It's 3 p.m., and the Interface exhibition opens in four hours, but Media Arts chair Barney Haynes is calm amid a sea of laptops and electronics. "It'll all come together," he says. "Well, most of it will."
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Lindsey Westbrook
Posted on Monday, May 18, 2009 by Brenda Tucker
Team California, the only competitor in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2009 Solar Decathlon hailing from the West Coast, is out to prove that aesthetics and engineering can work together to create an amazing living space. Combining the latest developments in green technology with their own high-end craft and artisanal skills, and taking into account California’s incredible climate, the students are designing and building an 800-square-foot home that they hope will bring home first prize.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 by Sarah Owens
California College of the Arts hosted FLUX: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape, an exhibition focused on the integration of digital practices and design, the Architecture Program's MEDIAlab digital workshops, and the International SmartGeometry Conference (held in spring 2009). The exhibition took place March 30–April 17, 2009, in the Nave at the San Francisco campus.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by Sarah Owens
Update: The 10 x 10 exhibition will be in the Nave on CCA's San Francisco campus for the next two weeks, through October 3, 2009. Open to the public daily, 9 a.m.-7:30 p.m.
Read the restPosted on Monday, March 9, 2009 by Brenda Tucker
CCA architecture and design students are participating for the first time ever (partnering with Santa Clara University) in the Solar Decathlon, a high-profile competition sponsored by the United States Department of Energy.
Read the restPosted on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 by Brenda Tucker
On September 26, 2008, architecture students from UC Berkeley and California College of the Arts attended a special lecture that featured internationally lauded architect Renzo Piano, the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate and 2008 American Institute of Architecture (AIA) Gold Medal recipient who has been heralded by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people.
In 1971 Piano joined with Sir Richard Rogers to form the Piano and Rogers Agency. The agency went on to collaborate on Paris's Centre Pompidou project, which brought the two designers international acclaim.
Read the restPosted on Friday, August 8, 2008 by Sarah Owens
The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) partnered with BusinessWeek to copresent the 2008 International Design in Excellence Awards (IDEAs), the most distinguished award in the field, at which CCA's Industrial Design Program emerged an industrial-sized winner.
Read the restPosted on Thursday, June 22, 2006 by Brenda Tucker
Crutches have been around for thousands of years, dating back to the time of the pharaohs. In the United States, the design of the common crutch has been unchanged for decades. Recently, BusinessWeek magazine challenged Hartmut Esslinger, founder and co-CEO of frog design, and Steven Skov Holt, distinguished professor of the CCA Industrial Design Program, to redesign the common crutch. When CCA industrial design student Remy Labesque also joined in, the team was complete. The result, the "4arm Brace," is featured in BusinessWeek.
Holt remarked, "It's tempting to think that certain things like the crutch have been around forever and that they've reached their optimum form. But that's not necessarily the case. One of the enduring lessons of design is that things can almost always be made better, improved upon, restated in a more eloquent and elegant way."
The team focused on the places the crutch touches the body as crucial to the redesign. The weight-bearing crutches in use today touch the underarm, which is full of nerve endings, lymph nodes, and blood vessels that do not benefit from this contact. The new crutch design is split into two components, the forearm and the upper arm, which offer better support for the body. Labesque produced the renderings of the final design in Alias.
A design in progress, the new crutch concept is meant to inspire designers and readers of BusinessWeek to encourage change in the area of health care design.
Read the restPosted on Friday, June 9, 2006 by Brenda Tucker
An eclectic mix of top California interior designers, architects and design experts present original new work along with their ideas and inspirations for the future at the California College of the Arts (CCA) summer 2006 Interior Designers Forum: "The Next Great Thing: New and Emerging Directions in Design."
Moderated by best-selling design author and editor Diane Dorrans Saeks, the Interior Designers Forum will focus on the latest directions in interior design, architecture, landscape design, home electronics and art. Seven leading design and architecture innovators will discuss issues pertaining to fashion and furniture design, arts and popular culture, sustainable design and the influence of new technologies in their professions.
The forum is presented by the CCA Extended Education Department and will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 22, at CCA's San Francisco campus.
The forum's program includes "Transcending the Trend: The Enduring Importance of Quality," with keynote speaker Douglas Durkin of Douglas Durkin Design, and "Luxury Hotels: New Design Directions," with featured speaker Gerry Jue of Babey Moulton Jue & Booth.
Other speakers include William Leddy and Marsha Maytum of Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects on "Architecture in the Service of the Community"; Silvina Blasen and Eric Blasen of Blasen Landscape Architecture on "Green Is the New Green: Sustainability and Style in Landscape Design"; Richard Green of Rich Green Ink on "The Future of Home Electronics"; Todd Hosfelt of Hosfelt Gallery on "Art World Darlings: Recent Directions in Collecting Art"; and Elisa Stancil and James Stancil of Stancil Studios on "Engaging the Emotions in Design."
Diane Dorrans Saeks is the author of 17 books, including her most recent, "Michael Smith Elements of Style" (Rizzoli), "Hollywood Style" (Rizzoli) and "San Francisco Style" (Chronicle Books). A noted editor and lecturer, Ms. Saeks has written extensively for the New York Times, Departures, Garden Design and many other design publications around the world. She is the interior design editor of PaperCity, the San Francisco editor at large for C Magazine and the California editor of Metropolitan Home.
The cost of the forum is $120 (plus $20 registration fee) and will include lunch. ASID members may earn 0.6 CEU credit. Preregistration is required. Those interested should call (510) 594-3710 to register or receive more information.
About the College
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is the largest regionally accredited, independent school of art and design in the western United States. Noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its programs, CCA offers studies in 19 undergraduate and 6 graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts and master of fine arts degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls 1,600 full-time students. Noted alumni include painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey and Peter Voulkos; filmmaker Wayne Wang; conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, June 7, 2006 by Kim Lessard
CCA graduate design students spent the spring semester exploring innovative ways of integrating art and design with the natural sciences in order to enhance the educational experience of visitors to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
The project was a collaboration between two CCA graduate courses: The Teaching and Documentation Project, taught by Linda Yaven, and Graduate Design Studio 2: Form + Language, taught by Raul Cabra.
The purpose of the project was for students to experience research and prototype testing—a crucial component of the design process—in an educational context.
Currently occupying a temporary space in downtown San Francisco while its new building (designed by Renzo Piano) is built in Golden Gate Park, the Academy became interested in how faculty and students from a lively design laboratory like CCA might bring new insights to their design rationale, working methods, and strategies. After observing the physical structure and spaces of the museum and how visitors interact within it, the students identified ways in which art and design might alter or enhance visitors' experiences. They then created and tested prototype installation aids.
Some of the students, like Chanida Buranatrakul and Maria Johansson, worked at solving specific problems they identified within the museum's spaces, such as finding an alternative to the sometimes hard to follow exhibition map. Others sought to simply add a dimension to visitors' experience of the natural history museum—Navid Ghaem's oversized kaleidoscope positioned in front of an aquarium of colorful fish, for example.
Zara Logue and Adelaida Mejia created a tentlike structure for younger visitors that resembled a jellyfish within a vast room of aquariums. Made out of translucent recyclable plastic, the structure drapes around floor pillows in organic shapes and casts an ethereal orange glow of reflected light from the tanks. Called the "Storytelling Pod," it offered a cozy, restful place within the larger open space. While testing the prototype, the students found that children were much more at ease when being read to within the dwelling and that parents instinctively tended to join their children, adding to the sense of calm and comfort.
Seeking ways in which the museum store could be an educational environment, Tom Hall and Andriyanto Wibowo designed a kid's game using probably the least expensive toy in the store, the low-tech, no-frills, injection-molded plastic insects. Centered on an in-store display, "Bugs Battlefield" is a sort of wildlife rock/paper/scissors, in which kids lose or gain points if they are prey or predator, slow or fast.
Other students who created projects for the class included Ryan Alexiev, Nathan Davis, and Azusa Oda.
This is the first year that CCA students in the MFA Program in Design have collaborated with the Academy of Sciences. Previous collaborations have taken place with K–12 schools. The institutional collaboration was initiated by CCA faculty member Marina McDougall along with Academy exhibition director Linda Kulik, with the encouragement of CCA president Michael Roth and Academy director Patrick Kociolek.
The museum staff seemed delighted and intrigued by the results. When the students presented their findings, what started as a two-hour final critique became a lively three-hour dialogue on the impact of design on how a natural history museum serves its visitors and the community.
Kulik commented, "Staff who interfaced with the students enjoyed their fresh perspectives and unique design approaches." For CCA the Academy offers what one participating graduate student described as a lifetime of design challenges.
Further CCA and Academy collaborations are in the works.
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