The Merlin School

Kate Prest has invited us for a series of workshops at The Merlin School in Putney with Year 1 pupils (6 years old), to teach them mecanism and other design exercises on Mythical Creatures.
They have designed their own dragons. The rules were to create the ID of their creature: size, weight, powers, nationality, family... and then transform their 2D drawings into 3D mockups.
http://www.merlinschool.net/

  

 

Video of the Marveland Exhibition by Manoto TV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYIRZ0YK0dY

Marveland in Designweek

The Marveland Exhibition in West London

Marveland is an innovative concept for a Christmas exhibition and pop-up shop dedicated to the creative genius of children, through the eyes of some of London’s up and coming designers.
Marveland will exhibit a great diversity and an original combination of artwork that can be enjoyed by everyone. The Event will show both design pieces developed exclusively by children in workshops, while also selling designs created by established designers, perfect as Christmas gifts.

 List of Marvelous Children Designers :

Yasin, Jon, Lewis, Omar, Joseph, Oli and some pupils from Thorpedene Junior school

List of Marvelous Established Designers :

Alon Meron www.alonmeron.com; Brit Leissler www.shootthestylist.net; Christina Bilouri  http://www.christinabilouri.com/; Dejan Mitrovic; http://www.dominic/ Hargreaves http://www.eyetohand.com/; Emil Rosen http://www.emilrosen.com/; Felix de Pass http://www.felixdepass.com/; Giannina Capitani http://www.gianninacapitani.com/; Good wives and Warriors http://www.goodwivesandwarriors.co.uk/; Harry Thaler http://www.harrythaler.it/; Hina Thibaud http://www.hinathibaud.blogspot.com/; Jochen Holz; KatrinBaumgarten http://www.katrinbaumgarten.de/; Laure Stromboni www.cargocollective.com/laurestromboni; Nelly Ben Hayoun http://www.nellyben.com/; Nicolas Zocca http://www.nicolazocca.com/; Olivia Decaris http://www.oliviadecaris.com/; Oscar Diaz http://www.oscar-diaz.net/; Rebecca Lucraft http://www.rebeccalucraft.com/; Seongyong Lee http://www.seongyonglee.com/

For more information and images, please contact us:

Hina Thibaud: +44 (0) 75068 92202

Hina.thibaud@network.rca.ac.uk

Olivia Decaris: +44 (0) 79705 25597

info@oliviadecaris.com

Graphic design: Laure stromboni

The Children's Opening, 4/12/10

The home-made compass at Thorpeden School

The directions for using a Fork

You will find below some of the instructions to use a fork, made by the pupils of Thorpedene School.
This class was level 5 (8-9 years old) http://www.thorpedenejuniors.co.uk/

Exercise 1 
We asked them to imagine that they would have to explain a friend, coming from another planet, how to use a Fork. I have to admit, we had a lot of fun.



Our brief sounded so French, that most of them have preferred dedicating the instructions to the foLk 

After asking them to guess the weight, the size and the material of the fork, we suggested them to attribute the object a new function.  



Fourth Marveland Workshop

Thursday, November 11th

For this fourth workshop we had our two usual involved participants: Lewis and Jon. A friend of theirs, Joseph, joined us to enjoy this creative moment.

As we wanted to teach them what is a function we decided to work with a common object
again: a plastic bottle. We showed them two bottles: a plastic and a glass one. We asked
them to compare these and to write a list of the differences in term of quality, shape, weight...

Immediately, Jon was very inspired. He told us "we can melt them." Olivia asked him for an
approximate temperature but the only thing he wanted was to experiment putting the
bottle of plastic in the oven. So we fulfilled his wish. Squatting in front of the oven, he was observing the plastic bottle’s transformation as it was the Seven Wonders of the World. After this first try we could not stop him anymore. «Another one! Another one! » he told us. Then, we explained to him what the “series” in design is; He decided to create a family of “melted-bottles”.

He created seven objects out of the bottles we gave him, each one having its own particularity. The bottle was distorting in different ways according to the time spent in the oven and depending on the amount of air enclosed in the bottle: the plastic bottle shrunk, inflated, melted and transformed into different shapes. One model even exploded in the oven: BANG!

As it was a family of bottles, he gave each one a name. He referred some of his creation to the
animal world: the bottle with a sinuous shape became the” Snake”, the one with a bulb on the
top became the “Xolhippo” and the name of the big bottle which exploded on the oven was
called “Rattle shark”.

Lewis focused on the weight of the bottles.

According to him the plastic bottle has an aerodynamic shape that reminded him of a rocket: of
course! Let’s do it! Lewis, the astronaut, explained to us how to make it and gave us some special instructions. He had specific inquires: a red balloon inflated with helium, a bottle, and a paper cone on the top of the whole structure. Yes, a rocket is not a rocket if it doesn’t have a tip pointing to the sky, is it?

Inspired by "the last despairing bid for help", he suggested putting a message on it: the rocket became the “messenger rocket”: a good way to express yourself and communicate with your friends. We threw the balloon over the balcony and his message flew away.

Joseph got his inspiration from the bottom of the bottles. He noticed the weird shape of it.

The humpy shape of the plastic bottom has found an admirer! He used the bottle as a telescope; he held it in front of his eyes and enjoyed the blurred vision through his plastic binoculars. Why do we always have to invent instrument to see perfectly when we have the possibilities to create fantastic worlds?

Who said that the real world has to be straight? Joseph designed a new way of observing and
watching: everything is blurred and funny!

Then, he drew a series of bottles.

And finally, to end this intense session, we asked them to draw a portrait of us.

According to Jon we don’t have a nose: good to know. Also, we seem to have very flexible legs...
Lewis has been inspired by Picasso, well done!
DING DONG! Mummy is here!!!
Lewis:“Oops don’t have time to write your name Hina.”
Hina & Olivia: “No worries, see you next week.”

Third Marveland Workshop

Monday, the 8th of November.

This Monday there were two kids attending: Jon and Lewis.
This time, we wanted them to concentrate on ‘function’. The rules were to write at least one sentence each time they created a model, explaining to the user how to use the new object.
We bought some polystyrene cups and asked them make a list of all the things they could do and create with them.

Then we put a porcelain mug and a polystyrene cup next to each other on the table and proposed that the two kids compare them.
-one has a ‘holder’, the other one has not, Jon said.
-the mug is heavier and frailer than the cup, the mug is more precious! Lewis said.
I asked him to guess the weight of the cup. ‘25g, I guess’.

Then, we suggested he make them equal in term of weight and value. He had an idea: he ordered us to break some china and to put the broken pieces into the cup for him. ‘Yes Sir! At your beck and call!’. We obeyed and took some precious dishes out of our kitchen cupboard, smashed it and filled the cup with the pieces of China.

After that, we gave them the task to develop and improve the functionality of the cup.

"Triple Decker Tea cup"

Jon added to the cup another bottom to create a tea cup. The tea powder is enclosed in the removable part and acts as a filter/strainer. It seems to be a double decker more than a triple decker.


"Thirsty Cup"

Lewis wanted to extend the volume of the object and increase the quantity of beverage to drink. He created a large excrescence with a cup that he truncated and attached to the other same polystyrene cup.

Social Cup
Lewis was interested in combining the cup and the Tea pot. The Cup-pot enables the user to serve the tea he is drinking from his own cup to his friends.

Another exercise was to transform the cup into something else.

"Donjon"

Jon made a donjon attached by a catapult and shot by a plasticin ball.

"Binoculars"

Lewis did a pair of binoculars with a rubber lace, to observe some little things that you can only see through his magic tool.

Jon created a magic light switch. You can take it with you anywhere and it will give you the power to switch on and off all the lamps, the street lights, headlights, etc...

They discovered the magic potential of the material when they put one of the cups in the oven and observed the transformation of the polystyrene: melting, distorting and shrinking.
They were interested in using the techniques for their designs: Lewis drew some patterns on a cup and put it into the oven.

It gave birth to a tiny "world cup".

Jon put a rubber band around the cup:

The result became ‘the cup of Mystery and Wish’ that keeps the wishes enclosed until they come true.