LEARNING FROM HOME the school as an emulation of dwelling and public society Noa Wang
Alleys The form of a school building is both a container and method for facilitating education. It conducts teacher and student interactions, implements social hierarchies and communicates the identity and social significance of the school to its outside community. The school building is just as much a means of teaching in itself, as it is a place for teaching to occur. What is considered important within a educational system is made apparent in the interactions permitted within the mechanisms of the building: How much space do teachers have to move around within compared to students? Is circulation a means of transport between places of learning, or is another space for learning to occur? Educational spaces provide a subliminal form of teaching by answering these types of questions through the behaviour it restricts or allows from its occupants. These subtly authoritative designs permit specific degrees of sociability and set the pace of school activities, thereby passively teaching students what to prioritize, and how to approach their education. In light of architecture’s ability to passively define the character of education, schools may borrow design aspects from non-pedagogical programs to supplement or replace standard forms. Notably, schools aim to attain this by imposing forms of dwelling, such as houses, apartments, villages or cities upon their learning spaces. This is intended to provide not only younger students with a more comforting learning environment, but to imbue within even older students a sense of emotional belonging and ownership. This juxtaposition of the domestic, non-institutional home and the fundamentally institutional school has further been used to transform the school into an interface between students and society. This approach is most evident in the Geschwister, Darmstadt and Marl schools designed by Hans Scharoun: In Scharoun’s schools, education was conducted in a small fragmentary city-like systems which facilitated democratic processes for students to adopt as they enter society. Classrooms were like homes, linked together as villages by street-like corridors and converging at figurative town centres. Students were taught through architecture what it meant to belong to a small social group like the individual class or household, as compared to broader social structures such as an entire grade, school or community at large. As a result, the architecture of the school performs both as method of teaching and as a symbol to its pedagogical philosophy. In this theoretical design of an elementary school, the functions of the school are distributed among the fabric of a residential neighbourhood. Built for a school population of 840, ranging from kindergarten to grade seven, each individual class is separated into its own classroom building, or schoolhouse. Administrative functions and major gathering spaces, including the library, auditorium and sports field, serve as a symbolic town centre and are located in the centre of the school grounds so as to allow equal access from all classrooms. Students are able to travel between schoolhouses via secure pathways, which also connect students to art room and science lab buildings to be shared by multiple grades. The pathways pass through each school building and extend onto spans of the public sidewalk to be used by students. The design is an elaboration of Hans Scharoun’s school design methods, demonstrating an educational system where students learn within a system that emulates the social hierarchies of the home, street, town and larger society. Primary group students, from grades 1-3, participate in small social structures: First their individual classrooms of under twenty students, then intermittently meeting with their grade as a whole. With exceptions to school-wide assemblies, primary group students are secluded and lifted away from the public street and administrative centre. By comparison, intermediate students in grades 4-7 participate on a broader, more public social scale with greater access to the public sphere and large spaces of gathering. However, the administrative centre remains removed from all classrooms, and is only accessed when needed so that its institutional character is not omnipresent, as is in standard, centralized school buildings. This retains the sense of territorial ownership that students have for their respective small classrooms, avoiding the alienation associated with large school bodies. Shared school facilities are further available to the public community, depending on times of the day: The sports field and neighbouring park are available outside of class hours, and student paths can be used by passersby as shortcuts when class is not in session. The school and neighbourhood thus have a common threshold that may be shared by various users. At the same time that students are learning to belong to varying scales of social groups as they progress through school, they become more closely familiar with their position in the real community. The school borrows from forms of dwelling and their respective social structures while at the same time existing as an integrated part of the residential fabric, rather than being a detached imitation of the home and public society.
Main street
Block ends
Student pathways
Primary classrooms
Intermediate classrooms
Administrative and shared buildings
Lighting paths
Primary group classrooms (grades 1-3) and kindergartens face alleys, where younger students may avoid traffic. School houses belonging to the same grade are clustered and oriented towards one another, to encourage interaction between students of the same age. This permits younger students to remain within the security of their “house”-sized social circle, and venture into the intermediate spaces shared by their neighbours for outdoor play. School paths allow students of this age group to reach play areas and shared classrooms without travelling on the main street, which the school shares with the public.
Intermediate group classrooms (grades 4-7) are all situated along the main corridor, which is accessible by both the school and outside community. These units are outward-looking and encourage students to interact with the larger neighbourhood, while retaining the option to travel by secure paths away from the street. Classrooms are situated on block ends and open towards intersections. Students are visually reminded of their position within a larger social circle once they exit their respective school “houses”, as the administrative “town centre” is visible just down the street. Primary classrooms [20]
Intermediate classrooms [15]
08:30 Primary group students travel to their classrooms through alleys without traffic
08:30 Intermediate group students travel to their classrooms through main streets
08:30 Students traverse the neighbourhood on their way to school
09:00 Primary group students arrive at their classrooms: the smaller social sphere, or “schoolhouse”
09:00 Intermediate group students arrive at their classrooms: the smaller social sphere, or “schoolhouse”
09:00 Students begin class in their respective classrooms
10:00 Primary group students travel by secure pathways to music, art and science rooms shared by other primary group classes
10:00 Intermediate group students have the option of travelling to shared classrooms by secure pathways or main streets, where they interact in larger social circles
10:00 Intermediate group students travelling between classrooms encounter the surrounding community
11:00 Primary group students have access to outdoor play areas within secure pathways and schoolhouse grounds, shared with other primary students
11:00 Intermediate students have regular access to the central sports field for P.E. and recess, shared by the entire school and surrounding community
11:00 The community shares parts of the central sports field and ancillary garden areas
12:30 Also accessed through secure pathways, the school library offers a place for primary students to interact with the larger school community
12:30 The school plaza outside the auditorium is situated on the main street, used by intermediate students and the public
12:30 The public community may pass by school activities near the main street
15:00 The back of primary classrooms open towards streets, where parents may arrive to pick up students
15:00 Intermediate classrooms open up to the main street, where parents may arrive to pick up students
15:00 Parents and students traverse the neighbourhood after the school day ends
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Areas accessible to the public community
Student pathways between classrooms