More DIY ideas for the Youth Room

Please no more of those over-literal themed youth rooms in the vein of surf shacks or western lodges...a few high-impact design additions are cheaper, last longer, and will serve as a background to the group's own decisions about the space.

Vintage automobile headlamps attached in series to conduit.

Foosball coat hangers--available from Loony Design, but DIY would be more fun...the foosball table was a center of my own youth room growing up.

The simple addition of painted black corner lines to solid features makes everything look like a cartoon! This is from the Luise Hotel in Berlin. 

Make a stack of old school TVs and speakers, as here at the Facebook headquarters, at the entrance to your space.

Have a google for the designs of Odili Donald Odita, whose work fuses modernist and African influences, for color inspiration.   Plan carefully, number, and tape the sections in advance for a massive paint-by-numbers day!

Definitely get the youth involved in these projects...they love group DIY.

Circles for storage and space

Re the previous post on divisions of space, I love these 'reading tubes' for dividing children's spaces (from ordrup school, denmark, by bosch and fjord). If built as free-standing units they could be moved within a large space as semi-permanent dividers. The circular theme could easily be repeated in storage devices like those shown above...the last one, (from godoylab via fabgreen), could be duplicated using metal paint cans available at big-box home improvement store.

Great Design from Cheap Materials - 3

Though these light fixtures (fancy London restaurant) are by Tom Dixon (fancy London designer), I think they're really big stainless steel salad bowls. Perhaps Mr. Dixon has a sense of humor.

Available at a restaurant supply house near you. Or perhaps already in the church kitchen. Drill a hole, paint the inside gold (or not...I'm thinking not), add a single bulb socket fixture and you're away.

P.S. Note the impact that comes from a simple form when it is dramatically oversized and repeated. Just pointing it out in case you're not a designer sort of person.

Cheap Fix - Acoustics

This post is the first in what I hope will be a series of 'cheap fixes'...for those who have an existing, less-than-perfect building and limited funds with which to improve it. Which is most of us, isn't it?

I've recently become aware that the cardboard tubes used for concrete forms (and readily available at big box home improvement stores) are great for improving acoustics in a large, echoing room such as a sanctuary. That's them on the back wall of a worship space, above, from the website of edb sound acoustics. A quick google shows that this is apparently an accepted DIY procedure in sound rooms and the like.

The placement and size of the tubes changes the effect...they are cheap enough to experiment with for what best suits your sanctuary. Paintable to match the walls when you're done (as above), though the bright yellow label with block printing would be cool as-is in a youth space!

UPDATE: more details and photos of how this works can be found at All Church Sound

Tangram shelves

These running shelves, from the Italian firm Lago, would be great in a space for children or youth. They're not currently available here in the states, but are of simple construction well within the range of an inspired carpenter.

The designs are based upon the tangram, a common children's puzzle that I remember from my own school days. From the same shapes you can also make a rabbit, a cat, a swan...all of which could be scaled up and made into shelves by the same technique. How tos for making a paper model to plan are at enchantedlearning.

Fluorescent Lights Done Right

I usually hate industrial fluorescent lighting: unflattering, uninspiring, just blah. So I was impressed by this innovative design that varies the length and color temperature of the tubes and their placement along the ceiling to create an interesting and appealing lighting scheme. Cheap, efficient, and relatively easy to accomplish (lights like this just have one ballast, which could be installed along the ceiling in conventional fashion while the lightbox itself is shifted to fit into the staggered pattern). From Klein-Dytham again, they of the water bottles below.

more great design from cheap materials - water bottles

Walls made from water bottles, simply strung like beads on tension wires for the offices of Danone (they make Evian and Volvic water) by Klein-Dytham Architecture in Tokyo. If you look closely, you can see the frames that make it possible.

Other items could be assembled this way...I'm thinking rustic squares of recycled wood, children 's toys in a nursery...other ideas?

Nice design tie-in with the water bubble-y lighting, as well.

great design from cheap materials

Good design can be expensive. It pays its own dividends, though.
More on that later, but if you think that amazing things can't be done with even inexpensive materials........

....look what artist Tara Donovan does with styrofoam cups (bottom) and silver mylar sticky tape (tops). The mylar work is currently on exhibit at the Met. [photos via scoboco]

She also works with pencils, drinking straws, paper plates and tar paper, all of which can be seen at ace gallery.

I find these works inspirational because they are basically a repetition of simple forms using an everyday material. Labor intensive to be sure, but most churches have more wealth in hands than in money. With supervision and planning, a repetitive-form project is very doable by a church group.