Ganim Thesis Article3

8/3/2019 Ganim Thesis Article3

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Evolving the School

Kate Ganim | Thesis Article v.3 | 21 November 2011


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The conventional school has perfected some mechanisms over the years and thomechanisms are extremely effective for learning. As such, this thesis does not seto dispose of the traditional school altogether, but rather to maintain certain aspof the school while integrating it with a more innovative other. To this end, the goof this thesis is to design an educational space that mediates between traditiona(measurable, linear, uniform) and alternative models of learning.An analysis of the current school typology is the starting point, to examine theuniformity and hierarchy imposed across a range of scales. The four scales to beanalyzed are: material and human, classroom, building organization, and site. Su

sequent precedent studies of radically different qualities at each scale (both schand non-school) will be conducted, such that elements may be extracted to devan alternative educational space that can exist in conjunction with the traditionamodel. From there, aspects of the traditional school will be unitized, for experimtation dealing with the integration of space-making elements that are fundamendistinct.

Abstra

Beyond modications to its skin to allow for more light and fresh air, the schoolbuilding has been stuck in arrested development for centuries. Public schools arosefrom Henry Fords industrial model, such that the raw material (in this case, youngchildren) enter on one end, they are processed through the learning factory, andeventually they emerge at the other end, the product of public education and readyto enter the workforce. In line with this manufacturing model is the educational pro-cess itself which, similar to an assembly line, follows a linear framework with qualitycontrol check-points (in the form of testing and metric assessment) along the way.This model had proven to be quite effective in preparing children to enter the work-force, but its efcacy has diminished over the last few years due to drastic changesin the job market. Despite these changes, the traditional school continues to prepareits students for the job market that existed twenty or fty years ago. In his TED Talk,

Sir Ken Robinson makes the point that, if youre not prepared to be wrong, youllnever do anything original. He argues that, through their linearity and preoccupa-tion with assessment, schools are actually educating out of innovation and creativ-ity. These qualities, he argues, are as important as literacy in todays job market andmust be developed. The school must evolve with the times.

In addition to the issue of preparation to enter an increasingly dwindling job market,there is a disjunction between public education and the cultural and social values itimposes as children prepare to enter our cultural and social community. The tradi-tional school model is prescriptive and works in opposition to concepts of democ-racy, collaboration, free-will, individual ity, responsibi lity, and even exerting controlover ones own environment. These are cultural values our society holds very dearand, in light of this, the alternative model explore ways to further these values ratherthan to subvert them.

The educational paradigm is broken down along two axes: formal and informal set-ting, and formal education and informal learning. Current schools are situated rela-tive to one another according to these axes. From there, formal classroom spaceis analyzed, along with a number of precedents whose mechanisms counteract thetraditional schools. These are primarily considered to be informal. Informality in itsvarious forms is discussed to reduce its ambiguity in order to analyze it and use it asa generative tool for design.


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Table of Contents

There can be few building types that have so poorly evolved during the past hundred

years as schools. It was only in the closing decade of the 20th century that we saw devia-

tions from a type that has been standard since the year dot. Only the form, particularly

that of the exterior, moved with the times. How schools were organized was evidently

unassailable.

HermanHertzberger,SpaceandLearning(2008)

The Problem

1 The school has not changed2 The waning efcacy of the modern school4 Opportunizing a new intelligence5 (Class)Room for improvement

7 Competing interests

The Analysis: Traditional Schools

9 Claiming a territory10 Clarifying Informal space11 Understanding the conventional school12 Material and human scale13 Interior scale14 Organizational scale15 Urban relationship

The Analysis: Opposing Precedents

17 School precedents

18 Informal: the loose t19 Informal: rogue intervention20 Conceptual antithesis21 Programmatic antithesis

22 Moving forward23 Bibliography


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The Problem


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The school has not chang

Beyond modications to its skin to allow for more light andfresh air, the school building has been stuck in arrested deopment for centuries. Public schools descended from HenFords industrial model, such that the raw materials (in thcase, young children) enter on one end, they are processedthrough the learning factory, and eventually they emergethe other end, the products of public education, ready to eter the workforce. The educational process itself parallels a

assembly line, with lessons taught in a linear framework wa series of quality control check-points (in the form of testing and metric assessment) along the way. Until recently, tmodel proved to be quite effective in preparing children toenter the workforce. With a high school degree, most peopin the 1950s who wanted a job could get one. With a collegdegree, a respectable job was guaranteed.


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The waning efcacy of the modern scho

22.4%

Unemployed

22.0%

Working;

no degreerequired

55.6%

Working;

degree

required

Employment Rate:

College graduates under age 25

Recent NY Times Headlines:

Job Prospects Uncertain for New College Graduates

Outlook is Bleak Even for Recent College Graduates

Recent College Graduates Wait for their Real Careers to Begin

Plan B - Skip College

Today, however, the efcacy of this model has diminished.Unemployment for people under age 25 has been above 2The job market has changed dramatically in recent years,which has given rise to a new set of valued candidate qualyet, the school continues to teach toward the old job mark

The changes to the job market are largely attributable to oshoring and academic ination. The types of jobs that pubschools prepare their students for (more rote or task-basework) are increasingly being shipped overseas due to lowelabor costs abroad and increased ease in implementing a gbalized system. In some industries, the quality of workmanship is higher despite the disparity in labor costs. The impaof offshoring on the job market is exacerbated by the over

education of the workforce in the US: there are more peopwith advanced degrees than there are jobs that require sudegrees. Whereas a bachelors degree sixty years ago guateed a reasonably high-paying job, a equivalent degree todhardly gives any advantage in the saturated job market. Inlot of cases, advanced degrees have become the standardemployment.

PhD PhD PhDMA

MA

BS

BSBS HSBA

Job Applicant Pool: Entry Level


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Furthermore, developing countries are surpassing the US iterms of the quality of their public education. With the continuing decline of public education institutions in the US, athe decline of the US as a superpower while India, China, athe rest of Asia steadily rise, the US can no longer competwith these countries in industry, but it can hold its ground education. The US may not be in a position economically tinvest the necessary funds to bring all US public education

programs up to adequate standards, but that does not mewe are out of the running. Rather, if the US is to maintain itstake as a global superpower, it must capitalize on the innotion it is known for. We must seek to change the rules of thgame. To this end, available resources for education must binvested in new and alternative approaches that have a grepotential to maximize our return.

The waning efcacy of the modern scho


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Opportunizing a new intelligen

Human communities depend on a diversity of talent,

not on a singular conception of ability.

SirKenRobinson,BringontheLearningRevolution,2010

Not all is lost. The world is evolving more quickly than it evhas. The situation in the US sounds dire, but it has presenttremendous opportunity to the US if we are willing to takevantage of it. If we are not to lose our stake in the global awe must recognize and adapt to these changes. Furtheringthought, Sir Ken Robinson states that, To me, its about reognizing that there is a much richer conception of intelligeand ability available to us than is promoted by conventionaeducation.

An example of one such attempt is the integration of the plarized (though contested) theory of multiple intelligences(MI) into educational design. MI recognizes nine areas of hman intelligence: logical/mathematical, spatial, interpers

intrapersonal, existential, verbal/linguistic, musical, naturaland bodily/kinesthetic. Applications of this theory have at-tempted to appeal to the full range of these intelligences ieducation, whereas the traditional school would primarily cus on logical/mathematical and verbal/linguistic intelligenonly. According to this theory, academic success could verwell have its basis not in who is smartest, but rather in whintelligences align best with the traditional academic mod

Given the variety of ways that humans are able to learn froand experience their environments, the inadequacy of formized educations narrow denition and pursuit of intelligenincreasingly being recognized. It has primarily been discusin terms of pedagogical change or revolution, by thinkers sas Sir Ken Robinson (Do Schools Kill Creativity?, 2006) a

Arthur Cropley (Creativity in education & learning, 2004). rigidity and uniformity of the conventional educational mohowever, is imposed by the architecture as much as the pegogy: the familiar series of isolated desks facing the front rectangular classroom located off of a long corridor full ofsame. The architectural implications of this pedagogical shhave only just begun to enter the discourse.

There is no reason why everyone should be interested in the geogra-

phy of Venezuela on the same day and hour unless there is some news

event there, such as a revolution.

BuckminsterFuller,EducationAutomation,1962

You cant expect children to learn 21st century skills in schools built for

the 1950s. We need schools designed for 21st century success.ChadP.Wick,PresidentandCEOofKnowledgeWorksFoundation


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(Class)Room for improveme

At the end of the day, education, besides being about reading, writing, and arithmetic,

is about exploring the world. It is not just obtaining insight that is important but, increas-

ingly, accumulating interest and love for the riches the world has to offer. This happens

in interactive situations that could be stimulated more by the physical environment than

designers are prepared to concede.

HermanHertzberger,SpaceandLearning(2008)

In his TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the point that, if

youre not prepared to be wrong, youll never do anything inal. He argues that, through their linearity and preoccupawith assessment, schools are actually educating children oof innovation and creativity. These qualities, he argues, areimportant as literacy in the new job market and must be cvated, not repressed. In her research paper, Marjaana Kangexplains that learning can be seen as a phenomenon thatnot be isolated from the activity, culture, and context in wit takes place. It is a tool-dependent and social phenomenAs such, she calls for the integration of more informal settwithin a school and increased opportunity for informal leaing. She describes three types of education: formal (institualized, imposed curriculum), nonformal (organized, voluntaprograms outside of school), and informal (everything elselearning outside of a curricula), which operate independen

of formal, nonformal, and informal settings. For example, iformal learning can occur in a formal setting (a child teachanother in the classroom a trick for tying his shoes), or foreducation in an informal setting (a history lesson is movedoutside on a nice day). As Kangas posits, learning is less arepetition of what is already known and more the productof something new, interesting, and relevant.

Education must shift from instruction to discovery to probing and exploration.

MarshallMcLuhan

Nonformal

Informal

Formal

Pedagogies

Places and Spaces

Processes


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On top of failing to prepare students to enter the new jobmarket, schools fail to prepare students to enter the socialand cultural community. There is a stark disjunction betwepublic education and the cultural and social values it imbuIn most schools, children nd themselves in a dictatorial seting closer to what one might experience in a prison than ifree, democratic society. The traditional school model is prscriptive and works in opposition to concepts of democraccollaboration, free-will, individuality, responsibility, and evethe basic ability to exert control over ones own environmeThese are cultural values our society holds dear and, in ligthis, the alternative model will explore ways to embrace thvalues rather than to subvert them. In his piece, Schugurendescribes a School of Citizenship, which enacts a particitory democracy on the smaller scale of a school as a mean

teaching ownership and the efcacy of participation in poprocesses to students. In this example, the students learn bdoing, by actively shaping their community. This has the adbenet of empowerment, by giving the students some conover their environment. In one of Schugurenskys exampleshe describes an instance where the students are given conover a certain part of the school which had previously beean underutilized between space. Not only were the childengaged and empowered by this opportunity, it gave themgreater stake in and sense of pride for their school.

Despite its current inefciencies, the traditional school modoes certain things really well. The traditional classroom sehasnt changed because it is an effective and efcient systthat serves a particular purpose. For example, certain (mor

abstract) subjects, such as math, would be extremely difcto teach outside of a classroom setting. Most people in thicountry are literate because of our schools. The things thaschool does well are unquestionably worth holding on to; tproposal aims to maintain some of those qualities and brinin additional architectural mechanisms that embody this nconception of intelligence.

(Class)Room for improveme

To this end, the goal of this thesis is to design an educational space that mediates

between traditional (measurable, linear, uniform) and alternative models of learning.


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Competing interes

Though they are not inherently in opposition and have, in f

been in alignment in the past, there are competing interestcurrently which have caused resistance to change. The priminterest of the city and school administration is the maintenance and furtherance of the educational institution itself. Tthis end, they must receive funding, and to receive fundingthey must demonstrate the academic achievement of theirstudents, which is generally recognized through performanon standardized tests. Parents and students, however, tendhold a greater interest in the development of the individuaand his/her success upon entering the workforce. Teachersoften straddle the line between these interests, lean towaralignment with their higher-ups because the imposed hierchy rewards them for doing so. The school building stoicunyielding to political pressures truly does rest in the midIts persistence over time (most school buildings in this cou

try are over forty years old) and its iconic image speak to ipower as an institution and reect on the greater communit is in. Ideally, on a day-to-day basis, the school would worsupport the individual student in her growth as a learner. Tschool has already established itself on the side of the pering institution; its care for individual development must roitself as deeply.

City

Government

Prioritize uniformity and metric

assessment to secure state and

federal funding

Prioritize overall student growth

and learning to be successful

entering the workforce

Collective,

Institution-focused

Individual,

Student-focused

School Admin

Teachers Students

School Building Parents


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The Analysis: Traditional Schools


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Claiming a territo

Formal Education

FormalSetting

Traditional School

InformalSetting

Informal Learning

Potteries Thinkbelt

Bright Works

High School for

Recording Arts

Montessori

Hertzberger

Waldorf

Danfoss Universe

Museums, Galleries, Exploratoria Unschooling

Home schooling

Nature

Schools

The Public

School

Ideas Circus

This cross-axis considers formal and informal setting alonghorizontal, and formal education and informal learning acrits vertical axis. A range of noteworthy projects and moregeneral educational types have been positioned on the cso that their relationships to one another are clear. This theaims to position itself just left of center, with a foot still in mal setting but leaning towards the informal, and with a bance between formal and informal learning. Looking at theucational types included in the diagram, traditional schoare located in the top left corner, at the extremes of bothformal education and setting. Its polar opposite is seen to unschooling, which is a curriculum-free form of homeschoing, based in the premise that children are inherently curioand exploratory and will learn for themselves what they deto. Homeschooling is at the nexus of formal education andformal setting, and galleries and museums are in the oppocorner from that, at the extremes of formal setting and infmal learning. It is through a deep understanding of the menisms of the traditional school and its formality, coupled wan understanding of informal settings, learning, and spacean evolved educational model can begin to emerge.


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Clarifying Informal SpacWithin architecture, the spectrum of formal to informal space is discussed with

relative frequency. Upon closer examination of these terms, there is difculty in de-ning informal in positive terms. As its name reinforces, it is dened not on its ownmerit, but rather in opposition to the formal. The formal is much simpler to de-ne; it speaks to conventions, regularity, adherence to expectations, and the physicalmanifestations of form. We are thus left with a denition of informal as unconven-tional, irregular, unexpected, and non-physical: a much more amorphous beast.

Bernard Tschumi and Stan Allen are regarded as the primary contemporary thinkerson this topic. In the chapter entitled Field Conditions in his Points and Lines (1985),Stan Allen discusses the potential for a loose t of program with form. He de-scribes the grid and the eld condition as tools to achieve this, where porosity andlocal interconnection are key and through which form emerges from the bottom-up.The spatial matrix he describes is innitely expandable, as its units are serial and canbe repeated. Tschumis piece entitled Abstract Mediation and Strategy looks to asimilar point, by proposing to implement a structure that exists independent of use

or program, as a way to oppose the typical causal relationship between form andprogram. He suggests the point grid as a means of erasing authorship, centrality, andhierarchy. These types of informal form will be described as the loose t.

The next understanding of informal takes its meaning in direct opposition to theformal, the expected, the status quo. It interrupts what is there as a means of sub-verting it, and its signicance can only exist through this contrast. This type of infor-mality that is based in the unexpected will be known as rogue intervention.

An investigation into additional types of informality continues to be conducted,and will play a signicant role in the project moving forward. Once it is more fullybroken down and analyzed, its strategies can be experimented with, manipulated,and forced back together with the formal.

The other categories outlined in the precedent analysis section include conceptualand programmatic antitheses. These aim to consider the mechanism that is working

in the traditional school on a conceptual and programmatic level, and ip i t on itshead by way of precedent (for conceptual antithesis) or typology (for programmaticantithesis). The mechanisms working at each scale include impositions of order,discipline, isolation, and hierarchical control. Opposition to these mechanisms wouldinclude disorder, the unexpected, social interaction, and democratic or controllablespace.


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Understanding the conventional scho

An analysis of the current school typology is the starting pas a means of examining the uniformity and hierarchy impoacross a range of scales. This will attempt to uncover the latent politics embedded in conventional school design despits stated goals to the contrary. The four main texts that ardrawn from as the basis for this analysis include: Planning ementary School Buildings by N. L. Engelhardt (1953), SchWays: The Planning and Design of Americas Schools by BE. Graves (1993), School Design by Henry Sanoff (1994), anBuilding Type Basics for Elementary and Secondary Schooby Bradford Perkins (2001), all of which are comprehensiveinstructional manuals for designing schools, intended for iperienced designers and/or clients. There are four scales toanalyzed: material and human, interior, organization, and urelationship.

In this plastic, everchanging shape, the child enters school, the organized social institu-

tion that proposes to instruct him systematically in heritage, resources, ways and possibili-

ties of society and to assist him in becoming the person that he potentially can be.

PlanningElementarySchoolBuildings,1953

Since the early thirties, a new kind of elementary school building has been in the making,

the characteristics of which are inspired by democratic concepts of human relationships...The environment has become that of the childs world in which all the desired educational

objectives can be achieved.

PlanningElementarySchoolBuildings,1953


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Material and human sca

Students perception of their environment, whether supportive or hostile, interesting or

boring, is integral to an understanding of the school environment.

SchoolDesign,1994

In terms of the material and human scale, above is a cataloof materials prescribed for each surface in a classroom (asing, of course, that the classroom as a necessary unit). Thematerials closely resemble what one might nd in a prisonThey impose a uniformity across learning spaces. They arerable and easy to clean, which resists the destructive or mchilds actions, thereby reducing his responsibility to learn treat his environment with care and respect.

Child ergonomics, as presented in the above diagram, areframed in a general way and seem to be applied in isolatiofrom the way children interact with objects and experiencetheir environments. For example, many children treat chaidifferently than adults do. They do not generally sit as neaas the child in the diagram above: a child might pull herselto the chair on her knees then op over to her seat, or knethe chair instead of sitting, or sit on one leg. Children genedget and have a lot more micro-movement than adults doThe simple scaling down of adult furniture to a childs size not sufcient to suit their needs.


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Interior sca

Clearly, there are disadvantages to students on the periphery: less classroom participa-

tion and impaired learning ability. Consequently, with more students in the classroom,

peripheries are more extended and remote... Since students need some spatial separation,

increased density could lead to negative student reactions to the classroom, and to their

ability to learn within it.

SchoolDesign,1994

Probably no educational philosophy caused more controversy during the past 30 years

than the open-plan school. The concept was heralded as the answer to the need for ex-

ibility... Because young teachers have always been trained to look forward to the time

when they would get their own private classroom, many of them resisted or resented the

open plan. Teachers [began] to use bookcases and le cabinets to create more traditional

classroom settings.

SchoolWays:ThePlanningandDesignofAmericasSchools,1993

The traditional classroom setup is hierarchical if anything: teacher sits in the front of the room and the students sit inregular rows, making their surveillance easy. These layoutsthemselves very well to a lecture presentation format, whemost students can easily see the board at the front of theroom. Movable desks and rectangular rooms are recomme

so that the room can be easily recongured as needed (arlated rooms, it is said, make arranging furniture more difcThe ideal classroom size is between 750 and 1,000 square which should accommodate between 20 and 25 children. Iclassroom, the space allocation for each child ranges fromto 42 square feet.


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Organizational sca

Avoid designing corridors so they have no other use but circulation.

BuildingTypeBasicsforElementaryandSecondarySchools,2001

As the classroom is the archetypal interior unit in a convenal school, the double-loaded corridor is the archetypal strafor organization. Program is generally located off of doublloaded corridors for efciency and ease of student surveil-lance during the school day. Individual classrooms tend to adjacent but separate, though more modern recommendacall for exible walls between adjacent classrooms for col-laboration, if desired. Modern trend calls for smaller comm

nity clusters within the school, often called neighborhoodas demonstrated in the spine plan or the classroom-clusteplan. Generally, all space is programmed, and programmeda single use. These organizational models take the classrocirculation, and shared facilities (eg cafeteria, gymnasium)the distinct components of educational facilities.

The centralized resource plan

The courtyard plan The classroom-clustering plan The courtyard with classroom

clustering plan

The dumbbell plan The spine plan


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Urban relationsh

Security truly begins at the perimeter of the school site. The site should be laid out to en-

sure lines of sight across main parking and play areas... A single point of entry for visitors

allows visual control by limiting unobserved access to any other areas of the building.

BuildingTypeBasicsforElementaryandSecondarySchools,2001

Lastly, the school tends to be monastically autonomous. Jed through safety reasons, parking is positioned around tschool to act as somewhat of a safety buffer between childand their greater community, while accommodating the vaneeds of vehicular trafc. Playgrounds are generally fence

and there are minimal entrances (usually one) to enter andthe school building. In general, the education is very inwarlooking, focusing its attention on textbooks, teacher presetations, and the occasional classroom experiment or projerather than engaging with and drawing lessons from the surounding world.

Bus drop-off

Service vehicle access

Parent/Childdrop-off

Parking

School Building Playground


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The Analysis: Opposing Precedents

Precedent studies (both school and non-school) will be con-ducted that analyze radically different qualities than those ofthe traditional school at each scale. The intent is that such thatelements may be extracted, reinterpreted, and held up againstthe traditional school model towards the development of analternative educational space that can exist in conjunction withthe conventional model.


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School preceden

Material and Human Scale

Mark Hortons The Little SchoolInterior Scale

Arkitemas Hellerup Skole

Mark Hortons The Little SchoolOrganizational Scale

The Public SchoolUrban Relationship

Mark Hortons The Little School uses a thickened wall todene and transition between spaces. By providing child-sopenings at varying elevations and extruded details to helthem climb freely, this wall reconciles child ergonomics witheir playful nature and imagination.

The Hellerup Skole, designed by Arkitema and completed 2002 in Denmark, is one of the few open-plan schools thatbeen successful. Rather than the typical empty plan with mable walls that was the demise of the 1970s open plan movment, this design articulates and differentiates spaces alththey are open through the use of different materiality andtypes of furniture. Spatial and lighting qualities change froone area to the next, which makes particular areas more orsuitable to a given program looking to occupy a space. Thin stark contrast to the uniform rectangular classroom andfamiliar desk layout, which is prescribed for a single use anfunctions as much as a holding cell as a learning space.

Taking a second look at Hortons The Little School, this tat the organizational level, it is clear that he has done awawith the typical double-loaded corridor. In this scheme, clarooms are located amidst play spaces. Other than the centpassageway between playspaces on the north and south sof the wall, the transition through the wall i s between classplay.

The Public School considers the city itself as a school. Bein

everywhere and nowhere at once, any place can become aor a classroom; spaces are appropriated as needed. The inis to experience and glean lessons from the richness of theThis contrasts with the monastic autonomy of the school atakes an attitude of isolation from its immediate cultural asocial context.


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Informal: the loose


Lebbeus Woodss System WeinInterior Scale

The Great Mosque of Cordoba

MVRDVs Villa VPROOrganizational Scale

Tschumis Parc de la VilletteUrban Relationship

This piece by Woods was an installation that used a grid sytem to occupy and inltrate the gallery space. Figure andground lose their distinction from one another and the bouaries of the installation are not clearly dened. Porosity anopenness are key concepts, along with the democracy anduidity of space.

Stan Allen extols this work for its use of the grid as a meanorganizing program in a exible and open way, without bepre-deterministic of what program can happen in which arThe column grid acts as a loose organizer within the spacecan be innitely expanded as needed without impacting thexisting space.

MVRDVs concept is based on the idea of working improvition of use into the design. By creating a loose t betweprogram and form, MVRDV affords the buildings occupantsome play in how the space is used, and gives them the abity to change it over time as the needs of their organizatioevolves.

In his project, the Parc de la Villette, Tschumi uses a grid a means of organization and connection to the urban cont

He used the point grid as a tool to subvert the traditional cal relationship between form and program. He also liked thit could be innitely expanded, and that it does not have aimplicit center or hierarchy to it. It simultaneously providedsystem for organization while directly opposing much of wthe site and program called for.


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Informal: rogue interventi


Andy Goldsworthys Fall LeavesInterior Scale

Michael Townsends One Kinsley Ave.

Stephane Malkas Self DefenseOrganizational Scale

The Imagine Bus ProjectUrban Relationship

Goldsworthys work aims to intervene on nature and produan unexpected and temporal effect. In nature, disorder is texpected, it is the status quo. By organizing certain elemento form some type of geometric order, this intervention becomes legible against the contrasting natural disorder offorest.

Townsend built a hidden, fully furnished, 750 square footapartment in an unused space off of a parking garage in a in Providence, RI. He and some friends lived there on and ofor over three years before mall security found out and evithem. It was embedded deep within the poche space betwthe garage and the mall. This intervention was intended toa social commentary on consumerist society, pushing conserism to a new extreme by living within the mall. Without tbackdrop of the mall, this project would have been meaninless.

This project seeks to intervene on La Defense, a politicalbuilding in Paris. Its opening through the middle invites it,almost. Self Defense is the implementation of a shantytowithin that void. Units are plugged into the wall and stackealong one side of the void. Their arrangement allows for eavertical and horizontal circulation. Again, this project woulnot be of note were it not for its invasion of a political icon

The Imagine Bus Project is a bus that was converted to a

mobile arts classroom. An act of deance against the lack arts education in the city, it travels around the city to bringeducation to urban communities. It is radically different frothe traditional school in its mobility and openness to the cIts mobility permits it to surface at schools, unsolicited, andepart just as quickly and easily.


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Conceptual antithe


Olafur Eliassons Your Blind PassengerInterior Scale

Adventure Playgrounds

H. Roy Kelleys The RAND CorporationOrganizational Scale

LeCorbusiers Venice HospitalUrban Relationship

Olafur Eliassons Your Blind Passenger is a sensory-inten

exhibit that is a passage through a series of enclosed spacthat were lled with fog and brightly colored lights. Users essentially blinded by the fog and intense lighting, as theyfound themselves edging their way through this novel anddisorienting environment. This contrasts with the rigid, instional materiality of the traditional school that rarely attemto appeal to the senses, much less overwhelm them.

Adventure playgrounds are intended to let children play anbuild creatively, providing them with the supplies and suppthey need to construct forts, towers, and whatever else thedesire. They are given free range to paint, build, and play owhatever is there. Relating back to the conventional schooadventure playgrounds dispose of the imposed hierarchy athe monofunctional objects and furniture in the classroommeant to empower. Its form changes over time, and is enti

contingent on the imagination and whim of the children in

The RAND Corporation is a thinktank for which an ofce bing was constructed in the 1950s. It was designed as a systo foster chance interaction between individuals and depaments as a way to encourage interdisciplinary thinking. Thwas achieved by democratizing space and increasing the rdundancy of routes while maintaining their efciency in lenIn addition to the circulation pictured in blue, access was aavailable through the exterior courtyards, pictured in dark This model relies on the double-loaded corridor, but explofor increased social interaction and in doing so made the cridor a compelling, desirable, and active space.

With this project, LeCorbusier intended to experiment with

the blurred boundary condition. He worked with a set unithospital rooms, and arranged them in such a way that ngextend out into the site.He not only achieves direct sunligheach hospital room, but building access is dispersed, and ibetter integrated with its surroundings rather than readingsingular object placed on the site.


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Programmatic antithe


PlaygroundInterior Scale

Museum

MallOrganizational Scale

Public Transit NetworkUrban Relationship

If the furniture of a school is intended to promote order anstillness, the playground acts in stark opposition. It inviteschildren to run, jump, climb, and play as they see t. If theclassroom desk signies stillness, the playground signies stillness. It demands physical movement.

The interior of a classroom is meant to contain. It is prescrtive in how students interact with it, and how they are led tperceive of themselves in it; desk placement necessarily incates hierarchy between student and teacher, and uniformbetween peers. The placement of desks restricts movemenwithin the classroom, instead encouraging students to sit abe still to learn. The museum typology gets at learning thranother means: through movement. Museums rely on movment through the space to tell the story they aim to conveyThough it might prioritize certain exhibits or works of art, does not lend any hierarchy to the users within it.

The school uses the double-loaded corridor as a means ofciency, to streamline student movement between two powithin the building. The use of a single pathway limits optifor the direction of movement. Malls, on the other hand, fousers to take a meandering pathway, past many stores in aattempt to pique customer interest. They force users to goof their way to get to the next up escalator. The broadnesstheir walkways invite slow movement, and multiple paths oeach horizontal plane give options for meandering movem

In contrast to the withdrawn isolation of the school, the urtransit network reaches out in all directions into the city. Itserves as its connective tissue, binding together certain paof the city that might not be otherwise. It is active and vitathe city, and intends to serve it.


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Moving forwa

Taking the units of a traditional school forward with me, I wcontinue to seek out, dene, and explore types of informalspace. As a means of generative design, I will use the unitsthe traditional school as building blocks, and experiment wdifferent ways of creating and integrating informality. Ambity of space, blurred boundary conditions, and user (studemanipulability will be the focus, though other types of infomality will be studied as well. The ultimate goal of this prois to produce the next step in the evolution of school desito push it past its current state of stagnation. The next evo

tion of school design will be responsive to advances in chidevelopment as well as studies connecting the efcacy oflearning to attributes of a physical design. This will take thform of a school building, focusing primarily on changing torganization of the school, though shifts on the other scalwill be imperative to the design.


27/27

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