Section 8

One participant chose to present a third design using a different view for the design concept and process. Design #3 was presented as a story through words and a series of illustrations and diagrams with the story focused more on general design principles that could be applied to physical environments that support and enhance collaborative, project-based learning. The presentation provided a historical look at how architects, educators, and communities have been designing educational facilities based on societal history rather than being based on present or future societal needs.

The story, as presented by the participant began with a diagram (see Figure 5) providing guidelines to four layers of what needs to be designed and not be designed for the physical learning environment. One point made was that the layers illustrated the need “to think in terms of the design being done incrementally, and the layers being integral to one another and providing a sense of coherency to the learning.” The participant’s concept was in part based on the thinking of Leon Battista Alberti (Chaoy, 1997). “For Alberti, more than any other activity, building evinces the creative powers of men [sic] because it is superior to other activities in satisfying demands on the three levels on which human activity functions, those of necessity, commodity, and aesthetic pleasure…a building consists of form determined by the mind and matter determined by nature” (Choay, 1997, pp. 67-69). The following was the participant’s explanation of Figure 5.

“I started with colors representing the different points of view. One area [of the design] was the red box that illustrates agreement and enough money to build the bricks and mortar that supports a learning process. Another area that is needed, but didn’t want to build, but did want to at least provide for, was illustrated by the green box. The brown area indicated the area that there was not enough money for but it is important that connections were [made] so that the learners could get to it. And finally, the rest of this, [Figure 5.] the cross-hatched areas, is thought of in terms of creating a learning environment that is to be done [designed] by the learners themselves. “

Figure 5. Design #3.



My interpretation of this quote was that when designing a physical learning environment, it is not always necessary to include spaces or features in the school or college that can be accessed through other means such as community partners, as was illustrated in Phase I with the School of Environmental Studies and the Interdistrict Downtown School. The participant also emphasized, throughout the Studio, that learners need to be given more responsibility in designing their own learning and to determine what is needed in terms of features of the physical learning environment that support and enhance that learning. The significance of that responsibility was shown in the layers to illustrate the desire to design what the participant termed as the armature or basic framework of the physical environment. The participant described the armature with these words:

“The armature creates a richness or soul of the building and a creative transformation of the building. The richness comes from what the learner does with the environment. We should allow them to do that more by collecting the insights, desires, and intents [of the learners]. “

From my perspective, the participant was suggesting that by designing only the basic framework and infrastructure of the building and leaving the rest undone allows for different learners to more easily transform the use the space in a manner that is conducive to their learning.

To create a context for the purpose of Figure 5, the participant displayed several other illustrations he/she created to describe a fictional city. In this city, the public [educators, city, architects, and funding agencies] designed and built a large school away from residential neighborhoods because the only property that was affordable was in the industrial part of the city. In contrast to the just mentioned scenario, the participant explained that at the same time a private developer hired an architect to design several other public buildings in the city including a bank, a library, a hotel, and a church, which were all located within the neighborhoods. The story began in the year 2000 and ended with the year 2020.

The year was 2000.

The next picture is to take a very real, virtual city and tell a story. The city was built about 150 years ago along two rivers. Freeways were added to give more structure. Community icons were built in 2000. Those icons were a library, hotel, bank, and church built in the residential neighborhoods by a private developer and a school built by the city [dollars]. The school was built in the industrial area next to the river because it was the only area that the city could afford.

In my view, the first part of the story illustrated the development of the infrastructure of a city and contrasted two views of how to plan for and where to locate public facilities.

It was now the year 2010.

There were changes. The people realized they didn’t need as much industrial land [and] they took out some of the freeways because people couldn’t afford cars anymore because of the high fuel costs, so some of the freeway space was turned into green space. The hotel went out of business because people were not traveling as much. The bank went out of business because everything was done electronically, so they didn’t need a building anymore.

From my opinion, the above, second part of the story from the year 2010, portrayed how cities and their infrastructure transform as societal and economic changes occur.

It was now the year 2020.

The trend had continued. The library had been replaced with everything being available electronically and the church has gone out of business because…I won’t talk about that for many reasons. The school building also went out of business and was taken over by industry because it was the best building for them to use. It made more sense to use the school [because of its original design] than some of the other [available] infrastructure. At this time, smaller sites of learning were beginning to appear throughout the community. The former library, bank, hotel, and church became school sites [dispersed throughout the city].

The design of the original school built in the year 2000 had an area that I call the “jaws” where the administrative offices were—with a nice view of the river. The next part was the classrooms or the “cells.” The back of the animal…”I’m trying to use soft language here” was for the leftover programs such as vocational education. Our built environment gives messages to people. We call this a citadel. The signature for the building is the school bell, which is how they orchestrated all activities.

Again, from my perspective, in the two paragraphs of the story from 2020 the participant explained that the changing societal and economic trends continued affecting the use of the remaining public buildings or icons that had been built in the year 2000. The school building, being located away from the residential neighborhoods and with its design being modeled from an industrial-era point of view, easily became an industry facility. The participant’s further description of the school presented a facility that supported learning that was highly structured around static time frames and where the learning activities were segregated from one another and from the other personnel and activities in the building.

The other part of the story from the year 2020 is that the other public icons [buildings] built by the private developer had now become neighborhood schools. The architect and developer had designed the armature or basic framework of these buildings to be easily transformed for other uses. Each of the buildings had entrance areas to greet the user, activity spaces, service areas, and spaces that supported the activities of the other areas.

The purpose of the story was to illustrate two different design processes used for the built [physical] environment and the resulting messages that the built environment gives its users. In an effort to explain the two different processes, the participant explained that the process used to design the school was based on using a model. In this case, the model was based on late 19th and early 20th centuries learning theories that prepared learners to work in a factory or industrial setting where uniformity was desired. The design process used for the built environment of the other public buildings was based on rules that integrate site conditions and location, user needs, and aesthetics.

In explaining the differences of the two design processes, the participant again referred to Choay’s (1997) work, explaining models and rules. Choay compared the ideologies of architecture and design from the juxtaposition of Thomas More’s Utopian thinking using models and Leon Battista Alberti treatise of the set of rules and principles of the built domain. “Raphael Hythloday [another Utopian thinker] began by pointing to the standardization [model] of the built environment, urban and rural…fifty-four cities built according to the same plan, identical in appearance” (p. 140), and “Alberti specified that to provide aesthetic pleasure, the built environment must obey a set of fixed rules relating to the actual condition of the site, the demands of the users, and their aesthetic
sensibility” (p. 279).

My understanding of how the participant used Chaoy’s work is that built environments designed from models tend to be identically replicated at different sites and based on assumptions of use that have been perpetuated throughout time rather than from current or future context. The school in the above story illustrated this interpretation. To contrast how design, based on rules, allows for a built environment that can be used for multiple uses and dependent upon the needs of users, the participant described the rest of the illustrations of how the private developer designed the bank, church, hotel, and library:

“The enlightened, private developer designed [built environments using rules rather than models] because he knew what was coming [societal and economic change]. The bank had a common space in which to access the services. The church had the spaces of the narthex [public entry and gathering place] and the nave [central activity area] with side spaces. The hotel had a common shared space, dining space, gift shop, bar, lobby, and guest rooms, bathrooms, and storage on the upper floors. The library had a reception area, a place for periodicals, magazines, stacks, offices, toilets, conference rooms, seminar rooms, and a space for special collections.”

It was my interpretation that by creating the armature for the design based on human need or following the rules rather than a model, that the bank, church, hotel, and library all supported the user in whatever activity was chosen at the time. The citadel school was based on the factory model of earlier schools (illustrated by Tapaninen’s remarks in Case Study 1) designed to support the functions of the industrial era, rather than support human need. A current example of a learning institution built from rules rather than a model and one that supports and enhances collaborative, project-based learning, the participant described the physical learning environment of the Heinavaara Elementary School in Finland:

“Schools [using collaborative, project-based learning processes] need the following types of spaces: shared resource areas, socialization areas, large group spaces, small group spaces, seminar spaces, and individual workspaces.

The curriculum [in Finland] had shifted from the national, textbook approach to project-based learning. The components [of the space] are a home base, which is part of the central resource space. You have overlapping spaces. The central resource area, the furnishings, and artifacts provide the technology, the access, the resources, the books, paper, and pencils. There was space on the floor. Kids like to work the most on the floor. There was group-directed and individual work.”

The learning expectations, processes, and physical learning environment described above are at the K-12 level; however as was stated in earlier chapters, many of the current learning facilities that are designed in ways to support active learning processes, such as collaborative, project-based learning are K-12 facilities. A community college vice president stated in a presentation that for community colleges to remain as leaders in preparing adults for the changing roles and responsibilities for work, family, and community life, the colleges must now reinvent themselves and look to future need rather than past practices. K-12 learning practices and facilities can be viewed as precursors to what community colleges need to be paying attention. A larger percentage of high school graduates are now first attending community colleges before continuing postsecondary education and come with anticipation for different learning expectations, processes, and environment based on their K-12 experiences.

Expanding on the premise of designing the armature or basic framework of the built environment, and of using rules rather than models to design physical learning environments for collaborative, project-based learning, the participant next presented what he/she termed as injunctions [rules] for designing the physical environment. The injunctions [using her/his labels] are: (a) support vision, (b) support communities, (c) support sapientential [wisdom], (d) [support] fine grain, (e) support built technology, (f) support nested spaces, and (g) support physical [or built environment]. The following descriptions of these injunctions, in the participant’s own words, are followed by my interpretation [in brackets].

1. Support Vision
   Move from a vision of seeing the earth flat [or only seeing our own “piece of the world”] to a vision place where we can see the big picture, [where] we can comprehend it as a whole. We need to have the long view. So often our decisions are based on the short view. [Decisions regarding curriculum, how best to serve learners, and the design of the facilities to support learning should be based on future vision, not current or past practice].
 
2. Support Communities of the Mind
   Science tells us that we started out as rocks, then cells…small creatures, then animals, then men and women, to global minds working together through technology. [Humans have evolved from one-celled creatures to an organism with a well-developed mind that for the majority of people is not used to its fullest potential. Technology assists our mental processes. An example is how technology has brought a global perspective to all aspects of life and provides the opportunity to create vision and solutions using the richness of diversity].
 
3. Support Sapientential
   The mind and body are all together, not separate. The mind is the body, the mind and the brain stem together. We need scaffolding to learn with all our cells not just our brains. We need to recognize that as people develop we [they] need scaffolding to deal and interact with our world. Without the scaffolding, we would be mindless. To complete the framework [scaffolding], we need to learn and we need angels to help us out [and] to make us viable individuals. [Wisdom or discernment comes from learning through experience and application as well as through cognitive learning processes. Collaborative, project-based learning uses a whole body approach to learning by incorporating relevancy, experience, and application to cognitive learning. Learning and living experiences are enhanced when others, our Angels, guide and support us. Angels may be in the form of human beings or other living creatures].
 
4. Support Fine Grain
   In the coarse-grain world, we learn, live, and work in separate areas. Europe is more medium grain where learning, living, playing, and working are more integrated. We need to move to a fine grain community where we learn, live, work, and play within close proximity to one another so they are sustainable. This is a real doable community. When I speak of communities in the U.S., I use the term lightly and that is one hell of a stretch of the word.

   A good example of the physical support, in a fine grain way, are the canal houses in Amsterdam, built in the 17th century. What is behind the façade? Take six of those houses and you have a hotel, two you have a shop, and three you have a school. It is the rhythmic, organized structure that serves the community behind the facades. They are variable as the needs change. They are based on the human scale and we as humans haven’t changed much over the 100,000 of years we have existed. [Learning occurs in all aspects of life, not just in formal learning settings. Integrating learning with life and having learning take place in community settings increases sense of community and brings relevancy to learning. The built environment should be designed to adapt to new uses].

 
5. Support Built Technology
   Engagement in learning is higher when we increase coherency and access. I call this built technology because the building and technology are working together. The role of the built environment is to increase coherency. [Design the learning so it becomes a coherent whole rather than separate subjects and design the built environment to support that coherency and integration of learning expectations and processes. Incorporate and increase access to technology and other resources to enhance the learning].
 
6. Support Nested Spaces
   We need to support nested spaces of learning. It is the relationship of spaces, spaces that overlap that creates the pulsating juxtaposition. It has nothing to do with corridors or other disconnected elements. We need the coherence and the connections with access to the various spaces. As Alexander (1979) talks about in his book, design is all about relationships. It is the relationship of the street to the front door, to the building. Our communities are more sustainable if we build at the relationship level. [Adjacent learning spaces that invite and encourage others to enter and participate encourage the building of relationships that sustain learning and living].
 
7. Support Physical [Built Environment]
   We create very few basic frames or elements. The rest is filled in by the user. That approach works for schools, hotels, churches, and banks. Build the infrastructure and let those who learn, live, work, and play there fill in the rest. Project-based, collaborative learning needs micro spaces. [The participant advocated for the basic framework and infrastructures being designed and having the user of the built environment decide what design features are needed to support the activities occurring in the space. In the case of designing the built environment for learning, the staff and the learners should be involved in the design process].

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