Download the pdf of issue 10 - The Glasgow School of Art

FlOW ISSUE 101 The Digital Art SchoolCourtesy of The Glasgow Schoolof Art’s Digital Design Studio2 City Buddy in actionCraig Smith3 Atlantic RestaurantDigital Design Studio>BRIEFINGClydebank rebuiltDigital Design Studio studentsare designing a speciallycommissioned 3Drepresentation of Clydebank’sJohn Brown Shipyard as part ofthe Clydebank Rebuiltpreservation project.Visitors to the £175,000exhibition will be able toobserve the digital recreationof the famous shipyard fromthe top of one of the fewremaining relics of Clydebank’sshipbuilding industry – a 120foot Titan Crane – depictingthe yard as it was when theQE2 was built and tens ofthousands of workers wereemployed in Clydebank’sshipyards.The students will use oldphotographs of the yard toreconstruct photo-realcomputer images and a3D geographical overlay ofwhere the John Brown yardused to be.Potting from Glasgowto AfghanistanThird year Ceramic Designstudent, Ester Svensson, istaking a year out to work ona ceramics project with theTurquoise MountainFoundation in Afghanistan.Ester will contribute to theregeneration of Kabul’s historiccommercial centre byproviding basic services,training local students, savinghistoric buildings andconstructing a new bazaarand galleries for traditionalcraft businesses.Freehand is a cutabove the restSurgeons at Canniesburnplastic surgery unit haveenlisted the help of visitingFirst Year Product Design andContinuing Education tutor,Cynthia Bowles.Consultant Plastic,TaimurShoaib, explained,“We oftendraw as part of our work andI think all plastic surgeonsshould have an element ofartistic skill.“What I now see are shadowsand where the light falls onthe face. Obviously when theperson is lying on the operatingtable the light is falling directlyon the nose but when they’restanding up there’s light fallingon different places.”GS≤A NEWS1Mackintosh Building – open for offers!The Digital Mackintosh Adopt a Brick campaign raised over £11,000 in its first week, with new sales racking up by the day.The specially designed Digital Art School – selected as Adobe Site-of-the-Day for its ‘strong visual design, superiorfunctionality and innovative use of Adobe products’ – was developed by the GSA’s Digital Design Studio to raise additional fundsfor the Mackintosh Conservation and Access Project.Virtual segments of the building are now being sold online to donors whowish to be associated with specific parts of the building.Using a click to donate process, donations can be made quickly and safely online.The Campaigns Team will then personallyrespond with an email and and e-certificate acknowledging each gift.Donors’ names will be listed on the website for the duration of the project and will be displayed in the new InterpretationCentre alongside the Bellahouston Bequest Fund – the trust which provided the funding for the original building – the HughFraser Foundation, the Monument Trust, the Gannochy Trust, Glasgow City Council, Historic Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, theGarfield Weston Foundation, the Dean of Guild Court Trust and the European Regional Development Fund.The cost of the Mackintosh conservation work is just over £8.6 million and so far the campaigns team has raised animpressive £7.5 million with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, GlasgowCity Council and generous private donors.You can adopt your own piece of the building at www.digitalmackintosh.co.uk.2 3RSA design directionsProduct Design Engineering MEng student, Craig Smith,was joint winner in the Streets Ahead category of the RSADesign Directions competition.The Competition challenges young designers toconsider how their future professional responsibilities canhave a meaningful effect on business, public services andwider societal and ethical concerns.Worn around the wrist, Craig’s discreet City Buddy helpsblind and partially-sighted users to navigate and interactwith the urban environment using a small RFID (RadioFrequency Identification) chip.The City Buddy is activated by a signal emitted by theroad crossing.The user can then remotely operate thecrossing before being notified when it is safe to cross bya combination of audio and vibration feedback.Empire Exhibition lives on 3DThe Digital Design Studio are putting the finishing touchesto a 3D, photo realistic recreation of a world-famousarchitectural landscape from Glasgow's past as part of a£146,000 research project.The 3D version of the famous Empire Exhibition willrecreate the original show of 150 buildings which attractedcrowds of over 12.5m to Bellahouston Park over six monthsin 1938.The 21st century recreation will be on show at theHouse for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park where visitorscan view the attraction in a dedicated interpretation roomwhich will double as an education suite for Glasgow’sschools.It will also be available online as a major website.>BRIEFINGAlumnus awardedroyal distinctionIan Callum (Industrial Design,1977) has recently beenawarded the distinction of‘Royal Designer for Industry’by the RSA for ‘sustainedexcellence in aesthetic andefficient design for industry’.Only 200 designers mayhold the distinction at anytime and it is regarded as thehighest honour to be obtainedin the UK in the field ofIndustrial Design.Ian, Director of Design atJaguar, is acknowledged asone of the world's leadingautomotive designers and iscurrently working on the nextgeneration of Jaguar products.This is the second award forIan Callum in the last year whoalso received the Jim ClarkMemorial Award, given bythe Association of ScottishMotoring Writers.Maturation of MEDesThe establishment of theMasters of European Design(MEDes) as one of Europe’sleading international designprogrammes was underlinedthis year as the inter-schoolworkshop returned to the GSA,seven years after its launch atthe School in 2000.Students studying thefive-year MEDes participatein two year-long exchangesat one of the seven memberinstitutions and each yearone of the Schools is selectedas the ‘host’, where all of thestudents gather for a groupworkshop in the spring.After being held at sevendifferent workshops aroundEurope – the GSA; UIAH,Helsinki; Politecnico de Milano;Les Ateliers, Paris; Stuttgart;Koln and Konstfack, Stockholm– it was fitting that the GSA,the original host and drivingforce behind the MEDes, wasthe location for the newiteration.The 2007 project, Excess,introduced students – throughlectures, workshops and cityexploration – to the themeof excess with studentspresenting a design responseto alter this particular aspectof the city.6NEWS