MYP 4 Design: Alexander Calder Circus Toys

Alexander Calder was an artist and toy maker.

Read the article here:
http://www.original.rolandcollection.com/rolandcollection/section/25/621.htm


Please visit the website below and watch the videos.

http://artforum.com/video/id=22486&mode=large&page_id=6

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/counting_on_art/popups/pop_calder_1.htm

Process Journal Responses:
1. What did you learn about Alexander Calder?
2. What are your impressions, thoughts about his circus toys?
3. What makes them kinetic?
4. What toy in particular strikes you? How does it move?

Google Sketch Up! (MYP 1, 4 and 5)

Google Sketch Up is a great and FREE software for 3-dimensional computer model design. We will be using this in MYP 1, 4, and 5.

You can download if for free from here: http://sketchup.google.com

Start by watching the video tutorials below.

1. First - For videos 1-4 write down notes in your process journal listing at least 3 things you learned from the video. Be specific. You can explain a tool, an action, or how to make an object. I will be checking this off as an in-class activity.

2. Second - Try what you learned in Google Sketch Up! Open up Google Sketch Up and make an object using your newly learned skills. Save onto your data key.

1) New User Concepts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqcL-xPC-Ys&feature=player_embedded

2) New User Drawing Shapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MXharjbIdY&feature=player_embedded 

3) New User Push/Pull

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCqrvCVOxdE&feature=player_embedded

4) New User Create a Chair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqr3ZJ8Igc&feature=player_embedded

5) How to create a floor plan

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4988917120598796229#

6) Creating walls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsnT8KN8xIM&feature=channel

Want even more information? Try the following links...

All Video Tutorials from Google:

http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos/new_to_gsu.html

Quick Reference Guide:

http://dl.google.com/sketchup/gsu7/docs/en/SketchUp7RefcardWin.pdf

Overview on the User Interface:

http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=95079

User Guide (CAREFUL it's over 800 pages long!!):

http://dl.google.com/sketchup/gsu7/docs/en/SketchUp7Help.pdf

Getting Started

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsfH_cyXa1o&feature=channel

MYP 5 Design: Game Design

Design students this term are researching and will be designing and creating their own games. We will be looking at ancient games to board games to computer games. Check out student blogs (James, Chad, Joe) for interesting information on some very ancient games.

Today we started to look at the computer game program called Scratch. It's a gaming program designed by MIT. It can be downloaded here: http://scratch.mit.edu/

Getting Started with Scratch:
Download the starter guide: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/sites/infoscratch.media.mit.edu/docs/ScratchGettingStartedv14.pdf


Video Tutorials:
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Videos

Below is a good starting tutorial.





More great Tutorials can be found here:
http://learnscratch.org/

Check back to see what we plan on doing with Scratch!!
For now, familiarize yourself with the game interface, play some Scratch games and practice.

MYP 5: Architecture for Humanity - Investigate Empathy

Today we watched the movie Tsunami: The Aftermath, which tells us about the devastating destruction the massive 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami wreaked upon the humanity and infrastructure of communities effected by the disaster. Students are discovering that it takes understanding and knowledge to have empathy, an important element of humanitarian work. Next week students will begin investigating circumstances caused by a specific historical natural disaster, identify problems and start their process to design, plan and create a solution for the community using architecture and structural design .

STUDENTS: For Tuesday, February 9th, you will...

Choose a natural disaster to investigate. You will spend the next couple of weeks of the term researching the disaster, the aftermath, the local culture and society and identifying a problem affecting the humanity of that community. Remember that you will spend all term designing and creating a solution to a problem that you have identified, so make sure you are engaged enough in the topic and can find enough resources. It's your choice!

1. Choose a natural disaster which you will study. Start with the list below and then choose a specific historical disaster for your project (location, date).

Types of Natural Disasters

· Fire
· Earthquake
· Tsunami
· Floods
· Volcanic Eruption
· Hurricane
· Avalanche
· Blizzards 
· Tornado
· Mudslide/Rockslide

2. Create a BLOG entry with the following:

• Reflection: What is a humanitarian architect? (Hint: Watch Cameron Sinclair speak again on TED, and refer to the articles about the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake and 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami). 
• A link to a Cameron Sinclair project that you find innovative or inspiring. List 3 points that explain what about it and why you find it interesting. (Visit his organization's website "Architecture for Humanity" and click on "Projects" to see what has been done, or what is being worked on.)
• Identify a specific natural disaster you have chosen to examine for the term. Explain the "what", "where", "when", "how" giving a basic background in your summary.
• List and link at least 5 internet resources that provide information on the natural disaster event, the location, the aftermath. If you have trouble finding information, choose another event.
• Include 1 image (embedded) of the AFTERMATH of the disaster you have chosen.

Next week you will share your choices, begin your investigation and write your design brief. You will receive Design Folders outlining the project from start to finish, where you will maintain all of your documentation and work related to this project and a resource to allow you to be clear on what you need to do at each stage of the Design Cycle - so you can work at your own pace and outside of class.

You will be for this term...humanitarians, designers and innovative architects!

MYP 4: Informal Cities

MYP 4 students are currently exploring the culture and environments of slums, informal cities, squatter communities, around the world in unison with Humanities in order to gain a deeper understanding of how and why 2 billion people live in these conditions. In this term's unit, "Urban Planning and Design for Small and Shrinking Spaces", students will be researching and designing innovative solutions to answer this question:

How are designs and plans being adapted to

accommodate the loss of space in dense urban areas?

Homework for Thursday:

1) Students, please research your chosen city slum (see me if you forgot). In your process journal complete the table listing the following (applied to your city):

Necessities of City                           Problems Facing My City Slum

List what a city needs                              What problems do you face
(look at notes, lists &                              as a citizen of your informal

think about discussions in class.                                city?                     

2) Write a narrative answering the following questions in the first person as if you are a citizen of the informal city you have been assigned. Be creative using actual facts you have found in your research. Remember you are trying to look through the eyes of a person your age living in that city community. If you have trouble, please reflect upon the life you lead, remember the videos we watched and think about how life could be different.

• What does my neighborhood look like? What is my culture? Where is it located? (Country, culture, geography, language, location, neighborhood description and views).
• What are my living conditions like? My home? Who do I live with?
• What is my typical day like?
• What do I love about this place? What is special? What is beautiful?
• What problems do I face? What challenges do I have in my daily life? (Think compared to your own)
• What do I wish I had access to? If I could change 5 things in my community, what would they be and why?
• *You may add images to your blog post that you have found.
• *Add links to the bottom of your blog post that share where you got your research from.

Some links to help you in your research, though you may use your own.

Informal City (slum) Life

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duJUvvXvN40
• http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/11/third-world-slums-biz-cx_21cities_ee_0611slums.html

Robert Neuwirth, Shadow Cities

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9-zPe7FRag
• http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_neuwirth_on_our_shadow_cities.html
• His Blog: http://squattercity.blogspot.com/

Last Tourist in Cairo, Egypt

• http://roadtrip.submarinechannel.com/content/view.jsp?itemid=4029&mapsize=mega

The Places We Live

• http://www.theplaceswelive.com/

Urban Growth Interactive Map on BBC

• http://www.theplaceswelive.com/

Urban Think Tank in Caraca, Venezuela

• http://www.youtube.com/user/UrbanThinkTank

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGKPWlUfaL0

MYP 1: Interior Design - What are Styles? How do I begin to form my ideas?

Before I say anything, thank you Mara Di Venanza for speaking to us on Wednesday and sharing her expertise in Kitchen Design! I don't know about you, but I learned a LOT. What a fun job that would be!

You are just beginning the work with your client. While you continue to gather information about their needs and the space, you should start learning about and thinking about styles. There are many "styles" found in Interior Design.

Some examples are: Contemporary, Asian, Country/Rustic, Minimalistic, Mediterranean, English and Romantic to name a few. Some designers specialize in a few specific styles, others are more adventurous and mix and match according to their tastes and their clients' personality.

Before you can communicate your vision, you need to actually discover what your options are. So, using the worksheet handed to you in class, you will be researching styles this week and building an "Inspiration Sample Board".

First:

Look through magazines. What are you drawn to? Look at furniture, spaces, shapes, textures, colors. Tear them out, collect and spread them out in front of you. Do you see a trend? Are you drawn to particular things?

Second:

Using poster board provided by Ms. Filiz, use glue to create a collage of all of your "inspiration". You may decide to do more than one. Overlap, create patterns...be creative with your inspiration board! Remember this is something that you would want to hang in your "office" and look at when you need an idea boost! 

Third:

Study your collage. What would you call the styles in your inspiration board? Think about your client and their space. What would work well?

Fourth:

Move to the Design Style & Inspiration Board Handout to complete this phase of the project. You will investigate and learn about the different styles that interior designers often use! This will help you narrow down your vision for the space!

Links to help you:

• HGTV Designer's Portfolio (tip: scroll down till you see "Browse Styles")
• Interior Design Tutor (Scroll down for styles. Left hand bar has more options to explore) 
• Love To Know Interior Design (A looong list of Styles!)  

Other helpful links

• HGTV Decorating (for all things Decorating)
• HGTV Photo Gallery (Great photos! Print out to add to your inspiration board!) 

This should be enough to get you started. Feel free to Google and explore the web for ideas on your own. We'll spend a lot of time in the computer lab the next few weeks!


P.S. Homework to complete this week!

Have you...

• Finished taking photos of the room? Remember to put them on your data key.
• Finished measuring all parts of the room?
• Completed the 5 diagrams of the room? 1- Floor plan showing all structural walls and components (doors, windows). 4- Vertical wall views showing measurement. All diagrams must be finalized in pencil on graph paper (provided...ask for more!) and be to scale. Include a scale key on your diagram so we know what the scale actually is! (Ex: 1 square = 12" inches or 1' foot) This is where the Math from Mr. Joe comes in!
  
• Process Journal entry: List & explain 5 things you learned from Ms. Mara's presentation on Wednesday.
• Complete questions 1-3 in your Design Folder.

Whew! That's a lot. But you must keep up. See me for extra help.

MYP 5: Architecture for Humanity

Hello MYP 5 students...future architects for humanity. In this unit "Architecture For Humanity" we are exploring a few questions.

Can architects be humanitarians?

How can architecture protect people & communities while being socially responsible?

Is design a luxury or a necessity? 

For Tuesday, please read the article I gave you on the San Fransisco earthquake (or view it here), and watch Cameron Sinclair speak again on TED (link below). Visit his organization website, Architecture for Humanity (below), and look through his completed/in progress/proposed projects. Choose one that interests you. 

Write a blog entry which explains what you think a humanitarian architect does, who they help, and why they are important. Add a link to one of the projects you chose from Cameron Sinclair's organization website.

See you Tuesday!!

Cameron Sinclair - An open source, humanitarian architect. 

2006 TED Prize winner Cameron Sinclair is co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit that seeks architecture solutions to global crises -- and acts as a conduit between the design community and the world's humanitarian needs.

Watch him speak on TED

http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_sinclair_on_open_source_architecture.html

More about Cameron Sinclair:

http://www.ted.com/speakers/cameron_sinclair.html

http://www.cameronsinclair.com/index.php?q=/about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Sinclair

Natural Disasters and how it changed our view on Humanitarian architecture

http://www.worldchanging.com/

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004656.html

Architecture for Humanity

http://www.architectureforhumanity.org/

Projects:

http://architectureforhumanity.org/projects

http://architectureforhumanity.org/projects/completed

http://architectureforhumanity.org/projects/chapters

http://grenada-r3.org/initiatives.htm