A learning architecture

Mariamma Nagar Presentation Day: Class Photo

More Trees: Presentation Day in Mariamma Nagar

Rubbish and Recycling: Presentation Day in Mariamma Nagar

Open Gutters: Presentation Day in Mariamma Nagar

Fighting and Bad Language: Presentation Day in Mariamma Nagar

Mosquitos: Presentation Day in Mariamma Nagar

The children designed a machine embroidered handbag, that would send a message about saving trees to conserve and increase greenery in the city. They also designed an embroidered planter that would contain kitchen plants such as tulsi (basil) curry leaf, mint, oregano and lemongrass. The planter is on wheels so that it can be moved into the house after dark, so as not to get stolen. The planter has a fabric cover with a design that urges people to ‘save trees’, decorated with drawings of trees, mountains and clouds. 

The children focused on designing large bins for separate waste, one wet, one dry. They decided on the size based on the current dimension of BMC bins, but made them from tin, so the local tin maker could fabricate them. They chose to paint the dry bin green (for recycling) and the wet waste bin brown (for waste food). Bombay is supposed to have 2 waste pick ups but waste is very seldom segregated. They designed machine embroidered signs to be fixed on to the bins, made by local machine embroiderers Mahetab and Ameek, who had previously fabricated the embroidered map.

The children designed a door and a window mosquito net on frames. They designed patterns and motifs to decorate the nets, to be made by the hand embroiderer Mainuddin and his colleagues. They designed a large beaded mosquito and a red frill around the frame for the window, with ‘Fight the bite’ written in the corner. Ousama designed a a starry pattern on the door, adding the words ‘Mosquitos Go Away’.

The children designed the gutter cover in detail, so that mosquitos could not breed in the stagnant water, and people wouldn’t lose coins/phones down the gaps between tin lids. They designed it to be painted orange so that it was bright and visible. They also wanted cartoons to be drawn on the painted lids so that children would look after the gutter cover and play on them.

The children designed their fine box in detail, adding painted colours and hand embroidered stickers with slogans. They designed a banner that would identify the area and draw attention to the debating not fighting table.

The children prepared their presentations for Mariamma Nagar inhabitants. They made up a role-play, had Q&As, and were ready for all the questions their classmates thought up.

The craftspeople were invited to come to the school and spend a session with each group discussing the designs. They helped the children to develop design details further, answer questions, and give ideas as to how they might realise their ideas in a more cost effective or simple way. The children also amalgamated their designs during this session, combining their favourite parts of the groups work to create one series of objects.

We wanted to specify colours to the craftspeople, so used tracing paper and masking tape to layer colours on rather than fill in the monochrome drawings. The children were very specific with their colour choices, annotating carefully as they went.