Week 3: Find Out

Welcome to Week 3 of Arts Award: Discover at Home. These activities will help you work towards part two called ‘Find out’.
You can complete the activities by watching the videos. The videos will guide you through how to design and create your own building.
In video one you’ll find out about an artist called Gemma, who will guide you through how to design and plan your building on a piece of paper. To do this you can sketch or draw your plans on a piece of paper or print off the worksheet and use the space provided instead.
In video two Gemma will guide you through how to design the inside of your building. This is called the ‘interior’ by artists and architects.
In video three Gemma will show you how you can create your building out of recycled materials and things found in your home. You will use the plans you created in first and second videos!
You can take as much time as you’d like when planning and building. You may want to spend one day planning and another day building, just like Gemma has.
We have provided an equipment list as well as step-by-step instructions under each video. But remember that you can just use these videos for guidance – your plans and creations can be whatever you want them to be!

Equipment list:

  • Recycled materials collected over a week, e.g. boxes, loo roll holders, fruit trays, plastic bags
  • Paper (any colour you like! Or you can use the worksheet)
  • Masking tape or Sellotape
  • PVA glue or glue stick
  • Scissors
  • A pencil
    If you want to add colour to your plans and building
  • Paint
  • Paintbrushes
  • Crayon
  • Felt tips
  • Wax Crayons

Download worksheet for week 3 (Word document, 0.08mb)

Download worksheet for week 3 (PDF, 0.07mb)

Download worksheet for week 3 (Accessible PDF, 0.02mb)

 

Planning and drawing

1. Take a piece of paper on the table
2. Gemma has used special ink and a pipette, but you can use a pencil or pen if you do not have these to hand
3. Start drawing the outline of your building. Gemma has started with a rectangle but yours can be any shape you like
4. Add in any external features such as a balcony or unusual roof! Gemma has designed trees for hers!
5. Add in where your windows and front door will go. They can be any shape or size. When designing these, think about if you will have any floors inside your building, as this may influence your plan
6. Think about any interesting features you could add to the outside of the building. Gemma has designed a chute for sliding down!
7. Now you can decide if your building will stand alone or be on a street. How will this decision affect how you get to the front door?
Spend as much time as you like designing and planning your building. Then you can move onto video two for interior design.

Interior design

1. Take a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. Draw the shape of your building so it matches the exterior. Remember to add in the floors if you want them
2. Gemma has used chalk and uses her fingers to smudge the lines of her building
3. Take your time to design the interior. Think about floors, staircases, windows and furniture too
Take your time and be as imaginative as you like! Perhaps you could add in special rooms for your favourite hobbies or features which allow you move around your building in crazy ways! Gemma added a chute to hers.

Building

1. First you need to mark out the doors and floors on the outside of your box. You can use a ruler (or another straight edge), pencil or pen
2. Next mark out the windows and cut them out. Gemma used a roll of tape to help get circular windows. Ask your adult if you need help using scissors when doing this
3. Cut out your door as well. Only cut three sides so that your door has hinges!
4. If you added extra windows in your interior design, remember to mark and cut them out too! Gemma drew around a roll or tape and a chocolate packet for hers
5. Next cut down the side of your box so that you can open it up and build the interior. Keep hold of any bits of the box as they can be useful for building!
6. Gemma has used a kitchen roll holder for the side shaft/chute, cut along the length of it, and glued it around the side door
7. Cut out a suitable size of cardboard for your floor. Watch Gemma’s tip later on for how to create a staircase!
8. Gemma has decided to use bubble wrap as a solar-panel, and a plastic container as a balcony on the top of the building
9. You can now decide if you want to paint your building, but you don’t have to!
10. If you want to add a garden, you can make trees by using loo roll holders for the trunks and plastic bags for the branches and leaves
11. Paint the tree trunks, cut out strips of bags and stick the strips to the trunk. Gemma added slits to the top of the trunks to help attach the strips
12. You can also paint the strips to look like branches and leaves
13. For the interior, you can cut out egg boxes to look like a giant staircase. Fix it into the interior wherever you like
14. Next you can cut out any pictures from magazines that you’d like to add to your building. This is called collage
15. By now you will have created an amazing building, complete with an exterior, interior and possibly collage design too.
Watch the video to the end to see the buildings that Gemma’s friends have created! It’s a fun activity to do and share together.