This is the third article in an ongoing series about working with kids by Copenhagen-based architect/designer/educator Moa Dickmark. Her last article was on the Future of Learning Environments.

There are a few things that one should think about when it comes to working on a project using co-creative processes. There are the basics, such as how you develop and structure them, and then there's the small things that make the process go more smoothly. Sometimes these small things end up making a big difference, so I'm going to let you in on some of the ones that my colleague and I use more or less every time we are out working. Most (but not all) of them are applicable also when working with teachers, leaders, politicians etc.

The Necessities

Start the process with a few meetings with the headmaster and school leadership, where you can decide on a common goal and make sure that you are on the same page. A goal for a process can be something along the lines of:

Develop spaces that students and teachers feel comfortable in and that can be used in various ways depending on subject and the individual students needs.

Decide on a timeline, a budget, how many hours you will spend with the students per workshop and ask them to find a class with teachers that are open-minded and up for the project. No point in hitting your head against the wall with teachers who don't want you to be there; the students will probably take on the sentiment of teacher and the process to reach the set goals will not be enjoyable for anyone.

Involvement

1.) Make sure that everyone involved in the project feels like they are truly a part of the project, and that they have an important role in the process and outcome.

When working with students, invite their parents for a meeting where you tell them about the project, tell them a bit about the basics of co-creative processes and what sort of things their kids are going to come home and ramble about. It's really good to let them try what you are talking about, so let them do one of the exercise—i.e. a quick and dirty model-making session always bring out a lot of laughter—in order to provide a greater understanding of how fun it can be, and so they have something to talk about when their kid comes home from school.

This is also a good way to get them more involved—maybe one of the parents works at a warehouse and can arrange some sponsorship deal with the boss or something of the sort, or that some of them want to spend some of their free time helping out at one of the workshops. The more support you get from the parents, the better.

2.) Also make sure that people who are not directly involved of the project feel welcome.

For example, shortly after starting working with a 6 grade class in a small school in the middle of Jylland, Denmark, the biggest ambassadors for the project and for what the students were working on turned out to be the librarian and one of the cleaning ladies. They showed parents what their children were up to, and talked about the vision developed for the various areas.

On July 22nd, 2011, Norway suffered two horrific back-to-back attacks on civilians. A lone extremist killed eight people with a car bomb and injured 209 in Oslo; within hours he'd then opened fire at a summer camp at Utøya island, killing 69 and wounding 110. The attacks were particularly personal in relatively tiny Norway, where a reported one out of every four Norwegians knew at least one of the victims.

KORO/Public Art Norway, the government's arm for public art and the largest art producer in the country, subsequently held a design competition to erect a memorial to honor the victims. The recently-announced winner, by unanimous jury vote, was artist Jonas Dahlberg and his beautiful two-part concept seen here. The first part of the memorial, called "Memory Wound," is to be sited on a tiny peninsula of land at the village of Sørbråten, near Utøya island. Explains Dahlberg:

My concept for the Memorial Sørbråten proposes a wound or a cut within nature itself. It reproduces the physical experience of taking away, reflecting the abrupt and permanent loss of those who died. The cut will be a three-and-a-half-meters-wide excavation. It slices from the top of the headland at the Sørbråten site, to below the water line and extends to each side. This void in the landscape makes it impossible to reach the end of the headland.

Visitors begin their experience guided along a wooden pathway through the forest. This creates a five to ten minute contemplative journey leading to the cut. Then the pathway will flow briefly into a tunnel. This tunnel leads visitors inside of the landscape and to the dramatic edge of the cut itself.

There's a little over one week left to get involved in the 2014 Core77 Design Awards—which means there's still plenty of time for you to enter your design for the chance to win one of our coveted trophies. Previously, we introduced our team of jury captains in two parts (check them out here and here), but what's a leader without a team? Get to know the professionals who will seeing and judging your work in the Equipment, Packaging, Educational Initiatives, Speculative and Food Design categories.

Billed as being "perfect for boats, parties and restaurants," Edmund Scientifics' The Incredible Spill Not is simply a 13-buck gizmo that combines a flexible strap with a rigid arm and base. While at first it may seem somewhat silly...

...you can't deny that this thing would be useful on a boat:

While Chuck Close's tool of choice was the pencil, artist Seung Mo Park makes his marks with a very different medium: Stainless steel mesh.

Would you like to work with a great team of people at a rapidly growing company? Join 4moms, a truly innovative consumer products company. They've introduced robotics technology to the juvenile industry with their suite of high-tech baby gear, including the world's first power-folding stroller. How cool is that? Even cooler, they're looking for a passionate and talented Industrial Designer.

The person in this role will primarily be responsible for the development and guidance of innovative consumer goods and will make effective use of research and reference materials to support idea generation. The right person must be able to use sound problem solving skills to creatively execute solutions for form, usability, and ergonomics to lead innovative products to market from beginning to end. Is this you? Apply Right Now.

Following the success of their first New Skins: Computational Design for Fashion workshop, Francis Bitonti Studio recently
partnered with Makerbot and Lagoa for a second session this winter. Hosted at the Metropolitan Exchange in Brooklyn, the New Skins Workshop: Brumal Bodies took place over ten days this January, including an introduction to computational design followed by a hands-on workshop. Using programs such as Maya and Rhino, students worked together designing garments, which were then rendered in Lagoa, a browser-based, hyper-realistic rendering software, as well as experimenting with the Makerbot Replicator 2 3D printer, with their efforts culminating in a collaboratively designed 3D-printed final project: the Bristle Dress.

The 'Bristle Dress' started by exploring different ways and techniques to create volume. The workshop focused on dissolving the silhouette of the body into the atmosphere, with the aim to create a trasitional garment. The upper part of the dress was designed to be printed in the naturally colored (clear) PLA, a material selected for its translucent qualities—specifically, the way it refracted the light greatly helped us achieve our design objectives. The skirt was created using Makerbot's flexible filament material and was lined with synthetic rabbit fur. The result is a flexible yet highly structured garment: 3D printing the skirt allowed us to create an interesting interface, while the texture of the fur lining further aided in the creation of our overall silhouette, combining both artificial and natural textures. This multi-material relationship has been an emerging area of interest for the studio for some time now. The skirt portion of the dress is customizable and will be available for download at Thingiverse.com.

Still from "Uniqlock" by Koichiro Tanaka

Japanese magazine +81 is pleased to present Graphic Passport 2014in New York City, featuring two exhibitions—one in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn—and a presentation at NYU's Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Film Center this Friday, March 14. Now in its fifth year, the biannual celebration of Japanese creative culture has established itself as a well-curated showcase of emerging designers and has visited global destinations from Paris to Sao Paulo to Mumbai; following the New York show, the 2014 edition will make its way to Bangkok in late April.

The event kicks off tomorrow evening with the opening reception for a group exhibition at the +81 gallery space in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Starting on Wednesday, March 12, the space will feature Tokyo Graphic Posters, a wildly successful exhibition that launched in 2011; Takeo Paper Show 2008, Fine Papers by "School of Design"; and Tohoku Standard.

Yuni Yoshida

On Friday, March 14, the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Film Center at NYU will host a triple-header of Japanese designers: art director Yuni Yoshida, digital ad wizard Koichiro Tanaka and filmmaker/photographer Seiichi Hishikawa. Given the quality of their work, this promises to be an enlightening evening indeed.

Last but not least, Saturday, March 15, will see the opening of a group exhibition at the +81 Gallery at 167 Elizabeth Street in Manhattan, where work by Shun Kawakami, Gen Miyamura and Syoh Yoshida will be on view. Again, this looks like it will be a very respectable showing from some of Japan's leading young artists and designers.

Seiichi Hishikawa

Both the Brooklyn and Manhattan exhibitions will be open until April 25, from noon until 7pm daily. More details are available on the Graphic Passport New York and +81 websites.

Time is running out! You only have a little more than a week left to submit your designs to the 2014 Core77 Design Awards! Yesterday, we announced the jury members for the Equipment, Packaging, Educational Initiatives, Speculative and Food Design categories. This time around, we're excited to introduce you to five more teams: Interiors & Exhibitions, Visual Communication, Social Impact, Strategy & Research and DIY. Get to know who you're out to impress and submit your work before the March 20th deadline:

Tonight at Curiosity Club we'll talk with Keegan Onefoot-Wenkman, the talented printmaker, artist, and prefix half of KeeganMegan & Co. We'll hear about doing things the hard way by hand, printing with steamrollers, and more. The talk starts at 6pm at the Hand-Eye Supply store in Portland, OR. Come early and check out our space or check in with us online for the live broadcast!

Keegan Onefoot-Wenkman: "My Hands Are Going To Fall Off"
Hand-Eye Supply
23 NW 4th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97209
Tuesday, March 11, 6pm PST

Editor: Have you ever been tempted to take someone else's design? What do you think would happen to you if you did? Here we've got Part 3 of "Accidental Designer's" story, as he follows through on a fateful decision.

Missed the last one? Catch up here.

At a craft fair I'd spotted this guy, I'll call him Rusty, selling these chairs he had made. As soon as I saw his design, I realized I could build them myself, even better than he had. And I darn sure had enough wood to make them. Now I have to point out that these chairs were not my design. But before we talk design theft, I have to detour into auto theft. Because in my life there were two cases where people were getting rid of a boatload of wood and it worked out in my favor, and with the first one I ended up getting my car stolen.

Some guy was selling a garageful of teak, which I'd mentioned earlier. These were huge pieces of rough-cut lumber and you couldn't believe how much of it there was. The guy's grandfather had brought it all over from India on a ship in the 1950s. I had this crappy Chevy Astro van, and each trip I loaded it up to the brim with wood, so badly that the van was practically bottoming out. It was a 1.5-hour round trip and it took me six freaking trips to get all of the wood back to the boatyard where I was living.

By the time I made it back with the final load, it was late at night and I was dead tired. I couldn't lift my arms to unload that last batch and figured I'd get to it in the morning, so I left the car in the lot, staggered back into my sailboat and fell asleep with my boots on.

In the morning I got up and went out to finish the job. But my van was gone. I always parked in the same spot so it's not like I misplaced it, and the keys were still in my pocket, so it's not like a buddy of mine had moved it. It had just disappeared, along with its load of valuable teak.

One of the most satisfying things in an NYC motorist's life is coming over the Queensboro Bridge and heading south on 2nd Avenue late on a weekday night. Through proper timing and judicious use of the accelerator, you can catch a wave of green lights for three miles, from 59th Street all the way down to Houston.

Audi's Smart City Traffic Light Assistance System, if realized, could convey this sensation to millions—while cutting a car's emissions by some 15%. While it's not designed to let you beat lights per se, what the system does is receive information beamed from surrounding traffic lights, then crunches that data with your car's location and speed to present the precise timing between lights. Check it out:

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The obvious hurdle is that it requires a grid of "smart" traffic lights that can beam data--but ideally this is the way cities should be going. And the upshot is that the system can be retrofitted.

Via Jalopnik

Villa Kogelhof

Are you opinionated about architecture? For once the world wants to hear about it: vote for your top picks in the Architizer A+ Awards! Public voting is open until March 21, and there are plenty of categories (and even more subcategories) of beautifully built and rendered work. Not opinionated about architecture? Cast votes for your dream home, office, airport, and garden. Here are some of my top picks.

In the Residential Interiors category, I loved RoominaRoom by Atmos Studio. Located in London, the redesign is a room "grown" within another in response to the building's residents' committee blocking a loft project. Sneaky.

In one of the Landscape categories, the Hans-Wilsdorf Bridge, a scribbly tube spanning the 280 feet of Switzerland's Arve river.

Master & Dynamic is a new high-end audio company launching in May 2014. Almost two years in development, their product lineup of premium products will compete with the likes of Bang & Olufsen, Beats, Bowers & Wilkins and Bose. They bring a more sophisticated design driven aesthetic and a new sense of luxury to the premium audio space. How would you like to help launch this new brand as an Industrial Design Intern in their NYC office?

If you're the right person for this paid summer internship, you'll need to hit the ground running and be willing to both learn and contribute. Working directly with our Chief Product Officer and in-house design team, you'll explore, research, ideate, create storyboards, 3D models, and physical prototypes. If you are working toward (or recently graduated with) a BS or MS in Industrial Design and have a deep understanding of aesthetics and can articulate your thoughts clearly and concisely, Apply Now.

We've got very little hard information, but it seems a handful of European and Scandinavian individual bloggers have been seeded with photos of these forthcoming IKEA designs. The Swedish furniture giant will soon be releasing their IKEA PS 2014 collection, a new line designed "for a home in constant motion, always ready for new situations and furniture needs."

The pieces are quirky to be sure. For one there's this peculiar narrow bench, intended to be a used as temporary butt-parking station while you take your shoes on and off, and it takes up a minimum of space:

There's this odd pendant lamp (pictured at top and below) that brings to mind an exploding Death Star:

About three months ago, we were interested to learn that Kiel Mead, co-founder of American Design Club and friend of Core, had taken a leadership role at Fab.com. As the Executive Vice President of Design, Mead is looking to spearhead new initiatives to support designers through Fab as a global online platform. Here he presents his first project, "First Things First," a call for entries for NYCxDesign, in his own words.

Fab Submit is a new initiative at Fab that stems from our longstanding goal of discovering and promoting the work of designers at all stages of their careers. Fab Submit is an open door for designers to present their designs to us, with the very real potential to have Fab produce and sell their work. The intent of our first call is to inspire new design with an intentionally broad brief. "First Things First: Finding Inspiration In A Fresh Start" is a prompt that we think will get the wheels turning for designers to take pen, pencil or indigo blue Prismacolor to paper.

My career before Fab was all about supporting designers and finding new and interesting ways to show, share and sell their work. For the past several years I have helped to foster an ever growing community of designers through my work with the American Design Club. Now I can pair those resources and that camaraderie with the expansive reach and established platform of Fab. One of the best things about Fab is how much this company wants to discover new and exciting work from designers at any level of their careers. Through programs like Fab Submit, we will discover great new designs and amazing new talents.

The deadline to submit is March 21, so check out the call for submissions and enter today!

Ember Equipment is the name of a group of industrial designers with "deep experience and expertise in the design of technical soft-goods and equipment," as they write. "We most especially love bad-ass backpacks." That adjective perfectly suits their awesome Modular Urban Pack, which appears to be designed with indestructible, weatherproof hardware and provides the flexibility to add tailored modules that suit whatever you're hauling. Take a look at the demo video of their two models, which are currently up on Kickstarter:

While consumers will ultimately be able to pick and choose options to build their own packs, for the MUP's Kickstarter campaign there will be four pre-configured pack-builds on offer. Buy-in starts at US $209 for a "Minimalist" model and top out at $289 for their "Outfitter" pack loaded up with every gear option.

While the days of scratchy television channels and sending the man of the house up to tinker around with the reception antenna are nearly obsolete—thanks to the likes of Netflix and Hulu—there are still ways to enjoy the inconveniences of the past. The Antenna Light by Joy Charbonneau is one of those things. Not only is it much easier on the eyes, but it won't send you tumbling to the yard with a split second of unsure footing.

Trouble—perhaps big trouble—in the world of plastics.

It looks like the widespread discontinuation of products containing bisphenol-A (BPA) may have precipitated the adoption of another BPA-like and perhaps equally dangerous alternative. The question now on peoples' minds is, "Are any plastics safe?"

Since 2010, the FDA banned the use of BPA in baby bottles, sippy cups and infant formula packaging. The danger of BPA is that it mimics the hormone estrogen. And while we all have some level of estrogen in our bodies, too much of it especially during pregnancy or infancy can cause problems later on. It has been associated with breast cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. BPA is still widely used in the lining of cans and in many water bottles.

Since the 2010 ban, there has been a surge of products marketed as "BPA-free." However, it turns out that the chemicals used to replace BPA were never tested by a regulatory body. And according to a recent investigative report by Mother Jones' Mariah Blake, many of these plastics exhibit estrogen-like properties and could have similar negative effects on ones' health.

That the business card is dead, or at least dying, is no secret. At any trade fair I've been to in the past few years, exhibitors would rather scan your badge than stuff their pockets with more paper, and I myself use my smartphone to snap others' contact info and leave their cards behind.

Still, Portland-based technical designer Kevin Bates reckons he's got a business card you'll want to hang onto. Because you can use the darn thing to play Tetris. Observe:

The Bateske Arduboy, as he calls it, is Arduino-driven and boasts an OLED screen, capacitive buttons, a battery and a freaking speaker all in a crazy skinny 1.6mm-thick package. (The battery is good for some 9-plus hours of gameplay, but when it goes, the user will have to remove it and solder another into place.) Bates is preparing to launch the project on Kickstarter, where he heops he'll be able to get the cost below the 30 bucks a pop he's currently at. (That's for the kit; assembled units go for $50.)

Right now the Arduboy can be made to play Tetris, and Bates has worked out a Flappy Bird clone as well; as for what the future holds, "It would be beautiful to see Mario coded in assembly," he writes, "but that might be too much of a pipe dream..."