text: The HIVE - Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation
  How might we make a learning space that is magical?
  At MVPS we start with questions and divergent thinking. The how might we's listed above are just some of the questions our team is wrestling with as we work toward creating our maker-community. We're not designing maker spaces; we're building a maker community.
  A maker space might be considered any space with the tools and materials to create – the art studio, the science lab, the writing lab, your kitchen. In that regard, there is nothing special about a maker space. A maker community, however, requires more. A community includes spaces, identities, and an embedded culture. It was with the above brainstorm and galvanizing of language that informed the design of the physical space more than anything else.
  Learning spaces that instigate our community to experiment with their ideas and explore possibilities through the lenses of Art, STEM, or Humanities are located at the center of the space. They are central to not only the space but to the ethos of continual experimentation and seeking of new understandings.
  Flexible space at the entrance to invite inquiry, research and sharing of ideas with both internal and external experts. It is also space to hangout and manifest ideas.
  Below are some "before" pictures of Bo Adams and I finishing clean up before construction. In January, we look forward to opening the HIVE and continuing the MVIFI design work of building our Maker, Design and Engineering program.