Step One: The Brief

WHAT IS THE CHANCE PROJECT

As young children, we have all used play to develop our skills and perceptions of our world. Play allows us to explore, experiment, and interact with the world in a care-free, maybe even careless manner. Nonetheless, toys provoke play while games regulate them.

Playing involves random choices that lead to discovery. Random or intuitive choices often generate unique and surprising results. The concept of random sampling requires a removal of preconceived notions, therefore being open to what you will find. Too many times, as we become adults, our methods exclude the element of play and our results become predictable. This project is structured to integrate play into the process that will generate as a result that is fairly unknown to any of us. There will be a few parameters which we will consider the rules of the game!

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Content- the underlying thought that provides the criterion and stimulus for form
Context- the environment- cultural or physical- in which a message or form is perceived and by which it is conditioned
Concept- the structuring of a relationship among forms and messages to achieve a specific expression within a given context
Control- the delicate balance of developing a process that combines deliberate intent with intuitive gesture.


Definition of Chance, according to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary:
1. Apparent absence of cause or design; fortune; often personified
2. A happening; fortuitous event; accident; as to meet a person by chance
3. The way things turn out
4. Possibility of an occurrence; uncertainty; hazard; risk; gamble
5. Possibility; the ratio of probability of a thing happening to its not happening; odds
6. Opportunity; favorable circumstances; as 'now is my chance'
7. A share in a lottery
8. A mishap; a mischance; a happy accident; fortuity; hazard; casualty; luck
9. To happen; to come or arrive without design or cause

In this project we will use chance to "transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, acknowledging that the everyday is a participatory realm where design is essentially incomplete, knowing that people will eventually inhabit and adapt what is given" (Blauvelt)