Arckit Workshop sets Precedent in Ontario, Canada

“One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.” - Renzo Piano 

This year for 2020, our Arckit team is deeply focused on featuring the educational aspects of Arckit as a strong tool to teach all things STEAM within the classroom. Our message today is all about empowering the minds of students through architecture, exercising both their practical/social skills simultaneously as they learn about the environment and sustainability. With classrooms nowadays being such fast-paced learning environments, Arckit allows for educators and students to engage with a simple/clean workflow that mimics modern, modular construction. The array of interconnecting parts makes for endless design iterations and quick teardowns, two extremely important and valuable characteristics that ensure classroom time is well spent.

 
Starting off the year strong, this past February, Arckit Ambassadors, Rick Fairhurst and Chirac Ndetan were invited to London, Ontario by Michael Santolupo of St. John Paul ll Catholic Secondary School to help lead a three-day, hands-on Arckit Tiny Home Design Workshop. With a technical background in mechanical engineering, Mr. Santolupo has been a leader in both crafting and teaching pre-engineering/design-thinking curriculums for high school students. With 28+ years of experience, his innovative design programs at John Paul are highly regarded in Ontario and positively recognized throughout North America. Having been recently introduced to the Arckit system, Santolupo has incorporated Arckit into several of his design curriculums. Fairhurst and Ndetan got involved to help facilitate an example of a successful workshop with Arckit and document it as a precedent for other classrooms in North America.

Together, in groups of three, 60+ students learned about key sustainability strategies in our modern world and tackled the challenge of designing their own sustainable tiny homes with Arckit components. In an action-packed three days totalling three hours of classroom time per student, they became acquainted with Arckit, formed teams, researched Tiny Home designs, prototyped their home in Sketchup and built their model to scale with Arckit. With students between the age of 14-18, coming from all backgrounds within STEAM, it was intriguing and inspiring to watch how each approached Arckit for the first time, using their backgrounds/experiences to help shape and guide design decisions within their team. The results simply speak for themselves, with each of the teams having completed their models representing what they learned, all ready to present and showcase to their peers by the end of the third day.

As always, it is an honour to see Arckit have such a resounding impact in the classroom. We loved hearing about the workshop’s success and collecting the feedback from all the students. Many thanks to all that were involved in making this trip and workshop a success! 

 
Since our time at St. John’s, the world and how we are living, working and learning has changed dramatically with COVID-19 present. Educators and students are rapidly trying to find new ways to teach and learn remotely as part of social distancing efforts. Arckit is an intuitive design tool with lesson plans for all levels which can be used in your home. If you would like to learn more, please get in touch with us at education@Arckit.com. We are also just weeks away from launching Arckit Digital, a sophisticated online design platform that enables users to explore and build independently or remotely with their classmates and friends. Stay tuned!