Overview & Impact

The Foundry offers a welcoming environment that ignites curiosity, forges connections, fuels growth, and launches potential.

Innovative high schools and college campuses are undergoing rapid change as institutions explore new learning models to engage an increasingly diverse student population. This evolving change is inspiring new approaches to planning learning spaces. Since 2019, Ottawa Hills’ leadership team, faculty, and The Foundry design team (composed of parents and students) have had the vision of creating an innovative learning space coupled with a design thinking mindset to have a transformational effect on our students’ learning. 

Design thinking is a “human-centered and collaborative approach to problem-solving, using a designed mindset to solve complex problems,” as defined by Tim Brown, British Industrial Designer and President of IDEO.

Specifically, the design thinking process engages students in activities to try multiple ideas, work with others, receive feedback, reflect on what they’ve learned and revise their solutions in order to improve their problem-solving approach. Design thinking can help students become more persistent when approaching complex problems or setbacks, effectively respond to failure, and improve their overall problem-solving ability. Learning to accept and effectively navigate failure or setbacks is an important aspect of resilience that has benefits not only in educational settings, but across life contexts. 

The Foundry is a community for Design Thinkers to share, learn, grow, and create value together.