IDSA College Students Inspired by Blocks
Tucker Viemeister, Product and Industrial Design professor at The New School and Vice President of the Architecture League NY, had a question: How might his students tap into deeper creativity and inventive thinking? A former C&C parent, he remembered the impact of the school's open-ended materials, especially the unit blocks. He reached out to Elise Bauer, C&C's Director of Admission and an Adjunct Professor at Bank Street College, asking if she would be willing to help. She didn’t hesitate.
"Put yourself in the shoes of a C&C student and play!" Viemeister encouraged in his invitation to the Industrial Designers Society of America community at The New School. Several accepted the challenge.
On November 6, New School design students gathered at City and Country School for an evening exploring the school's historic wooden blocks program, invented by founder Caroline Pratt and now used in classrooms worldwide. Bauer led a two-hour session centered on free-form collaboration and creativity, giving students a firsthand look at how open-ended play and learning-by-doing produce remarkable results.
"It was really powerful for me to watch college students dive into the materials," said Bauer. "Much like the young children here every day, these young adults were eager and uninhibited in their ideas and their willingness to take risks. I was really impressed by what they engineered."
The students' enthusiasm and outcomes sparked immediate interest from faculty. Alicia Tam Wei, Assistant Professor of Product and Industrial Design at The New School's School of Constructed Environments, approached Bauer about incorporating C&C's approach into her curriculum. Wei and colleague Cas Holman, author of Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity, are planning to bring their "Open Play Lab" students to experience the blocks program next spring.
The evening highlighted how C&C's century-old educational philosophy continues to influence and inspire contemporary design thinking.
More ABOUT C&C'S BlockS PROGRAM
