Studio H lecture: Structures View more presentations from Emily Pilloton. In Studio H, we don’t design anything without building it. Our current farmstand design project is in the concept development stage, and we have until the end of the semester to take our wild ideas to reality, building 3 full-scale farmstands for the county. Students have been working hard, doing rapid ideation of ideas in cardboard model form, and last week they presented their final design concepts in a class critique. This week we are

One of our favorite quotes, which fairly accurately describes the design process, was written by German sculptor Bernhard Hoetger, published in 1928: “The creative moment demands not the transparent wall, not the beautiful surface, not construction but synthesis. And this synthesis is not the sum of petty and doubtful details, but the outcome of an intuitive frenzy.” We had this sentiment in mind as we begun the design ideation for the farmstands. Coming off of a great programming brainstorm and precedent studies, we had enough

Last year, we looked at open-air structures as precedents before embarking on the design of the Windsor Super Market. The lessons learned from these iconic precedent studies helped students understand the mechanics of a piece of architecture (circulation, material, parti, lighting, siting, etc), and also helped them make decisions about their own market designs once we got into the farmers market design process. This year, our project is the design and construction of a few smaller farmstands for the outlying towns in Bertie County, to

As our cornhole board project was coming to an end, we did a quick “blitz” project in order to become more familiar with laser cutting and rapid prototyping. We used the laser cutter to precisely etch the cornhole graphic designs out of tape, so that we could peel back and paint color fields with precision, so our students had begun to understand how the laser cutter can etch and slice from 2-d design files. The quick project, which Matt wrote as a lesson plan titled

After a few creativity-building lectures and exercises last week, we started on some basic skill-building in the woodshop. We did this same Shop Certification Project last year (detailed step-by-step account of the whole project here). The one-day project teaches safety, accuracy, layout, and basic woodshop protocol though the fabrication of a simple wooden object. The 2-piece object requires the use of a chop saw, table saw, drill press, band saw, sander, and router. Each student is given a rectangular piece of wood that they must

Last year, the first day of Studio H consisted of dirt, coffee grounds, cow dung, and fire (we made DIY water filters). This year, Matt and I busted out ropes and recalled our days as girl (and boy) scouts, and embarked on a 2-day project we dubbed “Knot a problem.” One of our core pedagogies of Studio H is that the hand and the mind are intrinsically tied, and that we learn best by doing (duh!). The hand carries out the mind’s ideas, the mind

Writing assignment #1: “Where I lived and what I lived for” Self-reflection and projection for the year We asked students (as a beginning-of-year benchmark) to write a short response to the following cue: This weekend we want you to take some time to reflect on where you are right now and what your goals for this year look like. Tell us about who you are, what you like to do outside of school, what is most important to you and what you absolutely abhor. Think

As our end-of-year assignment, I asked students to write a personal essay about their experience, journey, challenges, favorite moments, biggest frustrations, and general lessons taken away from Studio H. Because this is Studio H’s first year, we want to learn exactly what our students identify as valuable, and to give them an opportunity to reflect, honestly, on what Studio H has meant to them. This assignment is also a clever way for us to provide our students with an end-of-year award for their completion of

Following our public exhibition of all 10 design schemes on March 10th, we were then charged with the task of figuring out how to narrow 10 designs into one final, buildable structure. This is no easy task, considering that each design has something unique and valuable to contribute. After doing one of our truck tailgate huddles outside last week, we combined students around four design schemes, grouping students based on interest and the similarities of their designs, as well as team dynamic. The four designs

It is official. We are designing and building a farmers market pavilion, called the Windsor SUPER Market, for the town of Windsor, which will be located on Water Street on the site of the Roanoke-Cashie River Center. Our students began the design process in January with a field trip to the state farmers market in Raleigh, followed by a visit to our allocated site in Windsor, and initial design conceptualization. What follows is a list of functional requirements students must consider for the design. Objective