Final Brief: Revisiting the Architecture of Education

[After a group-wide shortlisting of our Briefs, this is the final brief that I will be responding to alongside my Design 4 Colleagues: Ethan Chung, Noah Foster, and Jien Lim (Originally written by Ethan and his partner, Wittawala Teekathananont)]

The Brief

“The major difference from previous curriculum models is that it should consider the needs of the whole person without assuming that the academic or intellectual aspects should have a higher status than the others. The first truly comprehensive curriculum should rebalance the academic, situated in the mind, against those parts of humanity situated in the body, the heart and the soul. Curricula may well be designed by people for whom the mind predominates, but those designers should see that the twenty-first century requires a population with higher levels of social, emotional and moral performance, and a regenerated capacity for doing and making.”

Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education

Our brief will be exploring teaching and learning spaces under the library archetype; to revisit how we are educated. Today, education is a prominent part of life worldwide. It is perceived to play an important role in ensuring our futures and the continued development of civilization. Our education is affected by many factors, including culture, technology, and economic matters.

Education spaces evolve overtime with the same intention of educating people. There are walls implied by education. Throughout history, education is and has been restricted by entry, finances, standards. Whilst people only used to go into education if they sought to, today education is perceived as important if one is looking to live well (getting a job etc.) Historically, education has been one-way - the ‘academic’ method, and recently we have seen the emergence of progressive education. Other than academic aspirations education is important because it ensures social interaction with a wide range of people.

Our teaching and learning spaces have been influenced and oriented by this pedagogy - we can look to theatres, standard classrooms etc. Who is the one who sees? Who is the one who is seen? Education spaces are encountering a specific moment, where our education and teachers are forced to adapt to digital realities - how can teachers know what is going on behind a student’s laptop screens? How does digital technology affect and how may it enhance our education? There is also a movement across education pedagogy, advocating for two-way communication in teaching and learning. How may this new relationship affect our architectural designs? Thus, education spaces can be a site for architectural experimentation, reinvention and manipulation.

This brief is a speculative project set in 2039. Your aims are to critically reinvent how we teach/learn, in order to reformulate the education centre archetype, through the design of a new, multi-function architecture library at the proposed site. You may consider how digital, physical, or other mediums of learning architecture can be projected spatially.

E.g. Materials library, books, electronic, space works, point cloud learning, VR/AR, digi-fabrication, craftsmanship workshops, etc.

Objectives:

● To reexamine teaching/learning spaces in the future

● To investigate the relationships between users and education spaces (how can it encourage/motivate people to teach/learn)

● Education philosophies - therapeutic or academic?

● Programmatic: Creativity and functionality of the spaces

Keywords:

● Reinvention

● Education and pedagogy

● Transparency

● Multi-function

● Program/production

● Digital Technology

Reflections

[YET TO BE WRITTEN]