1. Summarize the problem you set out to solve. What was the challenge posed to you? Did it get you excited and why?

We set out to instill in the students that design is a problem-solving tool in the real world. When they hear design they think art, fashion and abstract visuals. They don’t associate math or science, but the reality is that design is successful when we approach issues in unconventional ways to develop innovative solutions. Our biggest challenge was to have the students truly grasp the root concept of design.

While education was uncharted territory for us, we strongly believed in not only the benefit in giving back to the community but the value to be gained through the design process and insights to be learned in this field.

2. What point of view did you bring to the challenge? Was there anything additional that you wanted to achieve with this project or bring to this project that was not part of the original brief?

The brief we created was to demonstrate to 14 year-olds that everything around us is designed, and allow them to understand the value of design by merging math, science and art to create valuable end products that solve for something.

Our main focus when approaching the curriculum for this class was to emphasize the PROCESS of design and the methodology of design thinking, rather than the end product. We were fully immersed with the students on a weekly basis over the course of six months to ensure that for every problem they identified they also fully though-out a design solution. The students were also engaged with us, and each other, out of the classroom via their social network to maintain a continuously collaborative dialogue throughout the experience.

To be successful, the class needed to be as applicable to the real world as possible. So we started with something familiar. We asked the students to look to their everyday classroom environment as a launching pad for their ideas, and to conceive the classroom of the future. Furthermore, we asked American manufacturing company, Bernhardt Design, to partner with us in this effort and actually create prototypes to make the process real.

As a result, the students were fully immersed in the entire product development process, from research and ideation to 3D modeling and final prototypes. In the end, they utilized their thought process and problem-solving skills to create valuable and functional classroom products while clearly articulating the problems they were solving.

3. When designing this project, whose interests did you consider? (Discuss various stakeholders, audiences, retailing, manufacturing, assembly, distribution, etc., for example.)

While we would have loved to have given the students unlimited freedom to conceive magic carpet classrooms, we asked them instead to consider the various audiences and environments that would affect the success of their products and therefore propose realistic solutions.

They first had to consider the needs of the school and the faculty. For this were aware of budget, knowing that they wanted their concept to fit the needs and concerns of all schools across the economical and social spectrum – no gold plated desktops here!

They additionally had to consider the environments the products would live in, and the teachers who want flexible, non-distracting classrooms.

4. Describe the rigor that informed your design. (Research, ethnography, subject matter experts, materials exploration, technology, iteration, testing, etc., as applicable.) If this was a strictly research or strategy project, please provide more detail here.

44 fourteen year-olds can be the toughest audience out there. Substantial dialogue and strategy went into our preparation, including considerable time spent immersing ourselves in the school environment, getting to know our audience and their capabilities, and speaking with faculty regarding their approach to the classroom. We wrote out a detailed curriculum, working with our faculty partners to constantly refine based on their recommendations and mandates. This project resulted in research providing insightful learnings about furniture in schools, the needs of students and strategic learning about the process of design.

5. What is the social value of your design? (Gladdening, educational, economic, paradigm-shifting, sustainable, labor-mindful, environmental, cultural, etc.) How does it earn its keep in the world?

What started off as a simple effort to get involved in the community grew into a much larger realization that there is a great value to be gained from design integration into early education. Not only from a design perspective, but design thinking allows you to question the world in a uniquely analytical way – a value that should be imperative to our future leaders.

If you don’t provoke the standard and create change, you will be left behind. It is the ability to think, to question, to solve and to learn with a grasped awareness and understanding of the world they are exiting into.

Our goal was to integrate real-life skills. To teach the students to use creativity as a problem-solving tool to design real-world solutions, a skill they would hopefully take with them beyond the classroom and apply to the outside world.

The end result was the collaborative design for the future classroom – designed for kids by kids. A testament to their success.

6. If you could have done one thing differently with the project, what would you have changed?

If given the option to change our experience, we would have provided the students with more time during their modeling phase, which in turn would have given them more time to validate their ideas and express them visually.