Tempe Center for the Arts

Objectives
1. Students construct an architectural model.
2. Students use space and form to express a feeling or idea.

Arizona Visual Arts Standards
CREATE: Concept 1: Creative Process
PO 203. Develop plans for his or her own artwork, (e.g., sketches, models and notes).
PO 303. Develop and revise plans, (e.g., sketches, models and notes) for his or her own artwork and select the best option.

CREATE: Concept 4: Meanings or Purposes
PO 202: Create an artwork that serves a function.
PO 302: Create artwork that communicate substantive meanings or achieve intended purposes (e.g., cultural, political, personal, spiritual and commercial).

Resources
Sample entrances
Boxes, such as shoe boxes, gift boxes or other small boxes, preferably plain or covered with construction paper (one per student)
Construction paper
Transparent tape
Scissors
Alternative Materials:
            Balsa wood, Exacto knives, white glue
            Wood scraps, nails, hammers, saws, wood glue
            Clay and clay tools for slab construction
            Styrofoam and white glue
            FoamCore board and white glue

Activities
Review and discussion
Return students’ “Tempe Center for the Arts” worksheets. Lead a discussion of students’ observations of and responses to spaces and forms at the TCA, especially as they approach and enter the center.

Assignment
Explain the following scenario to students:

“A wealthy senior citizen has donated to the city an unused store building in a good location. The city council is interested in either renovating the building to serve some city function or selling it to a local business person. The council is inviting architects to propose possible functions for the building and to design a new entrance for the old store that will express that function."

Students, as architects, will be expected to submit models of their new expressive architectural entrances. They might propose functions and design entrances for a facility such as specialty store, fitness center, environmental awareness center, senior citizen center, library, historical museum, computer design headquarters, horse stable, movie complex, affordable apartment complex, skate boarding arena, etc.

Explain that each student should create a three-dimensional model of an entrance attached to a plain (or construction paper covered) box representing the donated store. The entrance should use forms and spaces to make the building more visually interesting in a way that reflects the proposed function of the building. The model should be accompanied by a brief proposal that identifies the new function of the building and explains how the new entrance expresses a feeling or idea appropriate for that function.

Technical demonstrations
Distribute one sheet of construction paper to each student. Demonstrate how to bend and crease sharp edges, how to curl paper and make curved surfaces, how to slowly close a scissor while turning the paper rather than turning the scissors to make smooth curved cuts and how to use clear tape rings to attach forms to a box.

Ask students to experiment with construction paper before selecting one or two colors of construction paper from which to build their model architectural entrance.

If you choose alternative construction materials, demonstrate required skills and make a sample using those materials.

Samples
Show “Sample Entrances” asking students to describe and compare the forms and spaces. Brainstorm with students possible functions for which the sample entrances would be appropriate.

In process feedback
After students have had some time to decide on a function and to give some thought to their entrances (perhaps including thumbnail sketches), divide students into groups acting as architectural firms. Ask each architect to report and show his or her ideas to colleagues in the firm, explaining his or her proposal and seeking suggestions – with the understanding that all architects in the firm will be submitting proposals in hopes that one will be successful and win the contract with the city.

Completion and exhibition
When students have completed their models, ask them to develop and refine their proposals to be ready for delivery to city hall for the council’s judgment.

As possible, exhibit the models with proposals in the school (library, lobby display case, hallway or your classroom).

Assessment Guides
1. Students construct an architectural model.
Assess student’s model entrance.

Exceeds expectations - The forms and spaces of the model entrance complement each other in a visually interesting way.

Meets expectations - The forms and spaces of the model entrance are complementary.

Approaches expectations - The model entrance includes more than added planes, but three-dimensional forms (with height, width and depth).

Fails to meet expectations - Construction paper is attached to a box.

2. Students use space and form to express a feeling or idea.
Assess student’s proposal.

Exceeds expectations - The proposal identifies a function for the renovated building and clearly and convincingly explains how the proposed new entrance will reinforce that function or express feelings/ideas appropriate for that function.

Meets expectations - The proposal identifies a function for the renovated building and explains how the proposed new entrance will reinforce that function or express feelings/ideas appropriate for that function.

Approaches expectations - The proposal identifies a function or describes feelings/ideas s/he wants the new entrance to express.

Fails to meet expectations - The proposal identifies a function or describes feelings/ideas.

Extensions
Divide your class into “architectural firms” competing for the design of a new arts center (or other type of large building). The firm should make decisions as a team with each architect having major responsibility for one of Barton Myers’ seven architectural considerations:

The Architecture of Site (where the Center is built)
The Architecture of Arrival (approach and entrance to the Center)
The Architecture of the Lobby (hall or waiting space near the entrance of the Center)
The Architecture of the Room (theater and gallery within the center)
Architecture of the Back of the House (backstage and support space at the center)
Art in Architecture (integration of artworks with the center)
Craftsmanship in Architecture (use of materials in and construction of the center)

Firms might present a series of drawings, floor plans, interior dioramas and/or models with written proposals.

Ask students to role play members of a planning team charged with determining architectural decisions that meet the needs of various community stakeholders. Each team should take turns presenting proposals (drawing, models, etc.) to another team who is role playing people in the community who have something to gain or loose (for example, mayor, head of zoning commission, police chief, historical society representative, president of chamber of commerce, etc.).

Assign students to research the architectural proposal and school board negotiations involved in finalizing architectural decisions for their own school.