Hephaestus Education Studio

Furniture mini-prototype made by an HES student in “Daring Designers”

HES provides maker-tinker, engineering, and design classes for TK-8 students. We work with schools in providing integrative, imaginative, and exploratory programs during and after-school in the San Francisco Bay region. Current classes provided are Daring Designers, Kinetic Contraptions, Programming, Maker/Tinker classes, and Passion Project classes. We tailor each class to suit the needs of your students and would love to work with you to integrate multiple subjects within your current units.

Hephaestus Education Studio’s mission is to provide an effective learning environment for students by creating interesting and integrative lessons through project based learning.  We believe that instead of the student needing to be flexible for education, education should be flexible for the student, which includes providing a contextual and self-paced learning environment to the subject(s). To accomplish this goal, HES provides lessons that are flexible to the needs of each classroom and each student through projects that are fun and interesting which creates learning opportunities that are sustainable.

Furniture Design by Jenn Beach, 2011

About Jenn, the founder

My name is Jenn Beach and I am a designer, design historian, and teaching specialist. I received my BS in Interior Design with a minor in art and a MA in history of decorative arts, focusing on furniture and design. During grad school I had the pleasure to attend the Danish Institute for Study Abroad in Copenhagen practicing furniture design. It was during grad school that I fell in love with teaching, but not just any type of teaching, teaching using design methods as an alternative to textbooks and lectures that are common in many classrooms today (despite the fact that this method is only effective towards a fraction of today’s learners).

I have worked as an interior designer, a sales associate in a Knoll showroom, in collections and as an educator with the National Building Museum, and as a volunteer docent at a well-preserved historic home. I am currently working as a teaching specialist in the San Francisco Bay area.

Coming Soon – The Post-Industrial Furniture and Design History Blog

A very special Egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen and manufactured by Fritz Hansen. Painter, unknown.

The more I delve into post-industrial furniture and design research the more I am underwhelmed by the blogs and websites dedicated to this subject.  These often only offer images with the writer’s short one sentence personal opinion of the piece. Other design websites are only interested in selling, genuine or knockoff, with little to no information about what is being sold.  Of course it is easy enough to find information on the “great masters” such as Wright, Mies, and the Eameses; but it is time to give other noteworthy designers some time in the limelight.

Teddy Bear chair designed by Hans J. Wegner and manufactured by PP Møbler being upholstered.

I am well aware that in order to get good meaty information one must rely on books, interviews, and archived papers by the designer, style, or manufacturer. However, shouldn’t the basics always be easily accessible in order to get a framework before you dive deep? Besides, times are changing and new articles should be published online, not on a microfiche or in a book that must be ordered because the closest is two or more states away.

Starting in Summer 2016, I will begin writing this blog in order to help the reader learn about design as a whole. I will discuss the designer, their design process, the craftsmanship that goes into a piece, and the overall context. In doing so, readers will be able to understand why each piece is important and that when a piece is well designed and made it will most likely be comfortable and sustainable in comparison to its cheap knockoff counterpart.