Kidbrooke School and Dipa Joshi

Duration: 1 day
Teacher: Tara Lucas (Head of Department)
Students: Year 10 Graphics

Architect Dipa Joshi, of Recording Architecture, was matched with Kidbrooke by the Design Council.

Activity

The theme of the whole day was recording studios, as this is Dipa's speciality. The students were divided into groups of four to brainstorm the type of environment they would want to record in. For this, Tara had adapted the brainstorming cards from the Designers into Schools Week 2002 Guidance Pack (the PDF files are available top right). Her introductory paragraph read:

'Imagine you are about to cut your first record. You have signed the deal with a large record label and they are spending vast sums of cash to make sure you are the latest music news. To make your group perform at its best, the music company has booked the best recording studio in town. But your group expect the studio to match your star demands. Think about all the possibilities and try to come up with ideas for each of the five senses. Think like a true star!'

This was followed by a talk from Dipa. She outlined the constraints which affect recording studio design (the main one being acoustics), but emphasised the need to not let these limit imagination when designing. Then she gave the students a quick overview of how and why she became an architect and showed them a set of design development boards for one of her previous projects.

The project was to design a recording studio for a company called Zoo. The first boards showed her sketches and then, over the next few boards, how these transformed into features of the studio environment. She then showed photos of the finished studio.

Then it was back into groups for more brainstorming as students generated ideas for recording studios for four fictional bands. When they were ready to move on to drawing their ideas, Dipa demonstrated some simple sketching techniques. The day finished with a presentation from each group.

Feedback

Designer

Dipa was pleased with the day and felt the students had learnt that no idea is a bad idea, and to value wild, seemingly silly ones.

She confessed to feeling a little apprehensive before her visit, but said the experience had been anything but scary, which she attributed to Tara's excellent planning for the day. She added that the need to explain her 'design philosophy' to the students had helped boost her own confidence.

Teacher

Tara was equally pleased with the day and felt it had been an extremely valuable opportunity 'to explore creative ideas. Normally everything (in D&T) has to be justified because of the exam boards'.

She felt that the class had recaptured their enjoyment of D&T: 'They've enjoyed being taken seriously by a professional and it has charged up their batteries again, in terms of their creativity,' she said.

Tara described the activity as a 'dream project' for this age group, capitalising as it did on teenagers' natural interest in contemporary music. She said the day was more akin to a foundation course in atmosphere.

Student

Adam confessed to feeling torn between his plan to pursue a career in the army and his rekindled passion for design.

Throughout the activity Adam looked through the materials Dipa had shown the class in her presentation. As the project had progressed he had gained the confidence to engage her in conversation, so much so that by the end of the day he felt moved to say: 'I began to see what she sees'. He went on to describe the day as being 'real' and having 'purpose'.