THE CHAIR:
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ARCHITECTURE PROJECT
FOR THE CORE CURRICULUM

Presentation/Workshop
by
Dr. Lorraine Whitman, Executive Director, Salvadori Center
and
Jonathan Katz, Institute of Student Achievement
•

The Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum ’05

“Reclaiming the Freedom to Learn”

November 3 - 5, 2005 • Boston, MA

The Chair: An Interdisciplinary Architecture Project for the Core Curriculum

(from the Program Guide)

How can you maintain the excitement of learning in your classroom while national, state, and local “standards” grow more clamorous? Rigorous project-based constructivist pedagogy works. It works in the most challenging environments as well as with the “gifted and talented.” Experience engaging architecture/engineering-focused projects that teach lessons in math, science, social studies, and language arts. You will have the opportunity to engage in one of four projects involving “The Chair.” For example, you may design and build an ergonomic chair to scale out of cardboard. Or you may choose to defend the design of a chair in a patent application to protect your intellectual property. Or you may design a throne for the pharaoh of ancient Egypt or a Caesar! Workshop presenters include two experienced Salvadori representatives: a mathematics specialist in New York City high schools and the Executive Director of the Salvadori Center with 19 years of engineering experience.

An Example of One of the Workshop Projects

(from Classroom Restyle, a Social Studies project from the “School” module of “Projects from the Salvadori Classrooms”)

The Challenge

All societies have ways to display differences and distinctions among its members, as you can see from your discussions about the common chair.

Now, imagine that you are craft workers in ancient Egypt, a society that was much more stratified than our own. (In fact, you don't need to restrict your historical imaginations to that society. Think more broadly of an "ancient" society with social strata.) Further envisage that you are making chairs for four distinct people: a common worker, a merchant, a priest, and a member of royalty.

Divide your group into two teams. One team will design chairs for the worker and priest, the other for the merchant and “royal.” Each team will come up with rough drawings of chairs appropriate to their classes of people along with an outline/list of the materials needed for their chairs’ construction.

The Results

	Pharaoh's Chair • Note the jeweled ornamentation, lotus birds and papyrus blossoms, ebony with gilding, and a cotton pillow.		Priest's Chair • Topped by a carved image of Haythor, the chair itself is made out of red porphyry (a volcanic rock that comes in many colors).
	Merchant's Chair • A simple-looking chair, but constructed out of very expensive materials that a merchant may have been able to obtain: ebony and elephant tusks.		Worker's Chair • Built of mud and limestone, the chair doesn't even qualify as a possession since it is, functionally, part of the wall - a status that matches the status of its user.