Set Design, Build & Paint

In The Foundry, we designed, built and presented various sets for the Middle School drama/plays. During this experience, we learned more about empathy and how it connects to the design process and found how to relate our designs not only to our own ideas but also to what others needed and how we could build onto the community with our creativity.

We interviewed teachers and other cast members about what was needed to create the optimal settings and started to sketch our designs. In this process of brainstorming, we had to use communication hand in hand with innovation to decide a final set. We used our engineering skills while finding safe and easy ways for the sets to turn without any cast members being injured on the show days.

After fully understanding our peers' needs and our own artistic and design wants, we began to build the model. We built the skeletons first, growing our knowledge on the different tools within the foundry like saws, clamps and drills. In this process, we more specifically learned how to cut wood safely and create structures.

After we completed the skeleton, we moved on to the designing aspect and began painting. All groups started with a white wash to cover the texture of the wood and drew on our designs. With the aid of the art department, we painted our sets, adding any other elements with wood.

Ella, a 7th grade student who participated in the creation of the sets, explained her feedback and thoughts stating that, “During my time at The Foundry, I found that I learned many new skills and had fun. I believe that while planning is an important part of the process, we should have put more dedication into painting the sets”. 

Jack, also a fellow student added, “It was awesome! Lots of people worked together to make something really cool!”

The sets added a new atmosphere to the plays and built onto the student performances. It gave an insight to the audience on the times and spaces the plays took place and with the help of lighting, conveyed the emotions in the scenes.

Overall, the process of creating the sets were insightful, exciting and helped us improve many of our different skills. 

An addition from Mr Lea
It was exciting and rewarding to witness the students design and build stage sets that were used in the Middle School drama production. Hard and brilliant work. Well done, Grades 7 and 8!

See more photographs HERE!

The Foundry team encourages all students to recognise and apply Design Thinking and Engineering Design processes to their project development, and subsequent constructional iterations.