ED

The RE:DesignEdinburgh Napier University

Architecture & Design Scotland

We are third year Interior and Spatial Design Students from Edinburgh Napier University. This project was part of our module Design for Exhibition and Display [DES09130]

BriefWorking together as a small practice, your task is to design and run a series of events inviting local businesses to work at Architecture + Design Scotland. The events will interrogate the future of work; [...]. building on your observations from the Hub Westminster and other precedents of new working patterns you will design and exhibit explorative answers to this issue through a series of events.

ContextMillions of pounds are spent on building or replacing primary and secondary schools in Scotland. But what if we were able to re-imagine the environment that young people learn in? And what if this environment was already in their community; new ideas for old places?Working as a Design Practice, we wanted to create an event which would apply some of the research and learning from the A+DS Re:Design Option exhibition on re-imagining learning environments, to allow people from the community, or the local authority, or the school, to see how these ideas could work in practice.http://theredesignoption.org/

Considering our local community around Canongate and Holyrood, We involved the main pillars of education within the area; Architecture + Design Scotland, The Royal mile Primary School, The Scottish Parliament, The European Parliament and our own Institution, Edinburgh Napier University.

Taking inspiration from the A+DS School Re-Design Option exhibition, we decided to use nature as our key influence to attract the children’s interest, incorporating a tree component into the design.We gathered opinion from the entire team on the invite design; with the agreed proposal illustrating a multi-coloured leaf which opened up to reveal small animal finger puppets. The finger puppets and invite would be brought along by the children to the event, to be used to interact with the stories and the environment we want to create.

During the project planning process, we met with Daniel Allison from the Scottish Storytelling Centre on Edinburgh’s royal mile, to discuss the possibilities of linking his stories to the space. The discussion developed into a proposal consisting of four main areas, tailored around the storytellers needs; to include a Jungle wall, a swamp, a tree and a river, with a seating area for the children to gather.

Tree: Designed with a set of plastic push fit plumbing, provided by A+DS Access Programme and finished with LED string lights and multi-coloured fabric.

Jungle Wall: Constructed with varying paper leaves and handcrafted vines with silhouettes of animals from the stories.

River: Made with blue carpet and using the existing blue curtains in the room, decorated with paper flowers and artificial rocks.

Swamp: Painted scrap cardboard pipes cut in random lengths and spray painted plastic sheets.

Seating Area: Small mats cut from a length of red carpet.

The children were highly stimulated by their re-imagined learning environment, with the creation of four different settings for learning and the thoughtful use of colours and materials. One key aspect that we picked up on was the incredible excitement about visiting a new space out with their normal school environment. Even though it is only a short walk from the primary school to the A+DS office, the project highlighted the positive impacts and benefits this type of experience has for a child’s development and also the great potential schools have to positively exploit local community spaces for learning.

Overall, the event was a great success as we considered and designed the project specifically so that the children would have fun and learning at the same time. This event could be applied with different themes across many vacant public spaces, to aid the revitalisation of our towns, cities and communities.

After our event, we invited several key people such as policy makers and influencers with a direct interest in this type of event to come along and experience the space for themselves, giving us the opportunity to present and discuss our findings on the impact our results could have on the future of education.

“Particularly noting how younger children percieve things differently and that the journey from the classroom to the A+DS office had also been an important part of the experience for them.” Helen Ross, European Parliament office

Project by 3rd year Interior & Spatial Design Students from Edinburgh Napier University

With Architecture + Design Scotland

Salim AhmedWilliam Alderson

Ada AngelovaCaitlin Bain

Emmanuel BariniaThomas BinneJenny DobsonAnnie EspieAmy German

Katherine GibsonYating Luo

Nickin MathewFiorella ModoloConnie Paton

Georgina WilliamsChris WilsonTsering Bacle

Katelyn RennallsEmily Schorn

Booklet Design : Fiorella Modolo and Chris Wilson