Claystation Projects

CAFA X Makedo

This interactive workshop/exhibition was part of a larger series of workshops I organised during Beijing Design Week 2015. The unusual venue (a high-end shopping mall not far from the 798 Art District in Beijing) was an attempt to bring making activity to a wider audience.

Claystation X Spongebob at Beijing Design Week

A big production, supported by Nickelodeon, for Beijing Design Week where visitors could craft their own Spongebob or Patrick figures and put them on display. This was a really popular, fun event. Spongebob “superfans” travelled from as far as Shanghai to take part.

Climate Change Festival

Held between 31st May — 8th June, 2008, this festival celebrated existing sustainable projects in Birmingham and promoted new strategies for tackling climate change. It was organised by CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Build Environment) and Birmingham City Council. I was asked to put on a Claystation event, encouraging visitors to propose a new and sustainable vision for a part of town undergoing regeneration. Before modelling their idea on a giant map, each participant had to complete a ‘Building Consent Form’ where they outlined the purpose of their design. These provided a useful form of feedback from this co-creation exhibition.

Thanks to all the team who helped make the event a success:
Tom Ballhatchet, Graham Powell, Maggs Rees, Charlie Huang, Ghazale Foroutan Jazi, Renu Patankar, Peter Nielsen, Josef Pointner, Elyn Yu, Nikhil Korde, Kay Chou, Andree Lee, Helen Chan

Making is Designing

This essay was produced for the catalogue for the Six Cities Design Festival. It concerns the importance of making in the act of design — a strong philosophy behind the development of the Claystation series of events. “Claystation – Remodelling Scotland, Published and Distributed by The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Architecture. ISBN 1–905061-11–0

Seats of Learning – A Template for Design Modelling

A paper presented at 4^th Engineering and Product Design Education International Conference, Salzburg, Austria. Published in Educating Designers for a Global Context, Rothbucher, B., Kolar, M., Ion, B. and Clarke, A. (Eds.), Hadleys, UK 2006
ISBN 0955394201

Play, Four Days and a 1/4 ton of Clay

This paper explores the use of play as a catalyst for creativity.
Presented at The 4th International Conference on Design and Emotion, 12^th-14^th June, 2004, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.

Co-Author: Alex Milton, Edinburgh College of Art

Claystation #1 at Designersblock London 2003

This was the first ever Claystation event. It was held at Designersblock at the Tea Building (prior to renovation) in September 2003.