charrette

Came across this architectural design term, which was new to me, so I thought you might like to know about it too.

What is a Charrette?

The term “charrette” evolved from a pre-1900 exercise at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in France. Architectural students were given a design problem to solve within an allotted time. When that time was up, the students would rush their drawings from the studio to the Ecole in a cart called a charrette. Students often jumped in the cart to finish drawings on the way. The term evolved to refer to the intense design exercise itself. Today it refers to a creative process akin to visual brainstorming that is used by design professionals to develop solutions to a design problem within a limited time-frame.
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Martin Aurand, Architecture Librarian and Archivist, ma1f@andrew.cmu.edu

Source: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ma1f/ArchArch/Charette/what.html