple to sophisticated and exhibit drawings and objects developed through integrated approaches. This summer, the Designed Objects boot camp culminated in a week-long 3D printing intensive, a low- to medium-fidelity laboratory that explored the idea of ubiquitous 3D printing.
Because of the relatively high price of equipping classrooms with ten or more semi-pro 3D printers, courses focusing on digital output often can only afford to provide students access to one or two machines. Responding to this impasse, I conceived of a collaboration intended to marry accessible, low-cost 3D printing (the Printrbot Simple is the world’s least expensive 3D printer) with a print material that is readily optimized in terms of print volume and strength (it takes less nylon to achieve high structural integrity and Taulman 3D is actively involved in developing this and other aspects of print output) and lastly a simplified and robust software interface and workflow (Simplify 3D’s Creator software).
Pastel gradients spread up the walls of this languages school in Valencia by local design studio Masquespacio (+ slideshow).
Masquespacio completed the interior design and brand identity at the 2Day Languages school for learning Spanish, inside a neoclassical building.
“We wanted to limit our intervention to a minimum,” said the studio’s creative director Ana Milena Hernández Palacios, “without forgetting the importance of equalising the mix between modern decoration and the beauty of the neoclassical architecture of the building.”
Decorative cornices and mouldings around doors, windows and columns were kept alongside new pine wood flooring and furniture.
Each classroom is colour coded with pastel blue, yellow or pink on the walls, metal chair legs and pendant light cages.
“Every classroom contains a different colour that is fading as if presenting the progress in language learning,” the designer said.
Wooden box lights overlap at right angles above study tables and are positioned in cross shapes over the reception desk.
There’s also a communal lounge for students to relax in, decorated sparingly with a combination of shades used elsewhere, plus a staff room.
Visitors can follow the colourful signs around the buildings to find the right room.
Small plant boxes have been attached to the walls, while other foliage grows in pots that dangle from the ceiling.
Thin samba wood slats form undulating ribbons that hide lights along the corridor ceilings.
The branding uses the same colour scheme and patterns as the interior, paired with bold fonts.
Masquespacio present their last project done in a central area from Valencia, Spain. The studio specialised in interior design and communication created in this case the interior and the identity of 2Day Languages, a new Spanish school in Valencia.
This project in first case is based on the identity of 2Day Languages represented by a flag that is fused with a text bubble including the three fundamental characteristics of language learning: the levels, the goal and the conversation.
On the other hand it integrates the historic values from the city of Valencia that mixes modern and old architecture. A fusion symbolised in this new Spanish school through its neoclassical architecture and the intervention from Masquespacio’s designers. The space is developed on an area of 183 m2 that contains three classrooms, a staff room and a lounge. Each of the classrooms and common rooms are a defragmentation from the brand identity of 2Day Languages and also incorporate parts of the Spanish language and the architecture of Valencia.
In first place it can be seen that the classrooms are containing the three brand colours, which in turn are a representation of the three levels A, B and C established by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, here seen as the colours blue, yellow and pink. Every classroom contains a different colour that is fading as if presenting the progress in language learning. On the other hand the sculptural lamps are another defragmentation from the graphical elements.
Ana Milena Hernández Palacios, creative director of Masquespacio comments: “As in the classrooms the students and their teachers are the protagonists, we wanted to limit our intervention to a minimum, without forgetting the freshness and ‘good feeling’ that needed to breathe each space, as well as the importance to equalise the mix between modern decoration and the beauty of the neoclassical architecture of the building. We opted for warm materials like pine to generate pleasurable sensations with functional features to make easier the school operations. Two tables instead of one in each classroom were chosen to be separated and stacked during activities. Also the chairs were chosen to offer maximum comfort to the students and with stack options for better circulation during activities.”
Getting out of the classrooms in the common areas, where the students of the different levels meet each other, levels and colours are mixed up together. This happens in the reception, but also in the hall through little shreds from the gradient colours added to the bottom part of the wooden ceiling. Last but not least the lounge room follows the same unity of colours, but this time merged into the decorative elements subtracted from the brand identity. Undoubtedly this part of the project is the one where the decoration has a more prominent role, faithful to the design established in other parts of the school. Headliner here is the representation of the communication elements, relevant words of the Spanish language and some icons from the architecture of Valencia, using a technique of knitting with wool and nails.
Masquespacio in this project wanted to remain true to its philosophy traduced into creativity, identity and democratic design always under the concept of designing a space to live and enjoy with a freshness that makes the users feel comfortable while being overwhelmed by emotions generated by the space itself.
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Need a nudge to get moving on the graphic novel you’ve been writing and/or drawing in your head for years? First, seek inspiration from 
Images via 
