InspirationThis project was developed alongside my teaching partner, Joe, as a way to combine our common interests. Before the start of the semester we realized that we both were interested in chairs and especially ones made out of wood. We both had some experience in making things out of wood and decided to look into who was responsible for making such beautiful objects. We chose a chair by Hans Wegner that we liked called "Shell Chair" and set about making a 1/4 scale model in order to study the way that it was made.
We researched the life of Hans Wegner and learned that he had been trained as a cabinet maker and was obsessed with quality. He believed no furniture should have a back or front, but should be beautiful from all sides. He began making furniture in Denmark in the 1950's and was constrained by needing to source inexpensive materials while the country recovered from world war two. While replicating his chair Joe and I unavoidably learned about the life and times of the person who made it. Because we had enjoyed learning about 1950's Denmark in this way, Joe and I wondered if we could reverse the process. Instead of learning history by replicating an artifact, we thought we would try to teach about history by making an artifact to represent it. We selected an historical event that we cared about and found a chair to draw inspiration from, and then designed a chair to represent that story. |
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We chose an event in Argentina that we connected with. Every May, the mothers of children who were abducted by the government for political reasons gather to protest and call for justice to those who carried out the abductions. They've been gathering in this way for more than 30 years. The location where they gather and their story inspired us to make a seat.
At left you can see the way that we identified elements from the story to use in our design, as well as the model made in Sketchup. Our final model was very polished, but ultimately nonfunctional, and broke while being used. Looking back at our process we were able to split the project into two pieces and lead the students through it. |
Part One: Mini Chair
In order to build up the skills needed to complete this project, my partner and I ran a miniature version of the project with our class at the start of the semester. At exhibition, groups will display their chair alongside a large poster which details the meaning and structure of the chair. Therefore, in the mini project they made small scale versions of chairs, small scale concept posters, and small scale displays.
Deliverables
For this project there were 4 deliverables that directly related to skills needed in the final project.
1. 1/4 Scale Model of a significant chair from the 20th century 2. Physics concepts poster 3. Historical Context and Background articles 4. Display shelf and shelf text |
CalendarWeek 1: Sketch a chair, pick a design that you like
Week 2: Partners, 1/4 scale paper model of chair, background articles Week 3: Concept poster, start 1/4 scale wooden model Week 4: Build shelf, shelf text, finish 1/4 scale model Week 5: Print text, finish shelf, polish chair, mount everything |
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Part Two: Full Scale
Reflection
What Worked Well?
This project was all about precision and revision. My partner and I had very high standards for how the chairs eventually turned out and it paid off. The completed chairs exceeded my expectations and really showed creativity and thought from the students. Their writing and pages were also sophisticated and informative which took a lot of critique and modelling to accomplish. I fully bought into the "do it yourself first" model for this project and was happy with the results. Being able to show the class my example and model was really helpful in getting them excited and enforcing standards. This semester we also held a mock exhibition before the actual exhibition and it was life changing. Having the whole group practice the exhibition early and finish everything a week beforehand was a revelation and I want to always have a practice exhibition well before the really thing.
What Was Surprising?
I was surprised that the project felt so long even though we deliberately shortened it. I thought that we would run out of time and be pressured but in reality we could have finished 2 or 3 weeks earlier than we did. A teacher whom I respect told me once that you can always give students more time to finish something but you can never give them less time. I think that in the future I will plan on finishing a month before exhibition so that if we need the extra few weeks it's there but really I want to move on to other stuff in that time. This will give me more flexibility in how we schedule work.
What Will You Never Do Again?
In this project we divided the work into builders and designers. The builders made the chairs and the designers did the research and made the pages. The builders were always more busy than the designers. I like having roles in a project so that everyone can contribute and not be worried about a "group grade" outcome but in this case there was an imbalance. I think that if we had given the designers more stake in the look and feel of the chairs (painting and finishing) then we could have balanced this out bu I need to talk with more experienced teacher to get other ideas.
This project was all about precision and revision. My partner and I had very high standards for how the chairs eventually turned out and it paid off. The completed chairs exceeded my expectations and really showed creativity and thought from the students. Their writing and pages were also sophisticated and informative which took a lot of critique and modelling to accomplish. I fully bought into the "do it yourself first" model for this project and was happy with the results. Being able to show the class my example and model was really helpful in getting them excited and enforcing standards. This semester we also held a mock exhibition before the actual exhibition and it was life changing. Having the whole group practice the exhibition early and finish everything a week beforehand was a revelation and I want to always have a practice exhibition well before the really thing.
What Was Surprising?
I was surprised that the project felt so long even though we deliberately shortened it. I thought that we would run out of time and be pressured but in reality we could have finished 2 or 3 weeks earlier than we did. A teacher whom I respect told me once that you can always give students more time to finish something but you can never give them less time. I think that in the future I will plan on finishing a month before exhibition so that if we need the extra few weeks it's there but really I want to move on to other stuff in that time. This will give me more flexibility in how we schedule work.
What Will You Never Do Again?
In this project we divided the work into builders and designers. The builders made the chairs and the designers did the research and made the pages. The builders were always more busy than the designers. I like having roles in a project so that everyone can contribute and not be worried about a "group grade" outcome but in this case there was an imbalance. I think that if we had given the designers more stake in the look and feel of the chairs (painting and finishing) then we could have balanced this out bu I need to talk with more experienced teacher to get other ideas.
