SKE Course day 11

Today's session returned to mainly designing.

The first part of the day was spent researching our chairs purchased from IKEA a couple of weeks ago. Given the overarching question of How is the seat made? we researched and answered the following questions in our groups:

1. What materials are used in the seat?
2. What are the fixings used? How many?
3. Can you find out the manufacturing process of at least one part of the seat? (You may have to make educated guesses)
4. Can you describe the likely (or actual) assembly/construction processes used?
5. To what extent, in your opinion, does the seat reflect any sustainability issues?
6. Anything else significant?

I really liked the format of this little session. It allowed us to really get to understand our chairs, but also research for ourselves. Our chair for example, had a Polyester powder coating on the steel legs and bars. We researched this in detail and discovered how this is done. From a students point of view, being able to research something in a little group and share your findings with the class can be daunting, but it was really nice to be able to discover something new for ourselves, rather than simply being told the facts. When presenting our findings back to the group I suggested that a way of showing the students in more detail about the powder coating, a small project or example of dip coating could be carried out, to allow the students to see how it is done, and how they could incorporate such a practice into future projects.

We then moved onto an odd question: Can you think of 50 ways to use one brick?

This exercise really helped us think about what products can be used for, in their original state or altered.

Next we explored the drawing technique of 'crating', where a box is drawn and the object placed inside. It was a great way to sketch free hand or with a ruler, and expand our drawing skills. As a group we were shown step by step how to draw the dog house below, then we could expand by drawing another object; I chose a clothes peg. 

Our final task today was marker rendering. We drew simple cubes, and using markers, pastels and coloured pencils to create shading. When done with care, objects such as bottles, drills and more can be drawn in 3D with great accuracy. 

Pastel, pencil and marker