Week Six

This week we continued preparing for our final project by discussing what the future of Phoenix can be. The students brainstormed all of the different things that make up a city using the categories: Live, Work, Play, Connect, and Consume. We explored these concepts through creative movement and discussed which were the most important for our city. Students chose things like shelters, apartments, fire and police stations, media centers, farmers' markets and parks. Then each of them created the basic shape of one of these and decided together how they should be placed on the map. What places should be located near each other? Did they need privacy or would they benefit from being near a main road? Should some of the residential be given views to the canal? It is a discussion we plan to continue in the upcoming weeks. Our map is now displayed in the cafeteria for the entire school to enjoy.
Most importantly, we talked about our purpose. Each of us has the ability to change the world! How? One voice in one room that changes one city that influences the entire state that then effects the nation and finally makes a difference in the world. That's how! And we hope to challenge this very idea in the classroom through the design of our very own Phoenix of the future. We're fired up! We're ready to go!!

Week Five

Dear Parents, Family, and Friends:
This week at artspace, we focused on working in 3-D. On Tuesday, students were asked to choose a building and adjective and then create a paper model of it. They were given a brief time and limited resources: paper and tape. It was wonderful to see the amazing forms that came out of the exercise! The students were truly resourceful and imaginative. They explored ideas of connection, form, and structure through the process.
Thursday, we began to discuss the City of Phoenix. What is it like to live in Phoenix? Does the city work? What are the positive and negative aspects of Phoenix? And most importantly, the students began to imagine what they would want Phoenix to be like in the future. They wrote their thoughts in their journals then used their writings as inspiration for the boxes displayed above. Some of the ideas they talked about were shade, new types of transportation, and having work close to home. We hope the boxes will help us remember all of these important ideas as the class begins to think about the design of their own future version of Phoenix!
Best,
Mr. Braden & Ms. Audrey

Week Four

Dear Parents, Family and Friends of Artspace:
This week marked the first month of artspace at the Academy of Excellence. The students continued to fill their knowledge toolbox with new tools: Size and Scale. We also continued to explore ideas about shape, style, repetition and order through an architectural slideshow. We looked at “boxy” modern buildings and their more whimsical counterparts like the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Students were able to compare and contrast a wide range of buildings from all over the world! Afterwards, they created paper sculptures to communicate different aspects of the buildings: curvy, rectilinear, etc.Thursday the students worked as groups to create a wall mural depicting a streetscape. They drew adjectives and building types from a hat and worked with their neighbors to connect the drawing, creating an integrated piece. Curvilinear apartment buildings and stores with arches were shown with ramps or slides connecting them. Spaces in between the buildings became playgrounds. The students produced some very imaginative murals, learning the importance of teamwork along the way!Mr. Braden & Ms. Audrey

Week Three

Dear Parents, Family and Friends of Artspace:
This week we added new tools to our Toolbox: Edges and Shapes. Students learned about edges and how they help us illustrate basic shapes of objects in a floor plan or map. They toured a classroom, identified the important objects such as student desks and the blackboard then drew a map of the room.
We also learned about shapes and how they come together to create three-dimensional forms. Students used their bodies to make a variety of shapes we had identified. Two students were really creative and put their hands together to form an arch! Next they “drew with their bodies” as Mr. Braden recited a story. How would you pantomime a creek or looking out the car window? They learned there are many ways to tell a story without words! Lastly, they applied this new knowledge to a slideshow of different buildings throughout time. There were many eager hands waving as we asked them to identify the various shapes used by the architects to create these iconic structures.
Mr. Braden & Ms. Audrey

Week Two

Dear Parents, Family and Friends of Artspace:
What an exciting second week of the artspace program! We continue to present new challenges to the students, which have been met with enthusiasm and real focus. This week we initiated “Toolbox Time”, a warm-up activity we will do each session to introduce the students to a series of creative tools. This week, we learned about perceiving difference and the concept of order, which we successfully added to our classroom toolbox.The class also analyzed and discussed the visual story told by an image of a bedroom from the book “Goodnight Moon”. Acting as visual detectives, they used the objects portrayed in the image as clues to tell the story. Each student then chose an object from the illustration- ranging from a red balloon to a window displaying the night sky- made a drawing of it and wrote a new twist to the story. The red balloon was drawn in Grandmother Rabbit’s hand as she retrieved it from the ceiling, the night sky seen in the window transformed into the morning sun, and the bedside clock changed it’s hour. There were some truly inventive explanations and new endings that were imagined!
Having learned about our personal stories and the stories of rooms, we look forward to moving on to the stories of buildings and our community!
Mr. Braden & Ms. Audrey