&Lab

As part of the Cornell University STEP internship program, local high school students engaged with Cornell Department of Architecture’s &Lab to explore a prototypical design project that was tested in Ithaca, New York. We introduced the idea of design mentorships in which local high school students worked with university students studying Art and Architecture, and together explored a design challenge about visual access, pattern, color, and surface in the public realm. The program exposed high school students to educational enrichment opportunities in STEM/licensed professions.

In the two-day worskshop students developed independent patterns based on their personal affinities as well as a collective pattern that was translated into a 1:1 painted installation on “Sibley Beach.” Individual patterns were chroma-keyed onto the collective pattern, designed in conjunction with Assistant Professor, Suzanne Lettieri and AAP mentors. The students pattern-making exercises were prefaced by a discussion with Judith Byfield who shared her research on the Adire production of textiles and patterns in Abeokuta, Nigeria. 

The design challenge included three phases:

1.Research: Students engaged with the meaning of color and pattern in relationship to their personal identities and intuitive design tendencies through explorations in color, shape, scale.

2.Design and fabrication: Students designed individual and collective patterns in conjunction with AAP mentors. This phase included Photoshop and collaborative drawing workshops. High school students were exposed to the process and tools that designers use to make digital designs into physical reality.

3.Installation: On campus “site survey” (measuring) and site preparation were conducted for the painted installation. Together we painted a new ground surface!

4.Documentation: The process of the public installation was documented, and students photographed and created final images to share with their design mentor for feedback.

The project established a framework of rules and operations that are suggestive of design processes that are typically taught in a fundamental architecture course at a college level. The final result is a collaboration between high school students and university-level students of architecture serving as mentors.

 

 

 

 

Team:

STEP Students:
Ade Miller
Anjolie Kwakye Minott
Claudia Carrillo
Joshua Kwakye Minott
Opal Dietrich
Sophie Wei
Vanaeyah Jean-Jacques

AAP Students:
Hyun Jun Cho
Jiayu Su
Kewei Xu
Mitchell Carson
Sophia Chen
Xuanyin Lin