Camp wrapped up nicely on Friday! I was so proud and inspired by all of the projects that the students presented. I also thought that everyone presented their projects really well and got their main ideas across clearly. The projects were thoughtful, and the craft of the models had improved so much from the beginning of the week.

I am also excited to say that the week went relatively smoothly. There were no lost keys and no injuries (that I know of!) We had a really stellar group of students, and I sincerely hope that those that are able to come back next year do.

-Melissa

The students spent all day diligently working on their final project. By 7:30 PM, everyone was finished and at 8, the students enjoyed a well deserved break with a rave in the basement of Giles. Tomorrow morning we will begin reviews at 8:30 AM.

It has really been a great week and I hate to see this group of students go. I was inspired by the hard workers, creative thinkers, and eager minds. Parents, it has been a pleasure getting to know your kids. For some of them, Design Discovery confirmed their suspicions about their desire to be an architect or designer. And that’s great! For others, Design Discovery helped them decide that a design profession is not for them, and that is okay too. We hope that the students who enjoyed it will come back for “seconds” or maybe even “thirds.”

I’m looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

-Melissa

Today marks a camp milestone: the students begin working on their final project today. Throughout the week, the students have gotten an intro into the techniques, skills, and ideas needed to be applied to this final capstone project. The students are designing a studio for either a painter, sculptor, poet or dancer located in the Cotton District. They are to take in what they have learned from visiting the site, drawing and sketching skills, model making, understanding of the climate, and inspiration from the films and apply it to the studio they are designing.

This morning, the students took a tour of the Landscape Architecture building and the Hunter Henry Center (the Alumni Building). By going to the Landscape Architecture facilities, the students learned about other opportunities in the same vein as design. At the Hunter Henry Center, students saw how architectural ideas take form and are applied to a real building. They took some time at the Hunter Henry Center to sketch (and the sketches look good!)

Tomorrow will be spent working rigorously on the final projects, and we will celebrate the end of camp with a “rave” in the basement.

On the business side of things, be looking for an update about how check out will work. We want everyone to be informed so you all can go eat lunch as quickly as possible after reviews and a smooth check out! Know that if some of you need to leave early because you have other commitments, etc, it is IMPERATIVE that you check out and return all keys, cards, etc. The fee for a lost key is $80, and nobody wants to pay that much for a lost piece of metal.

-Melissa

FinalReviewSchedule2012

This is the Final Review Schedule. The times have been confirmed with the students, so parents please plan accordingly to be here for your student’s review! As you may have noticed, we changed the times up a bit. We have 5 minutes allowed for each student to present and receive criticism. We will be having Closing Remarks at 11:50 and the students should be on their way home by 12:30 PM.

-Melissa

Hi everyone! I know you have been enjoying the pictures that have been posted every day here on the website. If you’d like, you can download and save these photos, post them to Facebook, etc. We don’t mind a bit.

To save a photo to your computer, right click and select “Save As”. Designate a name and location for the photo and it will be downloaded to your computer. All of the photos are high resolution, so they should be large enough for whatever you would want them for.

Enjoy the photos!

-Melissa

Once the rain cleared up, the students headed out to the Cotton District to sketch some of the buildings in the site for their final project. The students made some pretty impressive sketches of the buildings. After dinner, we reviewed the Cardboard Lounge Table Device+. We had a great time looking at each group’s project and seeing whether the Lounge Table Device+ held a member of the group. Some didn’t hold up, but it was an excellent learning process and there were good discussions about why the Devices did or did not work.

-Melissa

FinalReviewSchedule2012

Here is the updated Final Review Schedule for Friday, June 15. It seems we missed a few students the first time around (whoops…)

Again, we have tried to schedule the reviews so that students who live farther away will go later in the morning to give the parents time to travel. If there are any conflicts, please call Phyllis in the front office during normal business hours at (662) 325-2557 and we will do our best to accommodate you.

-Melissa

The students spent the entire day designing and building a “Cardboard Lounge Table Device+.” The “Device” has to perform at least two functions; it should be a chair but also perhaps a table, or another chair. The second function was left up to the group of students to decide and be creative with. We will critique the “Devices” on Tuesday.

Today was the day that the students went out to eat with their counselors and their group. Everyone had a good time, but there was still work to be done on the projects after dinner. Tomorrow we begin preparation for the final project (which means more sketching and constructing models before we start designing).

-Melissa

Today was a busy day! The students spent the first two hours doing perspective and detail drawings, then moved on to the Kit of Parts project. Like Legos, Tinkertoys, or Lincoln Logs, the idea behind the Kit of Parts was to create space from a given set of pieces. The students also did Itten Exercises, which focused on creating contradictions in two and three dimensions. Now they have a full wall of work to show off on Friday!

The students spent yesterday afternoon constructing their Instant Environments as a team. Each group had their own site to build on, as well as a canvas drop cloth, three stalks of bamboo, and some pink string and cotton string. Thankfully it only sprinkled during construction, so all of the teams were able to finish their construction!

After dinner, we had the reviews for the Instant Environments. Each group stood up in front of the whole camp and explained their project and received criticism from the counselors.

-Melissa