That thin metal box at school where you cram all your stuff? Lockers aren't designed for students today. In fact, the design of lockers hasn't changed since the days of your great grandparents!
Most backpacks are big, bulky, and heavy. Backpacks aren't designed for students today. In fact, the design of backpacks really hasn't changed since the days of your grandparents!
Take an old toy or toys and create a new way to play with them. Give it a name and a description or set of rules that help communicate what the toy is for.
Use the design process to redesign an every day object.
Using drawing as a form of observation is central to artists, architects, engineers, and designers.
Taking into consideration projections about future cities, imagine how the use of the Michigan Avenue Apple Store will change in the future. How will it serve the needs of the changing city? Will be school? A restaurant? A transportation hub?
The United Nations has recently identified insects as a potential source to address global food insecurity. Consumed in many places throughout the world, insects a
Make a great public space or new building in Chicago using TinkerCad.
This challenge is to design or redesign a space that promotes social interaction and a sense of community.
Create an eco-comic book to inspire other kids to take climate action.
BRT is less permanent and less expensive that rail systems (like the EL) and can move people just as effectively in many cities.
Design a forge for a site around your school.
Design an affordable housing prototype for your local town/city. Use neighborhood and city data to inform your design decisions and present a digital or physical model for an affordable two-story apartment complex that serves 20 families of four.
Make a great public space in Minecraft. This challenge is to design a space that promotes social interaction and a sense of community.
Community education is a huge part of a New Global Citizens project and it can take on many forms. You may be speaking to classes in your school, posting on social media, or holding events.
Goal: Use the design process to come up with ideas for fundraising around a chosen global project! This is a way to come up with ideas informed by information about the project as well as your school community.
Reimagine the design of a 21st century classroom that can make your classroom a model for learning today and beyond.
Reimagine the design of a 21st century Biology Classroom that can make your Science Lab a model for learning today and beyond.
Teen explorers from Chicago, led by scientists from the Adler Planetarium's Far Horizons program, The Shedd Aquarium, and The Field Museum, have teamed up to take on this underwater meteorite hunt. But they need your help!
The challenge is to redesign your high school library and re-think how your school’s library should, or could, function as technology advances and our notion of study and working changes accordingly.
Between 1910 and 1930, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in America. In those 20 years, it added more than a million residents.
Design a skyscraper in the downtown Chicago area for STEAM programming.
Neighborhoods are unique places. On one block you can find many resources for the people who live there – homes, shops, stores, parks, and more. Not every block is the same or needs the same things.
‘Shipping container architecture’ is a growing form of architecture using steel intermodal shipping containers as the main structural element. The steel is not only strong, but meant to withstand heavy loads and harsh weather conditions.
Design an affordable housing prototype for your local town/city or location of your choice that incorporates important elements we will need to consider for future design.
The challenge is to redesign our MHS high school library and re-think how our school’s library should, or could, function as technology advances and our notion of study and working changes accordingly.
How is your school's cafeteria designed now? Start by making notes about what’s working and what isn’t working with the existing design.
Investigating the fabric of your Chicago Neighborhood that makes is successful, unsuccessful, as well as keys to improving that neighborhood in the future!
This challenge is open to the DiscoverDesign community. Yet, to be eligible to compete applicants must be a participating ACE Mentor Program student and enter with a team of three or more students and ACE Affiliate(s).
This challenge is open to the DiscoverDesign community.
Reimagining and/or opening space formerly occupied by buildings and/or storefronts that are in disrepair or not any longer used (or fully used) into attractive, inviting, common area or park-like space can bring not only aesthetics back to an urb
Many schools were designed for the past and don’t reflect the 21st century learning environment. Some buildings need better ventilation or lighting, while others are simply not large enough to accommodate students comfortably.
Transform an old computer lab into a digital learning space for 21st Century Learning.
Alexandria School District is facing a population boom and the enrollment at AAHS will be over its capacity of 1,400 students by 250 students at the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
OVERVIEW Together with the City of Chicago, Friends of the Chicago River and many others, the Metropolitan Planning Council spent the past year scouring existing plans and working with residents and river
Architects and designers are very interested in reactivating overlooked spaces. In 2013, Chicago Public Schools closed 49 elementary schools, many of which are still vacant today.
OVERVIEW Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB) is an architecture, interior design, and planning firm with a thoughtful design vision and a dynamic national imprint. With offices in Chicago and San Francisco, SCB is
In our inaugural multi-week summer intensive for teens, the Rodgers Fellows class of 2016 put their collective brains to work, and partnered with the Sweetwater Foundation to design a pocket park.