Recap of A+DEN Network Meeting, March 31

On our recent call of AAO’s Architecture + Design Education Network, representatives from over 30 organizations (for a list of participants click here) discussed their biggest near-term challenges for serving students during the social distancing procedures required to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. By and large, members reported the outright cancellation of most camps and multi-part/in-depth programs, puzzled at how to provide high-touch programs from afar; instead the design educators were choosing to focus on the needs of K-6 audiences whose parents could be reached through social media and electronic newsletters.

In a series of individual share-outs, a short list of resources emerged, including daily engement activities as enacted by Denver Architecture Foundation, immersive program approaches from NEXT.cc, and a solid round-up of resources compiled by the Center for Architecture in New York. To view the resources or add to them, please access this open source Google doc (or drop a note to the AAO staff at aao@architecture.org). To be sure, the participants have plenty more resources to offer, but in these early days since remote work conditions have been implemented, the educators were working hard to digitize existing curricula and to create convenient webpages compiling their respective lessons, design challenges, and other resources.

The group agreed that the next meeting should likely occur in early May, after most city officials would likely have announced how the current academic year is expected to finish up, and what distance learning expectations would be asked of teachers and students. Look for an announcement of this next week to be made by AAO in late April.