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Amsterdam Watershed
Part 2 - Heinavaara School, Urban "Have-not" Schools, Future
of the Classroom
Randall
Fielding:
The Heinavaara Elementary School in Finland is one of the most notable
projects you have constructed since the School of Environmental Studies (SES) in Minnesota. How have your ideas evolved between the two
projects?
Bruce Jilk:
The School of Environmental Studies is an optional public suburban
high school for 400 students designed seven years ago in collaboration
with HGA, Inc.[2]
Heinavaara is a 190-student public elementary school in Finland
north of Helsinki, near the Russian border. It was designed two years
ago in collaboration with the Cuningham Group.
Heinavaara works at
several levels. First of all it is designed to support the children's
learning experiences. This is done by organizing the spaces to enhance
the connections amongst children and their cognitive, social, emotional,
physical, and other developmental experiences.[3]
Next, it works as part of the community's economic development. By
developing new (to Finland) construction methods in wood while educating
the local construction industry, the project positioned the community
to be leaders in future endeavors in Finland and Russia. Next the
project serves as a community center. This is true in both its functional
and symbolic aspects.[4]
Finally the design is embedded with meaning for a larger society.
Learning takes place in the community, so community issues impact
the school (Bingler 1999[5]).
But the context for the community is the larger society so we need
to understand this as well. Next the context for society is our civilization.[6]
(Click for Heinavaara
Program and floor plan)
Q Jeffery Lackney:
How
do we address the problem of improving the quality of learning settings
in have-not schools in both urban and rural areas that will not be
direct recipients of the Watershed in the next 10 years?
William DeJong:
This is one of my most passionate topics, haves and have nots.
I do believe that 2000 to 2010 will be the watershed decade for urban
schools, assuming the economy holds up. Approximately one-third
of all students (approx. 17 million) attend schools in the largest
200 of the 15,800 school districts in the United States. Between
1975 and 1995, most urban school districts did not adequately maintain
school facilities and most did not build a single new school or fully
renovate a building. As a result there is a huge pent-up demand
in urban districts. For the past quarter century there was not
the political will to address the needs of urban districts.
The power had shifted from the cities to the suburbs. For the
past quarter century there has been constant criticism of urban schools.
As a society we have become more polarized economically (rich and
poor, loss of the middle class) and we have become more racially segregated.
Across the board there is recognition that something needs to be done
to improve the urban schools. Part of this response has
been the charter schools. Part of this will be the rebuilding
of the public schools. Personally I believe urban schools will
eventually evolve into a series of independent schools, actually much
like the Dutch system. But until that happens, assuming a continued
positive economy, urban schools are shaping up to become the priority
of this decade.
I
believe the concept that is being used in Minnesota is the way to go (due to declining enrollment, the state is emphasizing joint/community use
of facilities to save costs).
In many rural communities, the
definition of a successful student is a student that graduates from
high school, moves away for college, and never returns. This is a
problem not only in developed countries but also a major problem in
developing countries. It’s ironic that middle-aged suburbanites have
a fantasy of moving to the country while kids in the country are eager
to move to the city. The bottom line is joint use of facilities, but
we need to further examine how economic development fits in.
Q William Brenner:
What will happen to the classroom in the coming years? What will
schools look like?
Bruce Jilk: Will we still
have classrooms? A common place where a common group of people desires
to engage in a common way with a common subject at a common time will
be justification for the classroom. However, as we embrace lifelong
learning where anybody can learn anything, anyway, at anytime and
anyplace, there will be a diminished need for classrooms. The educational
philosophies of Perennialism and Essentialism[7]
(which rely on lectures) are deeply embedded in our concepts
of education. They grew with our current cultural view starting about
2000 B.C. However, as we shift into a knowledge society, these concepts
will lose their cultural grounding, and my best guess is that the
classroom as the primary place of learning will shift to a secondary
place of learning between 2020 and 2030. This is a concern when the
life expectancy of new schools is around 70 years.
In the very near future we will see the
design of classrooms flourish like never before. This is driven by a
basic feature of human nature. It is a form of "irrational
exuberance." It is similar to the response people have knowing
someone will die; you want to show your deepest caring. Or, in some cases,
a married couple, knowing the marriage is not going well, will try to
save it by exchanging extraordinary gifts. In K-12 schools this is being
played out by pretending classrooms are the center of the universe. This
phase will retract in 10 years. In higher education, campuses are
desperate to survive as seen by the flourish of "signature"
architecture. Think of these buildings as tombstones.
The question
“what will schools look like in the future” is probably the most common
and misunderstood aspect of what I have been working on. We talk about
what is the best school design, we have conferences to discuss our
ideas, and we give awards to those that fit our preconceptions. If
we could only solve this problem, all would be fine! In our effort
to simplify things we begin to think as if one size fits all. Most
people will say they do not think this way; however, the pattern is
in fact there. Prototype schools are an example of this carried to
the extreme. In the future, the traditional school will not be replaced
by a new, better design. Rather, we are developing options to the
traditional school. It was these options (alternatives) that are innovative
that we focused on in Amsterdam. In the future we will continue to
have traditional schools (but less of them), optional schools that
are similar to traditional schools (often the case in the expansion
of parochial schools), and innovative alternatives. As to what they
will look like, it is safe to say that virtually any future design
concept exists today, in some form, somewhere on this earth.
William DeJong: The box. You’re right, we
are not likely to get rid of it soon, but it is going to go. But it
won't go until we get rid of the organizational structure as we know
it today. Even if the teacher is no longer the dispenser of information
and we embrace more student-centered approaches, more hands-on learning,
as long as we have 20-25 students to a teacher we will have 900-square-foot
boxes and lots of them. Until we embrace differentiated or alternative
staffing and organizational approaches, we will be stuck in the box.
Is there a need for the box?
Yes, we all have them; we call them large conference rooms. But we
all need an office, the ability to collaborate in teams, a laptop
computer, a place to work out, and a coffeepot. Kids are no
different.We are warehousing kids because we haven't been able to
come up with a better way to supervise them (along with a lot of other
issues) and we try to do all of these things within the box.
We all know the student's classroom
is his/her environment. It is the home, the kitchen table, the
bedroom, the library, the recreation center, the street, the church,
the car, the park, the radio, the TV—wherever the student learns.
Then there is the classroom,
the 900-square-foot box. Furniture will become more flexible,
movable, comfortable, and durable. Technology will be ever present.
We'll be able to create individual, small group, and total group spaces.
Lots of natural light and artificial lighting will be better; more
attention will be paid to air quality. We'll have the ability
to collaborate with the box next door and other boxes within the same
area of the building. Occasionally, students will even be permitted
to go outside the box to another box of comparable size that has more
specialized tools.
School will look like a cross
between a home, an office building, a video arcade, a library, a fitness
center, and a food court all integrated. Students will have
a sense of belonging; they will have their own offices and project
areas. They will have clear objectives and a sense of accomplishment.
They will be doing meaningful work in inviting environments.
This multiple use of facilities and the multiple approaches to learning
will necessitate diverse sizes of learning environments.
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