DESIGN MUSEUM

Hello! What's up people? 

Today is time we talk about the Design Museum. For my personal circumstances, I visited it before with my friends from Ireland, Chiara and Orla. 

In this blog I will explain 

1. What we saw inside the museum and its collection.

2. Wich possibilities offers the museum to work its collection with the children.

3. The development of an activity that I can make with children in the Designmuseum working the collection.

So there I go...

The first impression I had was that the museum was to be very small, but as we were going forward I realized I was wrong. Also, I can remember that in the first room we entered was a large contrast between classic /rustic furniture and modern furniture design. In that same room, for example, was a table made ​​of methacrylate using books and around them was full of old furniture and decorations.

It was very curious. Perhaps the "why of this" is that doesn’t matter what style, doesn’t matter how many years have the furniture or what they are made, matters that are useful and showy. 

In another section of the museum, particularly the downstairs was dedicated to Czech glass utensils of porcelain and contemporary design. The exhibition presents designer glass and porcelain made ​​by contemporary Czech companies. Specifically, it aims to emphasize the continuity of glass and porcelain production by selecting successful, timeless examples from the past 100 years. Among the most striking for me were:

 

                                         A very cool potteds!

 

 

 

They seem to be atomic bonds!

I also realized of a long corridor with boxes hanging on the wall where you could only see inside through a small round glass. Almost we could not see anything; it was very difficult to figure out what was inside. I could see parts of machines but I was not sure until I got to the next section.

I believe this way of showing part of the collection is intended to create curiosity in viewers, creating the feeling of: "What's Inside" "What is it about”.... Then I discovered that it was related to the next section. 

The largest part of the museum was dedicated to James Dyson. He is a British inventor and industrial designer and founder of the Dyson Company. He is best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic separation. So most of this section was dedicated to the cleaner, but also included other inventions more. For example, a network with holes to allow fish to pass through it, fans without propellers, where the air seemed to come out of nowhere or bikes with a very unique design.

 The models were very striking as you can se...

 

It's hard to imagine what it might have inside a vacuum to make it work...

  

More concretely it was focused on the explanation of its design, performance, demonstrations, the argument of "why in this way" and its author. To do this, there was little information posters on the walls, where you could read all the explanations. And also some explicative videos!

Finally, on top of the museum, had sections dedicated to furniture design as lamps, chairs, sofas, shelves, cutlery, toilets ... There were all kinds and all styles, the contrast was so great that even hard to adapt the mind to style that was showing you. Here are some pictures of what was most striking to me:

 

               This sofa remind me when the TV doesn't work.

Some of them were very colorfoul.

It was awesome to see many types of chairs together!

 










              What do you think it is? A carousel or a pie? 

 

   This one remind me the bulls from Spain, my loved Spain...

                                 

Throughout the museum and next to some samples or collections, there were small playmobil dolls related to the object that was shown. I had no idea why they were or if they had function, but I found it funny.

 

 

 

And finally, finishing the museum, I went through a hallway with a shelf marked with the letters A to Z with some curiosities.

At the end of the hallway, there was a mural that showed what were the necessary parts for design and the types of design: industrial design, interior design, product design....

It was a nice visit showed us new ideas, curiosities, different ways of seeing things and a new concept of what is design. 

Here is a picture of the visitors that day.

 

POSSIBILITIES FOR CHILDREN IN DESIGN MUSEUM

As the naked eye I could not deduce which activities offered the museum or there was no one that this day can inform me, so I asked for the number of Bernadette, the responsible of education section. So I called her and agreed to meet wit her for a short interview for inform me on the possibilities offered by the museum for young audiences. 

She told me that normally tend to guide groups of children from 5 to 12-13 years. These activities are usually done during the holidays, but during the school day are also common. Normally only is accepted groups of 20 children.

She told me that "The aim of the activities is that children keep in contact with the collection and encourage them to design thinking with the information that I give them", so she said "children can create their own decoration." 

These activities are always based on teaching methods and the input. Among them there are many types: observation, interpretation, interaction, play materials and objects, try them... Sometimes designers also come and give short talks or lectures. Finally, the museum give to them a small gift or keepsake after the visit.

I asked her if they made crafts or they stood somewhere to make a craft and she told me that usually prefer to be moving around the museum but also make outdoor tasks or crafts. 

At the end of the interview she gave me a series of workbooks/booklets that children often make about the collection. They are written in Dutch obviously, but I was able to conclude that the exercises are about remembering the collection, descriptions relate to objects, complete drawings or design them yours.

Here are some pictures from the booklets:

 ACTIVITY FOR CHILDREN WORKING THE COLLECTION

A good activity to work with the children's collection museum is showing through "plasticized painting". 

As our teacher always reminds us, we need to work it through parts or steps that the student is not faced with the feeling of "I cannot draw" "I don’t know what to draw." 

Also, being a museum on the design, we can offer students two options: 

1. Reproduce some object (lamp, table, furniture, cutlery ...) has seen during his visit to the museum or...

2. Think, design and draw their own object or invention, and then draw it.

In any of the two options, the steps that children have to follow are: 

1. Playing with pencil or design object that the child wants on a white paper.

2. Reviewing the lines that the child has drawn with black paint using a fine-tipped paintbrush.

3. Coloring with paint colors holes inside the drawing.

4. Before the paint dries, the teacher will give the children a square piece of plastic-paper. So students will have to put that on paper drawing with paint and press on it to the paint stick to the plastic.

5. Place the plastic-paper on a new sheet to dissemble the imperfections by throughout the white background paint.

6. Tantatachán! We have a table with our object in the collection or our own designed object.

I did this activity with my students during a visit to another museum during my stay in the teaching practice and they liked it a lot. So here you can see an example. Instead of drawing the collection, they drew the facade of the museum. 

Hope you find it useful. 

A hug to everyone and see you in next update!