Hasta La Ideas

News: plans to remove creative subjects from the UK curriculum are “short-sighted insanity”, according to incoming D&AD president Neville Brody (+ interview).

Speaking to Dezeen, Brody described government plans to overhaul the curriculum as “one of the biggest mistakes in British government” and added: “The UK government is trying to demolish and smash all ideas about creative education.”

In September, education secretary Michael Gove announced plans to replace GCSE examinations for students up to the age of 16 with a new English baccalaureate (EBacc) system. Creative subjects such as art and design will not count towards the EBacc qualifications, which instead are graded on performance in academic “stem” subjects. These stem subjects are English, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and a language.

“They haven’t included any creative subjects as part of the Ebacc, which is an absolutely short-sighted insanity,” Brody said.

Brody fears the changes will discourage students from studying arts subjects, leading to the closure of some UK art schools and a decline of the creative industries.

“The creative industries need high-quality creative graduates. If we’re not getting the graduates, we’re not going to sustain the industry,” said Brody. “Creative services as a percentage of GDP is higher here than any other country, so why would you not want to support, promote and build that?”

Brody, who runs London graphic design agency Research Studios as well as being dean of the Royal College of Art’s school of communication, becomes president of visual and advertising design body D&AD on 1 December.

Brody said he disagreed with comments made by broadcaster Andrew Marr last week, who claimed the Royal College of Art would become a “Chinese finishing school” if changes to the curriculum went ahead.

“It’s not about people being tailored for industry,” he said. “What the Royal College does is develop skilled dangerous minds, otherwise there’s no point in doing it “

However Brody described the government’s attitude to overseas arts students who come to the UK to study as “blindness”.

“A lot of [foreign] students, especially at the Royal College, want to stay on here and want to contribute,” he said. “If you’re categorising non-UK students as immigrants, which this government has done, you’re ignoring the fact that they’re bringing several billion pounds into the country, not only fees but money spent on living accommodation, expenses, etcetera, and now we’re saying at the end of all of that, ‘thank you for your money, now leave.’ An alien visiting would find that hysterically funny. It’s just absurd.”

As part of his one-year D&AD presidency, Brody will launch a new initiative called the D&AD Foundation, which will lobby on behalf of design education, and raise funds for design students and courses.

Brody said: “The proportion of our influence creatively compared to the size of the country is massive, so the D&AD foundation that we’re launching in January, will hopefully start to attract and redirect funds from the creative industry, and from the corporate world that needs the creative industry, and funnel that back into the grassroots of developing opportunity including education.”

The D&AD, which this year celebrated its 50^th anniversary, needs to become more vociferous in support of design, Brody added: “D&AD needs to have a more active voice. Historically it’s not really lobbied, it’s not taken on issues, and really kind of left those areas to other people but this is a turning point now.”

Neville Brody made his name as art director for The Face and Arena magazines in the 1980s. He is the current dean of the Royal College of Art’s school of communication and has just designed a new typeface for the college. His own design firm, Research Studios, has offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona and Tokyo. Dezeen previously filmed an interview with Brody for the Design Museum’s Super Contemporary exhibition, in which he talks about the people, places and cultures that have defined his life in London. See all our stories about Neville Brody.

See below for an edited transcript of the interview between Dezeen editor Rose Etherington and Brody:

Rose Etherington: What do you hope to achieve in your D&AD presidency?

Neville Brody: Well my interest isn’t really to do with the ceremonial aspect of being the president of D&AD. It’s an interesting junction because this is the beginning of the next 50 years in a way. I think D&AD is recognised as one of the most important awards to win, so how can we leverage that focus on excellence and use it as a way of developing excellence for the future?

We’re now in a space where the UK government is trying to demolish and smash all ideas about creative education. So we have to ask serious questions: what responsibility does D&AD have within that? And also, the creative industries here need high quality creative graduates. If we’re not getting the graduates we’re not going to sustain the industry.

They’re trying to smash creative education, and it makes no sense. As you know, they haven’t included any creative subjects as part of the Ebacc, which is an absolutely short-sighted insanity. The government’s complete lack of vision and its complete focus on stem subjects beggars belief and I think they’re making one of the biggest mistakes in British government.

We’re not going to regenerate and reinvent our manufacturing industry that’s for sure. So if you look at the skills we need not only in computing engineering but in programming software development, in games design, advertising as part of the creative service industry, design, and we’re recognised as one of the best quality in the world in the UK. Creative services as a percentage of GDP is higher here than any other country, so why would you not want to support, promote and build that? It’s not just about the music industry, and obviously our struggling film industry, it’s about developing these great minds.

Rose Etherington: If the government goes ahead with this, what would the creative industries look like in Britain in 20 years time?

Neville Brody: Well in 20 years time, will we still have this level of global commissioning of UK creative services? I would say probably not, especially with China opening hundreds of art schools at the moment, focussing not only on the manufacturing but also on the innovative and creative side, and at the other end marketing and distribution.

So where does that leave the UK? The proportion of our influence creatively compared to the size of the country is massive, so the D&AD Foundation that we’re launching in January, will hopefully start to attract and redirect funds from the creative industry, and from the corporate world that needs the creative industry, and funnel that back into the grassroots of developing opportunity including education.

Rose Etherington: Tell me a bit about how the D&AD foundation would work.

Neville Brody: It’s going to be the place where all of the education activities at D&AD will sit. So it has two kinds of remits, or three in a way. One is that it will be a focusing and an emphasising of all of the educational activities. D&AD does a massive amount [but] it has not surfaced, so people aren’t usually aware of the scope of it.

Secondly, it would help separate educational activities from industry activities, which would be the awards, the book, the membership, talks, stuff like that. Of course there’s the money making side in order to raise endowments and donations directly into the foundation, so it can be used directly to support students in universities.

The third area for me is that D&AD needs to have a more active voice. Historically it’s not really lobbied, it’s not taken on issues, and really kind of left those areas to other people but this is a turning point now. This year will be much more vocal, and I think Laura Jordan-Bambach who is coming [as president] next year would also be vocal in different areas. And I think D&AD has to have a voice, and it does ultimately represent visual designers and advertising in this country. So hopefully expect to hear more from us.

Rose Etherington: You mentioned all of the design schools that are being set up in China. Earlier this week Andrew Marr wrote a piece saying that the RCA could become a Chinese finishing school. How do you feel about that?

Neville Brody: Well, number one, I always call the Royal College an “unfinishing” school. There’s a particular quality and there’s a particular what I call an RCA-ness, which you can’t identify. It’s not about people being tailored for industry. What the Royal College does is develop skilled dangerous minds, otherwise there’s no point in doing it. It develops the minds and individuals that will go out and change the industry. So it’s kind of leadership through innovative thinking really that they’re looking for. This country is not going to be looking at developing finishing schools for Chinese students.

The blindness is the UK government making sure that when people graduate with their BA or MA that they don’t leave the country, so it has the opportunity to capitalise on the skills sets it’s training. A lot of students, especially at the Royal College, want to stay on here and want to contribute, but the government is saying ‘well we’re going to invest in educating for non-UK students, but we have no interest in using that education to help our industries. It’s almost to the point of deportation. It’s just insanity.

And economically, it makes no sense. If you’re categorising non-UK students as immigrants, which this government has done, you’re ignoring the fact that they’re bringing several billion pounds into the country, not only fees but money spent on living accommodation, expenses, etcetera, and now we’re saying at the end of all of that, ‘thank you for your money, now leave.’ An alien visiting would find that hysterically funny. It’s just absurd.

Rose Etherington: So does D&AD plan to tackle this problem of students being classed as immigrants as well?

Neville Brody: It’s certainly on the table for discussion. It’s certainly a part of a much bigger picture. It’s not part of our directly remit, of course, because what’s going to happen in the next few months is that we’re looking at all aspects of how to maintain quality and opportunity in the creative industries in the UK, and I wouldn’t have thought immigration was an area for D&AD to touch. But survival of creative education in the UK is an area we have to touch, so we have to help think about how best to ensure that going forward. Of course, the best thing to ensure this is if the government supports it properly.

Rose Etherington: So what specific things would you like to see the government do in order to support it?

Neville Brody: Money. Some art schools will definitely go out of business in the next five years in this country. It’s unsustainable, with the extra pressures that government’s putting onto art schools; putting pressure on schools to get rid of art in its curriculum. Because it’s saying that it’s going to give money to schools and academies based on the success in the stem subjects. It doesn’t consider creative subjects, so what happens then is that schools will not invest in art or performance or any of those areas because it won’t go to their bottom line. And so schools might end up focusing many of their hours on teaching maths and sciences and English, and may not even offer art in future.

A lot of schools had to close playing fields and sell off land in order to try and raise money, and so sport collapses, and it’s just insanity. It will lead to further collapse and will lead in the end to such a massive need for reinvestment.

Otherwise other countries will be buying up these facilities, and extracting all the profits, and then not paying tax back into this country. I’m all for internationalism but I’m also all for healthy creative industry of this country.

The post Removal of design from school curriculum
is “insanity” – Neville Brody appeared first on Dezeen.

A chequerboard of opaque panels and windows surrounds this school canteen in western Germany by SpreierTrenner Architekten (+ slideshow).

Located at a secondary school in the town of Salmtal, the new building provides a flexible events space that can also be used for plays, music recitals or Christmas fairs.

Around the windows, SpreierTrenner Architekten clad the exterior of the walls with vibrant red ceramic panels. “We wanted something vivid and playful to engage the children, but also welcome any visitors,” architect Daniel Spreier told Dezeen.

“The facade material draws its inspiration from the existing school building from the 1970s, which has a red brick facade,” he added. “So a red ceramic facade using 30-millimetre panels was a close contemporary choice.”

The interior surfaces of these panels are exposed concrete, formed against chunky chipboard to create a soft texture. The red exterior is barely visible, so to add colour the architects filled the room with an assortment of red, yellow and green chairs.

A grid of wooden trusses supports the ceiling and matches the chequered pattern of the walls. This structure allows for a column-free space that can be divided up using removable partitions.

“The starting point was the square plan, which allowed for maximum flexibility” said Spreier. “To span a square plan most efficiently we thought of a two-directional grid. We then took that grid to the facade as well, so it determined the height of the room, the size of the windows and an efficient ratio for the wooden ceiling trusses.”

A glazed entrance opens the building out to the playground, where the grid continues as square paving panels and seating blocks.

“The final result seems to remind people of a Rubik’s Cube,” said Spreier.

We’ve published quite a few red building on Dezeen, including a youth centre in Denmark and a psychiatric centre in Spain.

See more red buildings on Dezeen »

Photography is by Guido Erbring.

Here’s some more information from SpreierTrenner Architekten:

The new school canteen of the Salmtal Secondary School in Germany was designed by SpreierTrenner Architekten as a multifunctional building with the greatest possible flexibility. The space is used not only by children to eat every day, but also for special events such as music concerts, theatre plays or even Christmas fairs. This is why the main room was set out with a column-free square plan only subdivided by a mobile wall.

The adjoining section at the rear contains all supporting facilities, such as a kitchen, storage space, toilets and staff facilities, etc. It has been set out with the option of extending it in the future.

The big glazed entrance opens up the main canteen room to the outside and represents a welcoming gesture. The cantilevering canopy creates a transition zone between the interior and the playground.

The roof grid of the main room consists of 10cm thick and 1m high wood trusses. To keep the appearance simple all ducts, ventilation outlets and lighting are recessed in the ceiling. The integrated lighting produces glowing wood squares that turn the structural trusses into a design feature.

The squares were also used to perforate the building envelope, creating a human scale (1.25 x 1.25m) and allowing for changing outlooks and interesting insights. The surrounding landscape almost appears like pictures hung on the wall rather than mere windows. The checked windows also allow the pupils to interact and play around with their classmates relaxing outside in the schoolyard.

All materials used were kept natural, robust, durable and simple. The main components were concrete, wood and ceramics. The façade was clad with ceramic tiles reflecting the red bricks used to build the original school. Its glazed surface makes it more durable and easier to clean.

Although the façade is a bright red, no colours were used inside to allow the vibrant furniture to stand out. The concrete walls were constructed with a rough surface produced by standard OSB formwork that creates a warm texture. The floor shows the concrete screed surface, similar to the material used in car parks, covered with a transparent protective resin layer.

The architect, Daniel Spreier, wanted the children to take ownership of the building and use the surrounding spaces to relax and have fun. The checked pattern is playfully extended into the external space, which is framed by lawn areas and trees and subdivided by direct paths.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

The area includes two “external classrooms” consisting of staggered concrete cubes, which allow the students to sit down, run around, jump over and let out any excess energy that builds up in classroom.

Above: floor plan – click above for larger image

Since the building opened, these cubes have proved to be very successful, with children hanging out with their friends at break times and after school.

Above: section – click above for larger image

The post Salmtal Secondary School Canteen
by SpreierTrenner Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.

Daniel Libeskind has completed an education centre at the Jewish Museum Berlin, twelve years after the American architect completed his widely acclaimed extension (+ slideshow).

Located across the street within the structure of Berlin’s old flower market, the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin provides a new home to the museum’s library and archive, which has doubled in size over the last decade to accommodate both printed and digital records.

At the entrance, Libeskind has designed a roughly-hewn timber box that bursts through the exterior wall, with angular skylights and a sliced opening to invite visitors inside. Two additional timber boxes are located within the building and house the library and auditorium.

The 2300-square-metre centre will be used as a venue for educational workshops, lectures and conferences, and will also offer a meeting place for the 7000 guided tours run by the museum each year.

The Jewish Museum Berlin is one of the largest museums of Jewish history in Europe and opened to the public in 2001, following the construction of Libeskind’s extension to the original 1930s building.

“My ongoing collaboration with the Jewish Museum Berlin is a source of tremendous professional and personal pride,” said Daniel Libeskind. “Each project offers a fresh chance to illuminate Jewish history and culture, to understand the tragedies and the triumphs, and to celebrate the resilience, creativity and erudition that have been Jews’ enduring legacy.”

This year Libeskind was also selected to design a peace centre on the site of a former prison in Northern Ireland and completed a family of curved towers in Singapore.

See more stories about Daniel Libeskind »

Photography is by Bitter Bredt.

Here’s some more information from Studio Daniel Libeskind:

The Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin Will Be Forum for Research, Discussion and Education

Roughly a dozen years after Daniel Libeskind’s extension to the Jewish Museum Berlin opened to great acclaim in 2001, the museum has unveiled its latest collaboration with the architect, the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin.

The 25,000-square-foot, one-storey Academy stands on the site of Berlin’s one-time flower market, whose shell undergirds the new structure. Located across from the museum proper, the Academy brings together its library, archives and education center and offers additional office, storage and support space for the museum.

Since the museum’s reopening in 2001, its public and educational programs have more than doubled. In addition to 7,000 guided tours each year, the museum offers more than 400 educational programs ranging from workshops for children to training courses for museum professionals. The new facility will house these programs as well as symposia, conferences, lectures and seminars.

The museum’s library and archives have also moved to the Academy. The archives, which contain both printed and audio-visual materials, have also doubled in size over the last decade while the library’s holdings have tripled.

In-Between Spaces

Daniel Libeskind’s design for the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin links the building to the museum’s other structures and open spaces, both thematically and structurally.

One of the first things visitors see upon entering the piazza leading to the building are the words of the great medieval Jewish scholar and philosopher Moses Maimonides. His famous adjuration, “Hear the truth, whoever speaks it,” is splashed across the left side of the façade, a reminder that those who delve into history must be prepared to accept what they find regardless of the source. The five languages in which the charge is given – English, German, Hebrew, Arabic and the original Judeo-Arabic of medieval Spain – reinforce that message while also suggesting the universal nature of truth.

On the right, a large downward-sloping cube bursts through the façade. Its unusual contours echo the jagged shape of the museum’s 2001 extension, designed by Mr. Libeskind and visible across the street. That shape is also a variation on a theme found in the museum’s Garden of Exileand Glass Courtyard, also designed by Mr. Libeskind and opened 2007 and 2005, respectively.

Two large skylights, visible from the piazza, rest atop the cube. Shaped like the Hebrew letters Alef and Bet (A and B), they are another reminder of the importance of learning and knowledge to the human experience and of their centrality to Jewish life.

After passing through a large gash in the cube that serves as the Academy’s entryway, visitors are decanted into transitional space comprising two more huge cubes. Thrust forward at odd angles, the cubes, which house the library and the auditorium, form a jagged triumvirate with the rear end of entrance cube.

The movement and interaction suggested by the cubes’ shape and placement and by the seemingly rough-hewn timber (actually radiate pine timber) used to fabricate them suggests the sort of crates used to transport precious objects, including books. They also suggest Noah’s Ark, which preserved the most precious thing of all – living beings, in all their splendid variety – during the most important voyage in biblical history.

“In-Between Spaces,” Mr. Libeskind’s name for his design, describes the transitional area among the three cubes. It also alludes to the different perspectives offered by that unique vantage point. Standing on that spot, looking into the hall and out on to museum’s other structures and spaces, visitors are ideally placed to reflect on the museum’s larger purpose and their own experience of it.

The post The Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin
by Daniel Libeskind appeared first on Dezeen.

Admit it. Your seven-year-old nephew could out-HTML tag you any day and you think that a Cascading Style Sheet is something with a thread count. That’s where the Mediabistro mothership comes in. They’ve asked us to tell you about an upcoming weekend course in HTML Fundamentals. In one hands-on, hyperlinked NYC weekend (December 1-2) artist, designer, and interactive developer David Tristman will guide you in breathing digital life into a pre-designed web page. Along the way, you’ll learn how to turn a PSD layout into HTML, the fundamentals of CSS3 styling of color and transitions, and why “@font-face” describes more than the contorted visages of typographers on deadline. By Sunday, you’ll be creating fully functional web pages, debating the finer points of inline and block display, and have gained all the tools necessary to launch your own site. Register here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The first rule of Type Camp is, you do not talk about Type Camp. Oh wait, that’s Fight Club. What a relief, as we’re itching to tell you about what next year holds for the burgeoning series of immersive design workshops for those who like to debate kerning whilst scarfing gourmet s’mores. Type Camp has big, global plans for 2013, beginning with a five-day seaside getaway in Australia (February 3-7), because it’s about time you followed through on creating that marsupial-inspired font you’re always talking about–we think “Wallaby Sans” has a nice ring to it. Then, in March, it’s off to India for a series of three “professional urban training” sessions (think creative typography and bilingual typesetting) in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. A planned April installment will offer a creative residential retreat in Japan. And the band of nomadic type junkies will return to India next December for a cultural crash course that includes workshops on Tamil typography, local graphic production methods, and visits to street typographers, ancient and modern Hindu temples, and local markets. It’s the perfect way to spice up your design perspective. Learn more and register here.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.