Hakbang 20.08.2022ISSUED an application on a conceptual algorithmic design for Kindergarten schools in the Philippines Emergent Architecture 03
Authors Aaron Cedric Yu Allyson Tracie Bejar Jose Antonio Pineda Mentored by Christian Lyle La Madrid Hakbang is a conceptual algorithmic system of design that seeks to innovate physical learning conditions within educational built environments in the Philippines to address the delay of educational learning amongst kindergarten students caused by the COVID-19 lockdown through the means of incorporating active play & circulations empirically proven to aid both physical & mental development in students, particularly within the scope of muscle reactions, learning focus & perfor mance.
What is Hakbang?
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40% people feel less productive than usual during the pandemic.
- Prof. Todd Braver, Washington University
“...research has shown that concentration, memory and cognition suffer when people are under stress and anxiety, and that’s especially true when it builds for months. The brain is good at responding to short bursts of stress, but it’s not as good at operating under constant, low-grade pressure.”
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, 140 million toddlers around the world have been waiting to take their first day of school for more than a year. In the Philippines, educational institutions at all levels have postponed their face-to-face classes withholding 27 million of their students without access to distance learning modalities from their right to learn.
According to UNICEF Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov, such delays would attribute to the average learning loss, mental distress, heightened risk of dropout, child labor, and child marriage within the country, which would most especially be felt by the youngest learners in critical development stages, such as the kindergart ners (UNICEF, 2021).
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Background
In a culminating study of 12 experiments’ findings on nature’s impact on cognitive performance (Cecilia, 2009), research has shown that people’s pre-exposure to natural environments played a key role in enhancing their performance in cognitive tasks, while respectively decreasing in said performance pre-exposed to urban environments. This puts into focus just how influential spaces could become in enhancing learning experiences. Apart from improving children’s spatial aware ness, body coordination, motor skills, and sensory processing (Cooke, 1996), another culmination of studies by Ilona Bidzan-Bluma & Malgorzata Lipowska (2018), shows that physical activities could draw out similar results among children to that of being pre-ex posed to natural environments. It is said that physical activities have the potential to enhance a child’s ability to focus attention and biologically increase their basal ganglia and hippocampus capacities, often associated with their cognitive control, verbal memory, and learning. Particularly with children 3-5 years of age, physical activity has been keen to improve cognitive functions especially under the blanket of working memory (Bulma & Lipowska, 2018). Bringing inspiration to an active form of space interpreted through the means of play for students of Hakbang’s kindergarten algorith mic design.In a culminating study of 12 experi ments’ findings on nature’s impact on cognitive performance (Cecilia, 2009), research has shown that people’s pre-exposure to natural environments played a key role in enhancing their performance in cognitive tasks, while respectively decreasing in said performance pre-exposed to urban environments. This puts into focus just how influential spaces could become in enhancing learning experiences.
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Significance
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For over a decade, architecture has taken new modes of design, incorporating visual programming languages and environments to the recently introduced computer-aided design methodologies, bringing an even more abundant variation of design process es to the field of architecture. Many established and well-renowned architectural firms have made use of these integrated technologies in designing complex forms, such as the case for Zaha Hadid Architects of London (Wortmann & Tuncer, 2017), and space planning, such with the Bjarke Ingels Group of Denmark (Teulo, n.d.).
Hakbang takes a step in this direction, programming algorithmic processes to incorpo rate active play in the space planning of educational built environments while initiating a circular output process of design that is inclusive of other designers to reuse and recontextualize into different kindergarten projects with different sites, sizes, and capacities.
Hakbang takes into account DepEd’s current solution on COVID-19 compliant space regulations to create a 1:12-15 ratio of practitioner-student classes and 1 meter distanced seating arrangements.
The initial design parameters were based on international American standards of designing a child care center school from the Public Buildings Service Office of Child Care (2003) due to our lack of local specific innovative stan dards (see table 6-7). Extracted as a basis for Hakbang’s spatial proportions, the quantified areas (in square meters) were taken from a sample population of seventy-four children, adapting measurements for classroom space, a multi purpose room, director’s office, adult toilets, cafeteria, waiting rooms, storage units, common spaces, and circulation as shown in table 8. The common spaces and circulation were conjoined as an one active space to maximize quality for children to experience the physical activity, improving their cognitive performance. These values were proportioned to one child for a simplified computation of flexibility towards any given population.
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Hakbang cosists of a classroom, facul ty, parent cafe, adminsitration lobby toilets, storage room, utilities, and circulation spaces just like any other kindergarten and is programmed in a way that is concious of its financial costs and revenues, maintaing a 73% efficiency ratio.
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Though disallowed kindergarteners the ability to personally interact with their colleagues were reconfigured to create socially interactive distanced play, Hakbang coins “active spaces”.
Hakbang is made up of grasshopper codes which uses the lot size of any kinderk arten program to relatively proportion its class sizes, divisions, and other programs distributed while maintaing their direct and indirect connections automatically.
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01 Input rectangular lot & select curve 02 Area offfsets based on road orientation MAIN ROAD A - 20% A - 50% A - 30% 03 Input of ratios based on the csv file programs StorageUtilitiesFaculty KindergartenKindergartenKindergartenKindergartenNurseryNurseryAdministrationroomAB1A1B2A2BParentLoungeLobby 04 General guide points at the center of each area CBA 05 Initial placement of generated programs 06 Adjustments of proximity pulling towards the central points 08
05 Initial placement of structural columns and 3D vizualization of massing 06 Designer’s choice in using this generated iteration for the school A B BA C1, C2, C3 C1C2C3 Use csv file for the programs of the project After creating a rectangular, set the curve As mentioned in 06, this will give you liberty to adjust the proximity of the initial placement assigned in each region 09
our site choice, Hakbang will be tested in an area accessible to the residential community of this conceptual urban plan designed by Jau Timbol & Bea Carague, making it accessible on foot, and is conveniently situated right along a main road, making it accessible to the rest of the Thecommunity.siteisspliced
by a park which holds corporate spaces across and a hospital within minutes reach in case of medical emergencies.
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Hakbang’s sample site is located in Baran gay 659-A of Ermita, Manila right along a residential community of the new urban plan, making it accessible on foot, and is conveniently situated right along a main road, making it accessible to the rest of the Surroundingcommunity.
The approach of the design follows an imaginative take on "endless possibilities". This uses the variation of planes that lead to other areas of the school while at the same time using the roofs of the classroom as a space of different use. The whole kindergarten works in a way of a kid's mind with how their imagination is still high. The variation of planes give the users a sense of being in a different area or dimension, inciting excite ment.
Lobby Parent Lounge Kinder 1A Nursery BNursery A Kinder 2A Kinder 2B AdministrationStorage Room Faculty Room 11
access to hakbang codes
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