Design for Learning project Carolina Katz, architect, Master in Urban Planning, ENPC - Paris Carolina Melo, teacher, M.A. in Education Psychology, University of Arizona [email protected] – [email protected] Betsy Ross Elementary in Houston
Jan 19, 2016
Design for Learning projectCarolina Katz, architect, Master in Urban Planning, ENPC - Paris
Carolina Melo, teacher, M.A. in Education Psychology, University of Arizona
[email protected] – [email protected]
Betsy Ross Elementary in Houston
Community recovery in Chile
Design for learning project
• How school can help in solving community and social problems
• School as community self assurance (daily and in disaster situations)
current situation
Schools as closed boxes in the neighborhood with no spacial, neither social, interaction with the community.
Classrooms as boxes that contains teaching activities not as spaces that enable learning.
Design for learning project:
New spaces designed to improve learning and social involvement
The project works in two different scales:
1.The school exterior and interior design in order to be a “tool” for learning
2.The school in the neighborhood in order to have an important function in improving social behavior and the sense of community, specially in vulnerable neighborhoods or villages.
Proposal from Design for Learning Project for neighborhoods or villages :
The school and the community
Schools as community centers
Community infrastructure as school facilities
Learning win win procedure
The school in the neighborhood challenge
win-win procedure
Some interesting gains:
1.Parents and community involvement in education, improves learning for both, students and parents, specially in vulnerable communities.
2.Schools capacity in attracting synergies may trigger citizens to act as a community. Schools as citizens’ attractor may solve some community problems
Vibrant schools with interesting and dynamic activities for the community to enable social involvement
The school in the neighborhood challenge
win-win procedure
3.Local signature (or identity)...”schools signature can be a compelling icon that defines a whole community”... Look for something about school and community that makes them special and unique enables community self-confidence
3. The school interacting with the community and the local authorities may be
an excellent opportunity to improve education QUALITY!!! (school and local authorities working together)
The school in the neighborhood challenge
win-win procedure
Main Goals and challenges:
How to share spaces – flexibility, adaptability, sureness– a way to improve and multiply school and community facilities
Spaces that provide “enabling form, resilient form, impelling form” - Randolph Hester, Landscape Architect
Manage shared funds – for construction, maintenance, activities - Negotiation challenges between local and schools authorities
Be able to improve and share knowledge from teachers to the community and vice versa (sea-weed production)
Some suggestions for the procedure
Observe users requirements and cultural behaviors
Have the authorities and the community in the plan side
Attract funds and search for strategic support groups
Formulate an initial strategy and a simple implementation plan
Supervise and measure the implementation plan
Be open to change some strategies in order to respond to different actors necessities and unseen or unexpected scenarios
Final Goals
Contribute to assure and strengthen the community
Learn from the problems and success of the case studied
Test a model for further cases (keep replicability in mind)