FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Between 2015 and 2019, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design's summer Design Camp program had ambitiously more than doubled in size and outreach, with multiple sessions typically held on the University of Arkansas campus and at an increasing number of satellite locations around the state. The program is a commitment by the school to serve the entire state through design education and to energize communities across the state to the value of design in their lives.

Aiming for the most expansive and inclusive attendance ever in 2020, Alison Turner, the school's director of community education, was expecting about 250 young people to participate in the seven camp sessions planned for this summer, including in Wilson, Little Rock, Hot Springs and El Dorado. Then came the pandemic and its consequences.

When it became clear that the summer 2020 camps planned at the U of A wouldn't be happening, Turner's first response was disappointment. But the transition to remote education at the university this past spring also signaled an opportunity to provide direct access to design education to youth across the state and beyond, not just for the summer but for every season.

Turner, also a teaching assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School, organizes, runs and teaches in the school's summer Design Camp program, and she has taken to heart the encouragements for community education leadership and expansion provided by Dean Peter MacKeith.

"Our Design Camp is something that I look forward to every year," Turner said. "I always enjoy meeting young students and helping to spark their interest in design."

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic decisively made in-person, group activities impossible, Turner began looking for another way to deliver some form of design education. She consulted with Dean MacKeith and Associate Dean Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, and together, they brainstormed how they could take the experienced faculty and design knowledge that are part of the camp and present that in a format that was both fun for students and could be done on their own schedule — and would be accessible anywhere, at any time, without cost.

The result is a virtual education series that introduces students to the basic concepts of design, the value of design and the transformative power that design can have in their lives. The FAY Design Virtual Education series officially launches this week, and can be found on the school's YouTube channel.

"The school's summer Design Camp programs have been essential to fulfilling our public mission as part of a land-grant university," said Dean MacKeith, "and to increasing the awareness of architecture and design more generally across the state. Alison has been the key driver in this ever-expanding effort. The conversion of the in-person programs to online programming was necessary for the immediate reasons, but also for the long-term education of young people everywhere in the state. We've made design education infinitely more accessible now, to a young person in the Delta as much as in Jonesboro."

Along the way to alternative programming, Turner has gained professional experience she can add to her resume: film producer.

Since April, she's been building a production team comprised of school faculty and staff, design students, and professional filmmakers. They have created this series of videos that will be shared through the school's YouTube channel. The first video, "Introduction to the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design," is now available on the YouTube channel, and the rest of the videos will be published over the next few weeks in July and August. A guide to the episodes can be found on the school's website.  

These videos are the beginning of the school's new FAY Design Virtual Education program. The videos are a virtual version of the discussions, field trips and projects that students experience during each of the school's weeklong, in-person Design Camp sessions. With 25 total videos planned, some of them will be informational about the school and its programs, some will lead students through design projects they can do at home, and some will be virtual tours of buildings and spaces throughout Arkansas.

"The heart of the content will be our design project workshops, which students can participate in at home," Turner said. "We are creating 12 different workshops that include sketching; designing an outdoor dining space; re-imagining your home; creating design for your community; and a workshop targeted toward younger students where you can design your own play space."

In these FAY Design Virtual Education videos, the workshop segments will be supplemented with informational content and virtual tours. Viewers can learn about the Fay Jones School, meet some of the design students and get their perspective on being a design student, and also tour the U of A campus from the perspective of a Fay Jones School student. They will visit design firms and design professionals in Arkansas, learn about the life and work of Fay Jones, and visit several Arkansas cities to learn about the architecture and design in those places.

"We love the experience that students have when they come to our in-person Design Camp, where they interact with faculty and students from the school, work on projects in our studio spaces, visit local design projects, meet local practicing designers and spend time on the University of Arkansas campus," she said. "Our main goal was to bring all of those elements of Design Camp to students at home."

Pivoting to a virtual learning environment allowed Turner and others to rethink the way they teach this design-focused content. It has also provided a kickstart to the school's FAY Design Virtual Education program, through which they plan to continue creating virtual design education beyond this first round of videos.

"We see that we now have the ability to bring design education to all students in Arkansas and beyond who may or may not have had the opportunity to attend one of our in-person Design Camps," she said. "We also see this as a resource for K-12 teachers to bring design education into their classrooms."

The school received a grant from the Alice L. Walton Foundation, which has provided the means for the team to create the 25 videos that will virtually deliver the projects, discussions and tours that students would have experienced at the typical in-person Design Camp. Additional support comes from the U of A Student Success Center and the Dean's Office of the Fay Jones School.

This funding and support has allowed the Fay Jones School to expand one of its key initiatives - to provide early design education to youth of all backgrounds from communities around the state.

To create and produce all of this content in a relatively short amount of time, Turner turned to StudioChunky, a film production company based in Rogers, and Mark Jackson of CHROMA, based in Fayetteville. Fay Jones School faculty members and design students planned and wrote the video segments, and they also served as the on-camera talent. The team interviewed school alumni about their professional design practices and visited some of the projects the alumni have designed. Other interviews were conducted with people and departments around the U of A campus that are good resources for students who may be applying to attend the university.

This entire process has also taught Turner and the rest of the school's faculty and students to think differently about design. When teaching and learning design, the process is somewhat linear — in which one must complete one step before moving on to the next. With these videos, they know what they want each finished video to show, but getting there isn't as linear.

"We've had to learn how the filming process works, which is a little counterintuitive to us," Turner said. "I've also learned many new terms and phrases that are used in filming and how to set up a shot to get the best image in the end."