10/09/09 Future of design, future of education

To me the image of school has always been similar to the picture above.
We used to sleep during classes - which is inevitable since my high school system wanted us to come before 8 a.m and stay until midnight . However the other reason for sleeping in school was that students were not so much interested in other subjects unless they are important. By important I mean those which appears in exams.


It was directly connected to the question in TED's talk, School kills kids' creativity : Why have we been learning math more than we have learned dance? Why is some subject more crucial to go to college than some others?

While processing design strategy I had a chance to contemplate about what we are doing here. It is certain that we are not creating simply a nice looking space. The school design that Laura and I have been struggling to figure out is not just a matter of space itself. Therefore it was insightful enough to watch TED's talk and listen presentations today in Future of Design and think what this school is supposed to be.

Though (to be honest) I was sleeping on many presentations I like the idea from Margaret Stewart, who insisted that the design in the future is going to give tools to people. At this point in education there is a clear hierachy in subjects. Instructions are given from the beginning of school years to students what they should be good at. Montessorri school we visited in Chicago was one exceptional system of school, giving children an opportunity to make their voice.

What are the questions we need to ask ourselves in order to make this "freedom" of design? How can architecture work as a method of improving our current education system? I hope I could get closer to those answers by having more chances of listing presentations tomorrow.

10/07/09 Some points from Chicago visit

Millennium park, works by Frank Gehry:

- seemingly random form but carefully planned structure behind.

- created inner space without walls

Glass wall: thicker supporting in the middle because of the bigger moment they get in the middle

Comparison of the oldest masonry building and Mies's building:

- Building construction as a subtractive way, and as a structural way.

Mies's design:

-aligned lighting system, grid system

- Corner of buildings: enable us to recognize whether this steel frame works as an actual structure or just an ornament

Mccormic Tribune student center in IIT:

-ramped staircase

-how color and texture of the building defines the space.
-subtle difference of the center in section view

-reflecting the road outside, creating circulation

Montessorri School

:" the task of childern is to get to know themselves."

making kids motivated by letting them do what they want to do.

pedagogical concerns are reflected in designing school.

placing older grades on the top

use of corridor as children's working space

10/05/09 "Forming" school

Switching our working method each other, I started to build a rhino model instead of working with pink foam. This time I decided to concentrate mainly on the form - how to make it into a better looking surface, and how to adjust programs into it.

Alternative 1 is where all boxes indicate both classrooms and other programs. Though I made color distinctions in rhino model, this rendered view would not show which is where. And this could be an intergrated form of programs. Lightwell this time is not created linearly but still is located very sporadically. People in downstairs might as well get enough light through this.

( This time I originally set up the maximum height of building as 4th floor, preventing myself from creating classrooms way above). However the form, or the surface doesn't reflect any of those sunlight analysis.

Alternative 2 suggests very smooth arrangement of programs. It almost creates one big surface where the courtyard is higher than any other space, classrooms are going down again to create staircase-like-courtyard. This time again lightwell is created by cracking between the array of classrooms. Last week we proposed public space as bigger boxes but I thought that public space could also be fragmented into smaller boxes- which again helps integrated form.

What I pulled out from those two suggestions is the third alternative. Smooth surface is generated by all boxes and there are developed lightwells in between classrooms. What I added here is that these light wells get bigger as it goes down to the south and eventually make one big void. (It reminded me of tessellation that Laura suggested the other day.) It enabled myself to think about space not defined as a box, but as a flexible form created by other space. This void can later be either a big courtyard or an outdoor field.