Design Next: Design & Layout

Design Next: Design & Layout is coming to the Peachtree Branch of the Fulton County Library on Saturday, November 7, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. It's a free architecture program for students in grades 9-12, run by the Museum of Design Atlanta in partnership with the library and sponsored by Corgan.

The session is all about the basics of how a building actually comes together. Students start by learning to read floor plans and interpret architectural symbols—the kind of shorthand architects use to communicate a space on paper. From there, they get hands-on with a tape measure and a scale, the two tools that turn a drawing into something you can actually build. They'll also work through the practical side of design: circulation, how people move through a space; furniture placement; and room organization. Once they've got the fundamentals down, they draw their own building layout, whether that's a home, a library, a school, an office or a restaurant.

Leading the session is Gabi Madrid, an Atlanta art educator who earned her BFA in Sculpture from the Savannah College of Art & Design and is currently pursuing her MFA in Sculpture at Georgia State University. The program is part of Design Next, a series of hands-on sessions that introduce high schoolers to architecture and design.

The venue is the Peachtree Branch Library at 1315 Peachtree Street Northeast, which sits right above the Museum of Design Atlanta and has served midtown since the 1980s. The session runs from 2:00 to 4:00 PM on Saturday, November 7, and it's free for students in grades 9-12.