Videos
Maggie’s: Look inside
Running time: 00:43
Channel 4: Introduction
Running time: 01:54
Imagination: High shot
Running time: 00:28
KS3 Curriculum Links
Design and Technology: Cultural understanding 1.2a
Understand how products evolve according to users’ and designers’ needs, beliefs, ethics and values and how they are influenced.
Geography: Space 1.2b
Know where places and landscapes are located, why they are there, the patterns and distributions they create, how and why these are changing and the implications for people.
Geography: Cultural understanding and diversity 1.7a
Appreciate the differences and similarities between people, places, environments and cultures to inform their understanding of societies and economies.
Science: Energy, electricity and forces 3.1b
Forces are interactions between objects and can affect their shape and motion.
Key words
Activity
Create a worksheet: Draw 3 concentric circles on a page. Label the inner one as representing the interior space, the middle one representing the exterior, and the last one representing the space immediately surrounding the building.
Materials: Site plan of the building (if possible), plain paper, pens, circle sheets.
Steps:
Street
- Ask the students to draw a sketch elevation of the street (or building if it stands alone). For each building, take a vote on the shape that most closely sums it up, and draw the shapes next to each other to create an elevation of the street.
- For each building, ask students to identify the building type (for example residential/house, religious building, shop, office) and the materials used.
- In groups students can discuss:
- How the building fits into its wider context (promoting diversity or uniformity).
- How materials have been used to respond to the cultural context
- of the building.
- How materials have been used to respond to the physical conditions surrounding the building.
- Suggest to students that they think of the building as a creature or personify it. Ask them to choose a key word to describe how the building ‘sits’ within its surroundings.
Public – Private Gradations (degrees of separation?)
- While the group is still outside, ask the students to identify the materials used on the exterior of the building and in the spaces immediately surrounding the building, and to mark these on the circle sheet. They should also note down whether each space is predominantly public or private.
- Now bring the group back inside and ask them to make a note of the materials in the interior space and whether this space is mainly public or private.
- Ask students for the differences or similarities between the materials that are used inside and outside the building.
- In groups students can discuss:
Activity Continued
- How the place relates to its immediate surroundings.
- Whether the outside shell reflects the inside of the building or of it is a surprise.
- How the use of materials relates to public and private space.