2023 Growlight Breakthrough Miami 3D Printing Summer Camp

These are images from the 2023 summer session. 

Growlight/Breakthrough Miami is a four-week summer camp held at the Miami Beach Urban Studios that focuses on design, art, technology, urbanism, and public policy around support for those with disabilities.
Growlight is a summer program that provides an intense and enjoyable introduction to architecture and the related disciplines of landscape and interior architecture. Organized by Florida International University’s College of Communication, Architecture + the Arts (CARTA) and Breakthrough Miami, the program takes advantage of the College’s School of Architecture Miami Beach Urban Studios (SOA MBUS) on Lincoln Road to introduce students to the area’s rich cultural context and to use the city as a laboratory in which to study the relationships between design and the built environment. The program focuses on 3D printing, which is integrated into each aspect of the curriculum and allows students to use cutting-edge 3D printing technology to explore design, art, urbanism, and the environment. Participants spend a considerable portion of each day working on design projects and engaging in group discussions with faculty from FIU’s Department of Architecture. Guest lectures by prominent local practitioners and guided walking tours in Miami Beach enhance the learning experience by demonstrating the impact of design on our world.
Participants spend each day taking three classes that follow the structure of a college design program. The day begins with a class that introduces students to freehand and measured drawing techniques, then proceeds with a course in digital modeling and 3D printing; Students spend the afternoon in a design studio, where they work intensely on design projects that allow them to apply their drawing and modeling skills on small design projects. In keeping with Breakthrough Miami’s philosophy of students teaching students, all three courses are taught by exceptional graduate students in FIU’s CARTA, who work with the students as both faculty and mentors. SOA MBUS has proudly been working with the Breakthrough Summer Camp program since 2014.

Growlight 2023 was generously sponsored by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, The Children’s Trust, Verizon, Bercow Radell Fernandez Larkin & Tapanes, The Batchelor Foundation, and Dell.

Breakthrough Miami is a program that provides first-rate enrichment opportunities to high-achieving students from under-resourced backgrounds.

For photos of the Growlight Breakthrough Miami 3D Design Summer Camp from a previous year, click here.