Kent State University | College of Architecture and Environmental Design
ARCH 30102: Third Year Design Studio II
Reformatting K-12 | Chicago Urban School
‘Young people want to be inspired not taught.’
Hans Scharoun
‘Since children are so impressionable in their early years, a rich childhood can be the foundation for a whole life. Education is not just the development of intellectual capabilities, not just the achievement of particular knowledge and abilities: it is a process, which allows the bridging together and developing of all faculties. Therefore learning must be in harmony with the child’s growth and development, and the school, like the home, must stand as evidence that the earth is a good place to dwell.’
Hans Scharoun
‘Architecture, when done well, can improve lives. And perhaps no building typology better exemplifies this transformative power than schools — the place where young minds are nurtured, where future leaders are reared.
Jenna M. McKnight, Architectural Record
Pretext
Background | Landscape(s) of Learning
Embedded in the photographic imagery of the Chisenhale Road Series by Nigel Henderson for Alison and Peter Smithson is a declaration for a new concept of urban connections based on an intuitive, evolving social and spatial experience observed in children’s play. From house to street, district to city – playing children embody social cohesion”, and for the Smithsons, a new set of guiding principles for urban situations.
For many modernist architects, schools were perceived as a mediator between individuals and society – family and city. Since the turn of the 20th century modern architects have sought new methods of nurturing creativity, learning, and play through carefully planned environments. Schools are vital civic institutions, and the task of educating children fundamental to the prosperity of society.
Evolving social ideals and educational policies have mutually influenced school and classroom designs over the last century, with school architecture witnessing widespread growth within the last decade. Aging structures, deferred or careless renovations and new education initiatives have prompted innovation in school building design and a reevaluation of K-12 learning in the US.
Project Description
This semester students are asked to develop a master plan for a K-12 urban school. The studio’s urban design investigation will exploit the theoretical and spatial principles of mat-building typologies. As a building form that negotiates the boundaries between architecture and urbanism, accumulation and continuity, variation and repetition, mat-buildings offer rich opportunities to explore new urban patterns and conditions of learning.
In addition to designing a campus master plan, students will be asked to develop a selected region of the project at an architectural scale. A clearly defined design intention at the classroom, building, and urban scales is expected, with particular attention paid to the relationship between architecture and the given urban context.
Beginning with analysis and a single classroom design, students will probe attributes of light, materiality, scale, interior-exterior spatial relationships, and their impact upon student well-being, learning, and social interaction. Students will translate ideas developed in the classroom designs to the broader urban situation. The spatial, material, and atmospheric transformations of the building program into a continuous, yet collective built environment will be studied through in-depth consideration of spatial sequencing and scenarios of use. How does the proposed project support and enhance its urban context/landscape? How might an educational landscape enrich individual and collective learning at both the school and neighborhood scales? How can a school serve as an agent of social interaction and facilitator of community learning?
