Our Studio H space is very open and communal, and on blue-sky low-humidity days, we like to open up our big roll-up garage door. Most days, though, it is closed, and the inside face of it is white and boring, divided up by columns of metal ribbing. So, we decided to do a 1-hour competition to design a colorblock scheme for the door, which is divided neatly into five columns and six rows for a total of 30 squares. First, I gave a brief into

Junebug and Aidan, our two smooth-coat border collies and Studio H mascots, spend their mornings slaloming between drafting tables and licking the ankles of our students (we think as moral support for all the hard work!). They also love to chase each other around the yard in front of our shop, but since we are on school property, technically they should have a secure place outside, rather than roaming free. And so, after three days this week learning all the basics of color and fundamental

Today (a Saturday), we offered an open extra credit session for our students to come and help out at the shop. We just got in the rest of our woodshop tools, but we have a lot to do in terms of set-up: getting the power running to the right spots, laying out the tools in a safe and accessible plan, hooking up the dust collection, etc. We’re hoping that next week, by Monday, we’ll be up and running so we can start building our Cornhole

Every morning, one of our students presents a New York Times article and we talk about why it is relevant. Here are the articles (and presenter names) from this week (including a Wednesday feature about Studio H!): Monday, August 23 (Rody): Oil Plume is Not Breaking Down Fast, Study Says Tuesday, August 24 (Anthony): Technology Leads More Park Visitors Into Trouble Wednesday, August 25 (Emily): Putting New Tools in Students’ Hands Thursday, August 26 (Colin): Eastern States Dominate in Winning School Grants Friday, August 27

As the first lesson in our graphic design trajectory, we began with a topic everyone can relate to: Color! Whether we are aware of it or not, color plays a key role in how we process information, how we assign identity to objects and ourselves; colors can even dictate our emotions. We spent a day and a half (four hours) reviewing basic color theory, the color wheel, and making our own color wheels using magazines and collage materials (Alexia even went outside and grabbed some

Our lesson plan today was a basic introduction into graphic elements: point, line, and shape. Basically any 2-dimensional image will have these components, and the three elements are often a good place to start in composing a graphic layout. We also briefly discussed the difference between art and graphic design (while there is a lot of overlap between the two and certainly some graphic design is art and vice versa, we agreed that graphic design is intended to communicate a specific message to a specific

The act of gestural drawing is one practiced by artists, designers, architects, and other creative professionals. Its purpose is to capture the “gestalt,” or overall essence or form of an object, space, building, etc. Usually gesture drawings are done in a matter of seconds. For architects, we often see these in sketchbooks or on napkins as quick conceptual diagrams, or after-the-fact as “parti” drawings that show the basic dynamics of a structure. Below, Renzo Piano’s initial gesture drawing for the California Academy of Arts museum

In this weekend’s issue of the New York Times, Studio H takes center stage in the Arts section. Alice Rawsthorn, arguably the world’s most respected and renown design writer and critic, wrote a lovely piece entitled “Putting New Tools in Students’ Hands” about our program as a new model for education. She makes the case for design not as a new subject, but as a framework for learning in a different way, regardless of what students might want to do or study in college and

Anthony, Rody, and Colin figure out the angle of our Cornhole board legs After mastering our Building Block Elevations, we took drafting to the next level by tackling scale drawings of a standard set of Cornhole boards. Because the product of our first project will be a set of custom-painted Cornhole boards (one set designed and built per team of two students), we need a working set of shop drawings so that we can go into the shop and build the boards. Luckily, Matt and

This week was full-immersion into the world of hand-drafting: Plans, sections, elevations, line weights, adjustable triangles, architectural scales, and the culture of a design studio. Listen to Erick, Alexia, and Colin recount our week of drafting, what they liked, what they couldn’t stand, and what is up next. You can also read full lesson plans of our Building Block Elevations and Cornhole Board Drafting.