The art factory

Tutors:
Enzyme / Designers

Project manager:
Mathieu Marion

Objectives
Every day, hundreds of earthquakes occur in the world. They are detected by seismometers spread out over the Earth’s surface. Throughout this project, the students studied earthquake data. A station was set up in school and the students collected traces and analysed them. This was part of the “seismic” topic that the class learned about with the help of Claire Rault, a seismologist.  

Project in progress
From an Idea to a Project
In April, the class visited the Enzyme Design premises to start the project. How do they work? What instruments do they use? What drives them? What are the specificities of their profession compared with classic industrial design? This initial contact was also the occasion for the students to receive their final instructions. Back in the classroom, they made preliminary sketches for their original ideas for mobiles. They drew up specifications with several parameters: manufacturing and aesthetics, the choice of materials, dimensions and the specific constraints for installing object at a height. During this phase, there was endless correspondence between students and contributors. Below are extracts:
Students:
“We’ve finalised our sketches for the first mobile and we are still discussing the second, particularly about the objects we’d like to suspend and the overall architecture”.
Enzyme-Design:
“This is in line with typical ‘mobile’ architecture and seems pretty well-balanced visually. Perhaps you should lengthen the bars of the lower levels (or shorten the main bar so as not to exceed the maximum available span). In this way, once it’s in the air, it will occupy the space better”.
Students:
“Thank you for your advice, both technical and for the work in progress (…). Please find enclosed our modified sketch as well as precisions about the kind of items we wish to suspend”.
Enzyme-Design:
“(…) for the suspended items: I think you should reduce the number of different colours and focus more on variations of intensity or shape – it will be more elegant, more peaceful to look at and semantically stronger; the school’s departments are, admittedly, different, but they are part of a whole, based on a common technical theme, so it’s a good idea to share this connection and unity by working on subtle variations of colours (…). What type of mountings are you thinking of?”
Students:
“For the suspended objects, we’re thinking of mounting them with concentric rings (3 or 5 rings). In the file we sent you, you can see an overlap between the solar ball and the threaded rod. We also need to provide for a slit in the lower part of each ring to assemble the structure…” -

Using the technical and assembly plans, the students will now enter the implementation phase, producing and installing the mobile in school. This will take place at the start of the 2018-2019 academic year.

Outings:
- Centre Pompidou – permanent collections – guided tour
- ENSCI – Workshops – trip to the establishment, meeting with Margot Casimir, educational coordinator

Participating school:
- Class 1ère, lycée polyvalent rené cassin, noisiel