RBA's Britni Jessup volunteers at Kelly Middle School through the "Architect in Schools" program
RBA's Britni Churnside Jessup lends her design expertise with Kelly Middle School advanced math students as part of the Architects in Schools (AIS) program.
Operated through the through the Architecture Foundation of Oregon (AFO) organization, AIS is a statewide, six-week residency program for elementary and middle schools where students and classroom teachers work directly with practicing architects and other design professionals with the goal of developing awareness and understanding of the designed and built environment.
Britni has been a volunteer with AIS for the past 3 years. This year Britni and classroom teacher Martine Wodke developed a project assignment where students create their own restaurant interior from a real existing floor plan. Britni and Martine developed the project to coordinate with the students regular coursework involving the multiplication and division of fractions.
Students applied their new knowledge by scaling the existing drawings to real life dimensions and then re-scaling those dimensions to build a physical model of the space. From there, they learned about spatial relationships and relative sizes of things like circulation paths, furniture and public restrooms that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). They were allowed to use representative materials of their choosing to represent the style and arrangement of their interior.
The project will culminate in a public showing of student projects at the Jacobs Gallery at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts from May 9 to June 13. An art reception will be held at 5:30pm at both the Hult Center and the American Institute of Architects office, (92 E. Broadway).
A Register Guard article provides additional information about the AIS program and the culminating exhibition of finished student's work.
