Studio is put off for a few days in the first week of every fall for CCA Architecture and Interior Design Department's Warm-Up Design Charette Competition and this year saw all of the bachelors and masters and interior design students get thrown into teams of eight to ten members to essentially just blow stuff up. Led by new tenure track professor and lightweight structure savant Mauricio Soto, this year's theme, "Hot Air!", focused on inflatables. Each team received 800 square feet of plastic sheeting and an air compressor as materials to create inflatable structures you could be in, on, or under. The winning team of the three day event was voted for by students and faculty and awarded a $500 gift certificate for our favorite neighborhood art store, Arch. Here are a couple of the projects:

Pneu Twist
Team Members: Betty Nip, Mitchell Sweibell, Maryam Nassajian, Shawn Komlos, Chen Ni, and Aimin Wang
pneu twist is a super pneu take on an old family favorite. The difference is: this time you get to deform the SPACE around you along with your BODY! So climb in with some friends, give this board a spin, and imagine yourself pushing and pulling those vertecies deforming your favorite blob-mesh as you all get twisted in a PNEU and groovy way!

Party On the Dark Side of the Balloon
Team Members: Imani Hadden, Paul Harbison, Tsz Ki Lau, Jeff Maeshiro, Cassiopea McDonald, Clayton Muhleman, and Max Sanchez

Our team didn't win first place but I think we would have won the "Most Fun" award, it was a party in our bubble the whole time!