Olympics 2021 and Design Challenges for Internal Assessments

As 2011 amazingly is drawing to a close and 2012 begins to dawn another Olympic year is almost upon us. Why would that be interesting for our Design and Technology Diploma students? Well of course the Olympics over recent years have been renowned for influential and creative architectural and product design. Do you all remember the “birds nest” Olympic Stadium by Ai Wei Wei? Of course you do and the Olypmics in London 2012 also provides great opportunities to introduce real world projects and assessments around the Higher Level Unit 9 – Structures.

The RIBA have produced an excellent website with fabulous Olympics School Resources related to Design and Technology – http://www.architecture.com/EducationAndCareers/Inspiredbydesign/InspiredbyDesign.aspx. The site includes some excellent design challenges that would fit perfectly as the starting ideas to some interesting Internal Assessments. This includes one that follows similar lines to an Internal Assessment I have run for a number of years related to bridge design and problem solving  – so do check out their footbridge challenge.

The site also has some excellent presentations regarding some of the design journeys including that of the memorable velodrome design and also focuses on some interesting areas within CAD and its vital position within the Design Process.

Related articles

• Velodrome Misses the Gold in Architecture Olympics (treehugger.com)