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Case
Studies 9 - 17
Case
Study #9: Downtown
Montgomery,
Alabama
A
judge, an architectural firm, educational consultants, and business people
formed a partnership to design a state-of-the-art daycare center as part
of downtown revitalization and in response to a perceived need for high
standards in early childhood care. Plans
exist for the site to be used in family education, also. As it happened, the site of the facility was located near
train tracks. The rumble of
the train and the sound of its whistle as it approached a crossing was a
distraction that soon became an inspiration, however, and resulted in
curriculum development based on the real world setting of the school and
the interests of children. Curriculum
design called for thematic units based on trains, the nearby river, Martin
Luther King,
Jr.
(whose church is just a few miles away), and other features of the
local community. Sense of
place can be used to develop curriculum that is of immediate relevance to
students, no matter how young. School
sites and aesthetically pleasing designs can revitalize neighborhoods
(Concordia, Inc., Architects, & Concordia Consultants Enggass
& Taylor, 1999).
Case
Study #10:
Inner City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Schools
can also be places used to explore inequity and change views of social
structure at no great expense. Paul Skilton Sylvester, a third grade
teacher in Philadelphia, created a classroom economy with the help of his
students. In-depth study
reflected serious, real life concerns of the inner city neighborhood, from
homelessness and unemployment to unfair labor practices, as well as
solutions to these problems. The
neighborhood environment and
student responses to that environment informed the curriculum and the
course of study. Bit by bit through the course of the school year, third grade
students designed an entire social structure, a functional neighborhood in
the classroom, adding structures, jobs, social institutions, and
complexity as issues arose, while Sylvester acted as a facilitator and
problem-seeker. Students
constructed a complex community which allowed them to design new, powerful
roles for themselves while practicing academic skills. Sylvester has
written a fascinating account of this experience in urban
transformation--how curriculum must not merely replicate society and its
inequities but can act as catalyst for change and generate meaning for the
community (1994). The article
appears in the Harvard Educational Review, “Improving Schools from Within, Creating Successful
Classrooms.”
Case
Study # 11: Santa Clara
Pueblo, New Mexico
Schools
may reflect community through art, design, and craftsmanship.
Students and architects at Santa Clara
Pueblo, NM, designed a playhouse for local children using authentic adobe
construction techniques, local historical architectural style (Pueblo
style architecture), and incorporating stones from an ancient dwelling
(Taylor & Vlastos, 1983).
During the process students learned to appreciate the history of
their culture through architecture and design, while at the same time
working to preserve and perpetuate their heritage by using authentic tools
and methods as well as materials with cultural significance.
Too much of our school architecture is generic, with little
character or reflection of place or culture.
It’s not necessary for a school in New Mexico to look the same as
one in Wisconsin.
Architecture
and Design as Pedagogy
Architecture
teaches students awareness of place.
As students engage in the study of design, they follow a
problem-solving process outlined earlier in the discussion of the School
Zone design process.
Case
Study #12: Architecture and
Children Program,
University
of New Mexico Institute for Environmental Education
, Anne
Taylor, Director
The
Architecture and Children program uses the built environment as a window
to study the world and the ideas, laws, and principles that govern it.
It is most significantly concerned with the integration of academic
and artistic disciplines and the interdependency of all things on the
planet. Human beings are a
part of, and not apart from, their environment. The curriculum in poster form
(The American Institute of Architects [AIA] & School Zone
Institute, 1987) and accompanying teacher guide
(Marshall, Taylor & Vlastos, 1991) employ design methods to
explore concepts across subject matter disciplines now already taught in
the schools. Students
solve architectural problems and learn to think three-dimensionally while
exploring physics of structure, design in nature, comparing body systems
and building systems in architecture, visual vocabulary and communication,
and more. The design system
becomes a format for curriculum development in which problems are posed in
terms of architectural program, client needs, visual problem-solving
techniques, presentation, and evaluation.
Architecture
and Children is taught each year in summer design academies for children
and teachers, through collaboration between graduate students and the
public schools, and through IEE consultant work across the nation and in
Japan. This spring, student architecture studies culminated in a
trip to Japan in which students from New Mexico elementary schools, taught
by UNM graduate architecture students, visited their designer counterparts
in Sendai, to compare their designs for ecologically friendly, sustainable
architecture of the future (Anne
Taylor Associates, 2000).
Case
Study #13: Brookside Project,
California
Architectural
practices can be converted into school curriculum to promote understanding
of place.
Brookside
School students, teachers, architects, and design education consultants
teamed up to adapt American Institute of Architects
(AIA) guidelines for
site analysis into curriculum experiences for elementary school students.
Site analysis wo
rkbooks
with age-appropriate activities were created for classroom and outdoor use
(Concordia, Inc., Architects;
Anne Taylor Associates; Wolff
Lang Christopher, Architects (1994).
Copies of the actual AIA guidelines were included in these guides
for in-depth background, and to show in more detail why each aspect of the
site must be examined during the planning process.
Students created basic site plan maps to explore the physical,
cultural, and regulatory factors involved in evaluating a potential school
site. Projects explored
climate, topography and soils, water flow, history, vegetation, and
wildlife. Student input and data collected from these projects was
depicted on the maps and used as a starting point for working with
architects at every stage of architectural design for a new school:
By
the time they were through, students thoroughly understood the school and
its grounds and developed a strong sense of place
(Concordia, Inc., Architects, et al., 1994).
Case
Study #14: San Diego, CA, and
Albuquerque, NM
Technology
is changing school design. San
Diego-based Creative Learning Systems
(CLS) designed
SmartLab™, a responsive instructional environment for the study of
science and technology that goes well beyond the usual computer lab to
give students access to, and control of, applications and information in
areas such as:
CLS
teamed with consultant Anne Taylor and architect George Vlastos to design
“Cybervillage,” a middle school curriculum offering movable,
deployable furniture systems and an ecologically sound vision for learning
to enhance the technology lab setting
(Taylor & Vlastos, with Creative Learning Systems, (1998).
Ecology
and Design
The
Principles of Ecology outlined earlier form a context for learning as well
as a manner of viewing the universe.
For example, several community-sponsored programs using gardening
as a teaching tool have been introduced in recent years.
School recycling programs abound.
Schools are public buildings that usually receive the typical
functional landscaping designs of such facilities, designs that view play
grounds only in terms of recess . Going
beyond these efforts means developing school grounds into academic support
areas, or learning landscapes.
Case
Study # 15: East Haven,
Connecticut
School
Zone Institute and Anne Taylor Associates have collaborated with school
districts at several locations to increase the academic usefulness as well
as the beauty of school grounds by infusing the knowledge of landscape
developers with curriculum goals, and redesigning school grounds based on
input from students and community. Landscape
design provides a synthesis of architectural, educational, and ecological
learning opportunities that have been often overlooked in planning school
grounds.
Students
and staff at East Haven schools worked with landscape architects,
community experts, and science curriculum resource administrators to
transform playgrounds into “learning
landscapes,” or carefully
designed spaces for outdoor learning.
These spaces not only offer learning opportunities and community
gathering places outdoors, but also support the school’s indoor
curriculum and district content standards.
At
East Haven schools, students learned architectural schematic drawing
techniques in order to communicate visually with landscape planners and to
conduct site analyses of the neighborhood and school grounds. In the process of becoming more aware of their environment,
students also participated in clean-up of a local stream and other
stewardship and aesthetic improvements to the area.
Albuquerque science resource teacher Terry Dunbar designed learning
experiences based on solid science investigation and inquiry using the
habitat and physical characteristics of the existing site to study
biology, physics and earth science. Architecture
and Children curriculum (AIA & School Zone Institute, 1987) provided
corresponding landscape design and construction experiences using the
environment as a catalyst for learning.
Students not only analyzed existing environments, but extended
their thinking into dreams for the future.
Landscape architects took student findings and drew up site plans
to be used as visionary master plans for implementation over time
(Taylor, Dunbar, Patel & Lange, 1998).
This same process--moving from awareness to collecting data to
taking action--has been repeated at several schools in California and New
Mexico, and is being developed in guidebook form
(Class, Enggass, Martin & Taylor, 2000;
Sanger Unified School District & Anne Taylor Associates,
2000a).
Case
Study #16: Sanger, California
Quail
Lake Environmental Charter School and Others
School
Superintendents can take a proactive role in bringing research into the
classroom. Communities learn
from living examples of the theories at work, and schools become showcases
for good planning and design.
Dr.
Denise Hexom, Superintendent of Schools, Sanger Unified School District,
has taken extensive reading in education research a step further by
inviting collaboration with education researchers.
She brings diverse thinkers together, sets up teams for cutting
edge learning, and then supports those learning efforts at all levels
through coaching and mentorship. The
district faces low test scores, changing demographics, and increasing
community demands for standards based testing and accountability. Hexom is helping to meet that demand in multiple ways by
adopting clear-cut scrip
ted
reading (Open Court)
and math block scheduling, while at the same time using charter
schools to explore:
-
options
in learning landscape design and visual design education
(Sanger Unified School District & Taylor, 2000a and 2000b),
-
applications
of Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory, which offers a definition of
successful intelligence based on three interacting yet distinct
aspects: analytical, creative, and practical thinking
(Sternberg, 1985 and 1998)
-
Principles
of Ecology and systems thinking as defined through ecological issues
in local development and through interdisciplinary themes
(Kaplan & Gould, 1996).
Hexom
has forged strong community connections through the local developer of a
new neighborhood at Quail Lake. The
development of the charter school to be located in the neighborhood is
parallel to and reflects the primary features of the development at Quail
Lake. Quail Lake is unique in
that it is also part of a national program to preserve wet land areas
within the boundaries of the neighborhood, and the environmental emphasis
of the charter school reflects that unique community identity and
ecological focus.
Students
and staff at Quail Lake Environmental Charter School are excited to be a
part of (not apart from) the school design process from the beginning.
Students are occupying temporary
portable classrooms on site while the school is being built beginning this
year. This is a unique
opportunity for all stakeholders to witness and participate in the
development of the school property. The
Architecture and Children program (AIA & School Zone Institute, 1987;
Marshall, et al., 1991) is
providing design workshops which will enable students and faculty alike to
communicate effectively in the language of design and to provide not just
opinions but informed suggestions for school and classroom arrangements
that support district standards and authentic learning.
While the school is under construction, teachers and students will
experiment with the design of their portable classroom spaces and the use
of deployable furniture, will investigate and analyze school grounds for
educational potential, and will use technology
(digital cameras, word processing, and multi-media processing
programs similar to hyper card™) to document the entire process of
designing a school. Anne
Taylor Associates is writing curriculum with student, teacher, and
administrator input based on the process of development and design of the
new school. The Quail Lake
project is a model which addresses new development and community growth
issues by bringing the client and the developer together through sound
educational practice and research (Sanger
Unified School District & Taylor, 2000a and 2000b).
Case
Study #17: Oberlin College,
Ohio
School
buildings should be teaching many lessons of conservation and ecoliteracy,
or the understanding of ecological systems and the natural world.
They should be habitats for a variety of living creatures,
producing oxygen, purifying waste water, nurturing ecosystems, and turning
sunlight into energy.
One
such building is the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at
Oberlin College. The building
and landscape are designed to show their construction, and to demonstrate
how they function. The
13,500-square-foot complex includes a two-story rectangular building with
classrooms and offices and a small structure housing an auditorium and a
“living machine” that filters the building’s waste water through a
series of marsh-like ecosystems. The
water from the process is harvested and recirculated for use in toilet
tanks. The main building’s
north wall is insulated by an earth berm planted with fruit trees, while a
pond and wetlands filter storm water runoff channeled by a grassy swale.
A meadow and small woodland recreate the landscape that existed
before European settlement. Because
of the way the building is oriented, and due to low windows facing south,
the building’s energy consumption is only 21% of the national average,
according to David Orr, its director
(McDonough, 1999).
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