This Wednesday, The Artisans Group hosted 26 Chinook Middle School students enrolled in a Landscape Architecture class. Things started off a little slow, but once the students learned that participation equaled chocolate, things got noisy and fun. Tessa Smith challenged the students to design a "better" house and strangely by the time we had worked through what "better" meant , the students approach looked a lot like the principles of Passive House. Then Roussa Cassel and Owen Martin flew the eager pupils through one of our Sketchup models and talked about studying volumes and mass models in 3D, and if their rapt attention was any indication, this felt a bit like a video game! The last challenge split the class into four teams and they had to design Passive House (s) around the patterns of the sun and then defend their design choices to the rest of the class- a critique of sorts. Everyone at Artisans Group relished this opportunity to participate in our community and the shaping of our youth. Fun was had by all and the field trip was a success. The teacher in charge of the class sent us this message afterwards:
"THANK YOU to you and your staff for hosting my students yesterday! They went on and on all day about careers in architecture and how much they enjoyed visiting your office. It was FANTASTIC for them to hear about the skills they need (like team work and communication) from a professional rather than their teachers."
Posted on April 24, 2015
