Week 9 Tutorial: Final Planning & Ideation crit

Pitching the final project's theme and technique combination before you build it

26 April 2027

Before the session#

Bring a one-page plan: the theme, the three-plus techniques, and the biggest risk as you see it.

In the session#

1. Deliver a short pitch of your one-page plan: the theme in one sentence, the three-plus techniques, and the biggest risk. A good pitch states the theme as a single committed sentence rather than a range of options still being weighed — “an installation where a scanned object’s shape drives a rule-based light pattern” survives scrutiny in a way “something with scanning and maybe some lights or sound” doesn’t.
2. Take feedback focused on scope and risk rather than execution — nothing is built yet, so feedback on colour choices or code style is premature; what’s useful at this stage is someone else testing whether your three-plus techniques actually combine or just sit next to each other. A plan that lists scanning, a rule system, and fabrication independently, with no stated point where one drives another, has the same problem Studio Brief 1’s brief warns against: a scan sitting next to a sketch isn’t a combination.
3. Check the feedback against your plan for hours it quietly assumes but the remaining weeks don’t have, before you’ve spent any of them. This is the risk that sinks capstones most often: a plan that’s conceptually sound but assumes more studio time than the weeks between now and the final crit actually provide. Do this check now, while changing the plan costs you a rewrite of one page rather than a rebuilt project in week 11.

Afterwards#

The plan itself is marked holistically — see the assessment page — and it’s what the final crit in week 12 compares your finished project against.