ASU ArtSpace @ Academy of Excellence: March 2009

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Construction continues! This week we worked on detailing our buildings. Students also considered the scale of their buildings next to one another and went back to revise. The hospital got an arch, clothing stores were given signage, the interiors were designed, and the urban farm got a barn. There were many changes and advances this week. Next, we will begin the task of painting our creations!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Week Nine

This week we began construction on our box city project. On Tuesday, students drew out ideas for the building types they were assigned. On Thursday, they were challenged to make their drawn visions into 3-dimensional objects. Using recycled boxes, the students began to give form to the pieces of our future city.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Week Eight

DON'T FORGET: Parents, please send an old, oversized t-shirt to school with your students after Spring Break. We will begin painting and want to make sure we protect our clothes!

Week Seven

We continued to prepare for the building of our box city this week. Our goal was to brainstorm a list of things we would need in the city of the future. Students thought about how we would live, play, work, connect, and consume in the future. They worked together to create a short skit about one of these topics. We also revisited the map of our site and continued to revise the placement of buildings. Each student drew a small map of the site and located their building on it. We asked them to begin thinking about how their building was located- should the hospital be off the main road? How close should the housing be to the stores- walking distance or driving distance? We also encouraged them to consider new shapes for the building they designed that would help make the buildings function better. An important part of our decision-making was learning to work as a team.
We are excited to begin building our future city out of boxes when we return from Spring Break! The final project will be loosely based on CUBE's Box City curriculum. To see some past projects and pictures, please visit their website:
http://www.cubekc.org/architivities/box1.html

About the Instructors

Adam Davie is a sixth year, Master's of Architecture graduate student at Arizona State University. He grew up in Sandusky, Ohio and graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture. Adam has studied Architecture in Paris, Italy, and the Netherlands. He has previously taught Artspace as well as Architecture at ASU. His other interests include photography, music basketball, tennis, sketching, and hiking.

Ben Dumbauld is completing a M.A. in Ethnomusicology at Arizona State University, researching music-making in the Chinese community at Arizona. A native of Phoenix, he recieved a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Performance at ASU, and has performed with many of the leading orchestras, choirs, operas, and Musical Theater companies in Arizona. He is also a private music instructor and English tutor.

Artspace Theme

TIME

Few things are harder to understand than time; pleasantly then, time and space allow for educational and creative experiences to play off one another. Ironically, often youth, who have experienced the least amount of actual lived time, understand it best. This is certainly true today: a typical ten year olds vocabulary includes the phrases “real-time” and “virtual reality.” This theme draws from young people’s strengths to create learning environments for example, that familiarize them with classroom skills like linear time where history and science meet on maps and planets. It helps students see how the sounds and audible noises in our everyday lives relate and convey meaning. These lessons allow parents to see how and why a typical student today uses multiple media simultaneously.

About ArtSpace

ASU ArtSpace is a transdiciplinary arts and design afterschool serving the Phoenix area and establishing a new model of arts educational experience aiming to ensure that its students are self-confident, successful in school and proactive in making a positive impact in their community. ArtSpace was launched in Fall 2008 by a partnership between the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Arizona Department of Education. The ASU ArtSpace program places graduate students from all Schools within the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at eligible schools to provide transdiciplinary programming focused upon their disciplines and thesis. The graduate students design their own transdisciplinary curriculum in teams of two based upon a global theme such as Time, Place, Communication or Storytelling under the guidance of Melissa McGurgan, the ArtSpace Program Coordinator.

ArtSpace classrooms are treated as creative spaces where students are exposed to a multitude of artforms, skills and collaborative processes and the graduate student instructors are able to test and develop experimental teaching methods, techniques and learning processes incorporating art, design and technology. The pilot semester of ASU ArtSpace took place in Fall 2008 and is now serving 12 schools during the 2009-2010 school year. The ASU ArtSpace program exemplifies the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s charge for universities to form partnerships with local school districts and create a new generation of teachers while establishing ASU as an accessible educational entity which embraces new thinking and approaches to art and design to hundreds of children, families, educators and communities throughout the Valley.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Week Eleven

Week Ten