Planning
the Learning Community
Section 4 of 4
The
planning process can take 5 years and run into six-figures. Compounded
with the cost issue is the loss of stakeholders over time. School and
community members may move on, before funds are in place. Is there a point
where too much time and money is given to planning may lead to diminishing
returns?
On
the cost issue, there is no standard that I know of. Some people
believe that they can achieve community consensus in just a few design
charrette. In some cases much good can be gained from this kind of
planning. Our preference is to carry the process on until there is
enough community consensus for folks just want to keep meeting and working
together. Our experience is that it takes at least a year for this
to happen.
The fact is that the process of
community planning and design is never really done. There are always
new criteria that keep changing the ground rules. There are always
new buildings that need to be designed or renovated. It is important
to recognize that most of the buildings we build these days last for about
40-50 years. Then they have to be renovated or replaced. From the
perspective of planning, this provides an opportunity for the continuous
evolution and improvement of the community infrastructure. The best
kind of planning process is one that keeps on going, like the energizer
bunny. The best-case scenario is one where the community takes
charge of its own continuous improvement with some ongoing facilitation
from the professional planner. In that case, who would want to see the
planning process ever come to an end?
Andy
Grove, Chairman of Intel, says that the value of planning is in the
learning and decisions made during the process. He rarely looks at
Intel’s final bound Annual report after its generated. He also
says that a planning process should only cover the period until the next
planning session (once a year for Intel), because things change each year.
In the case of school/community planning, the plan may need to provide
direction for five years. How do you generate a report that is not quickly
outdated?
I think the idea of a
final report is something out of the dark ages. I agree with Andy Grove
that process is everything. Just remember that Intel is bigger than
most America communities. If it can work for Intel, it can work for
most communities. In fact, we have found that some of the tools
developed for collaborative corporate management are invaluable in any
kind of large group planning enterprise. In the field of public
health, you will find some other kinds of principles and tools that relate
even more specifically to the problems and opportunities for more
effective community engagement
You
have questioned the value of a final planning report, emphasizing process
rather than product. Isn't the document important as well? A family photo
album comes to mind; although the experiences are most important, doesn't
the album itself have a value?
Products are OK. Every process we
are involved in results in a plan document. It's important though, that it
not be seen as static. I've never seen a family photo album that does not
have room for today's photo. It never stops. Tomorrow, someone's going to
take another photograph, and that's going to change the whole photo album.
The best we can hope for is that this document is a snap shot of an
evolving process. I'm not saying we should not take a snapshot; we just
have to be careful not to interpret it as a final product.
Your
work has been mentioned alongside Bruce Jilk’s. Recently, Bruce has been
putting forward the idea of learning environments spread out in the
business, recreational and residential community - in some case
eliminating the need for school buildings or classrooms. This is similar,
but not identical to your emphasis. You speak of locating learning
environments in museums, retail stores, hospitals, etc. What do you think
about Bruce’s idea of not having schools at all?
Bruce and I have talked about all of
this and I think we are both advocating the same idea, which in all
fairness originated as an academic argument with John Dewey. Before that
it was just a way of life. Schools as we know them, as isolated and
independent institutions to promote learning for the mass population, are
a very recent invention. In the old days everybody, except the privileged
few, learned from nature or from the work that they did every day.
They learned in context and through a lot of collaborative interchange
with their teacher/mentors. I don’t think it really matters
whether you call them schools or learning environments. For me, the
issue is the degree to which they are integrated with the world or
separated from the world. The answer is probably not
either-or, but both-and at some level. I believe that we need to
keep searching for a more harmonious balance between the two extremes.
In
the Design Principles for community-based planning that you prepared with
the U.S. Department of Education
[see
principles], you speak of “Reflecting the noble character
of public architecture.” You also refer to “flexible and adaptable
systems.” In another article, you mention that
technology will clearly be outdated before the building structure is.
There are some potential conflicts here: Good architecture may last 100
years or more, and will likely have solid (not so flexible) elements. Your
current work seems more process than product oriented, yet “noble
architecture” is tangible and product-like. How do you resolve these
ambiguities?
About half of our work is planning and
the other half is architecture. Process is everywhere. I think
I see all of this as a lot more fluid than your question implies. Every
public building, whether it represents art, music, law, education or any
other noble public enterprise should be noble. Form follows function. But
there is nothing about the concept of noble that limits it to bricks and
mortar. The process that we use in planning learning environments should
be noble. We should also work to build the noble character of the
Internet, which is a kind of electronic public architecture. Maybe instead
of spending time trying to distinguish between the permanence or
impermanence of buildings, it would be better to have a dialogue about
where we have failed to address harmony, proportion and scale.
It’s rare to find a portable classroom that inspires a child’s
imagination. And let’s face it; no matter what it looks like, an
elementary school for 3000 students is pushing the limits of reasonable.
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