Schools as living, Empowering Places

Schools should be places that empower their occupants to learn and live, by means of the kind of teaching offered and through the design of the buildings themselves. They should be places with a very special charisma, making a positive impact on enjoying learning and life itself.

There are places in buildings and towns that are especially captivating, impressive or stimulating. Unfortunately, such places are not usually to be found among the products of so-called modern architecture. Looking at any architecture magazine on the subject of building schools will horrify any real educationalist. A Swedish proverb says that the children are the first teacher, the teachers the second, and the school building the third. In other words, the school is the very place that should be designed to have those powerful qualities.

Africa

case 22

Manarah School Compound, Cairo, Egyp

The unique constraints of the high-density urban population, climate and limited avai­ ability of land in Cairo created a challenge in designing an effective educational facility. The Manarah School is divided into four smaller building units with shady courtyard entrances and open space between buildings. The building design is compact, sensitive to site orientation and organized to limit travel between classrooms. All classrooms provide natural cross-ventilation.

Europe

case 13

This school is a private, pre-vocational school for over 1,000 pupils. The school is com­ posed of two parts: A five-story classroom tower and a one-story laboratories/gym build­ ing. There is a central, skylit open space between these two parts. It is used for lunch, performances, assembly, and artistic activities. According to Montessori’s concept, the school focuses on education for individuality by providing various learning and social spaces. The classroom tower has a huge atrium with a five-story height, and various classrooms for accommodating different-sized groups and learning styles. It also has many social and personal spaces such as coffee nooks, lounge, and cloakrooms. Round- shaped wide stairs in the atrium are used for performances, meetings, and individual learning. The education in this school is also very unique in focusing on learning with computers and other IT devices, allowing individuals to work at their preferred place, and offering many optional classes. Even though it is a private school, some facilities are open to the public after school hours (see de Vries, T. (2000, July/August). Montes­ son College Oost in Amsterdam: Ankerpunten in een verticaale stad [Montessori Col­ lege East in Amsterdam: Anchors in a vertical city]. Detail in Architectuur,  16—19)

Australia

case 11

The Reece Community School mission is to instill a love of learning in all students through an integrated project-based curriculum while recognizing and aiming to fulfill the learning needs of all members of the community. The plan for the Reece Campus was built around the creation of discrete 100-student small learning communities. One building on campus was designed in large structural bays specifically to be reconfigured for a variety of learning environments, from a single meeting of 500 people in the entire space to the division into smaller environments for distance learning programs, dance and music programs, and more long-term projects. Classrooms offer wireless computing and provide each student with their own individual workstation with lockable storage to support more independent learning. In addition, the school incorporates a diversity of settings and spaces to reflect different learning modalities of students.

ASIA

case study #9

Gunma International Academy, Ohta, Gunma, Japan

Architect: CAt + CAn, Planning Advisors: Jun Ueno and Kaname Yanagisawa. 2005. I st—9th grade; 970 students

(Author: Kaname Yanagisawa)

Gunma International Academy in Ohta city introduces “immersion  education,”  which uses English native teachers and Japanese teachers to teach  subjects in English as a team. Ohta city is authorized as a special ed­ ucational ward by the national government as a way to establish this  unique school. Students from 6 to 15 years old study ev­ ery subject in English, except Japanese lan­ guage classes and social science classes. The school building is specially designed to cor­ respond to this unique educational  system by grouping every three grades in “neigh­ borhoods.” Every “neighborhood” has three units called “houses” with 100 pupils in the same grade. Each “house” has a closed class­ room, an open classroom, an art and science area, three home bases, a quiet room, and a teacher station. The school is a one-story wooden building with many courtyards used for both learning and playing. Besides English-based learning and team teaching, the school also focuses on individual and diversified ‘learning using  IT.  There are many computers, not only in the media center, but also in each house’s common spaces and quiet rooms. There are also various social places inside and outside of the school. (see CAn+CAt. (2005). Gunma  KokusaiAcademy. Shinkenchiku, vol. 80, pp. 125—134. To­ kyo: Shinkenchiku, Inc.)

Rosa Parks Elementary School, Berkeley, CA, USA

Located in an ethnically diverse area of Berkeley, California, the Rosa Parks Elementary School (formerly the Columbus School) was declared seismically unsafe following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The Columbus School has been the  heart of the West Berkeley community for well over haIfa century. The decision to close the school after the 1989 earthquake was heartbreak and an opportunity to revitalize the aging center of the community. The Berkeley Unified School District supported the community’s vision of creating a model community-oriented urban school. Working closely with the school district, teachers and the community, the architects planned and designed a new K-S school that provides a preschool, before and after-school childcare programs, a learning resource center for students and parents, and a science center as well as space for family programs, counseling, and healthcare services.

The Rosa Parks Elementary School was the result of a long inclusive community planning process, which fostered the design of a human place, but also had an im­ pact on the community. Children and families can take advantage of various community services at the school, including health and coun­ seling services, and after-school activities. Community use of the facilities includes a multi-purpose room for public meetings, rehears­ als of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, and celebrations and performances. The community’s collaboration with the architects resulted in a place whose design fosters community connectedness and social goals.

The  Rosa Parks  School won the  Places! EDRA design award for demonstrating the connections between good participation, good design, and good consequences (Bressi, 2000).

Descriptions and Photographs of 23 School Examples from 11 Countries on 5 Continents

This section presents 23 innovative schools from 11 different countries on  5  continents, including those discussed in the various chapters. A glance at the case descriptions will complement our view of innovative features of schools of the future. Hardly any of the examples is meet all our expectations simultaneously, but there are many that come close to the ideal. The examples contributed by Henry Sanoff are closest to the concept of participation. Kaname Yanagisawa’s schools are especially focused on the require­ ments of information technology but he also describes how the circumstance of having a zoo nearby was integrated into a school’s concept.

The schools contributed by Jef­ fery A. Lackney illuminate the concepts of “learning landscapes,” learning suites and communities. The examples described by Rotraut Walden refer to “home-like” schools with innovative ecological concepts; here, schools designed by Peter Hübner should be mentioned, who understands “design as a social process.” A very artistic school created with the help of the students is the “Hundertwasser House” of the Luther Melanch­ thon High School in Wittenberg, described by Simone Borrelbach. The features of all these schools were integrated into the list of important features for building innovative schools presented in chapters 7 and 8. The vital character of all these school examples demonstrates that not all of the desirable features we listed necessarily have to be met in a given school at the same time. A concept for a school that integrates many of these characteristics and supports clear teaching and learning styles in a given context will be sufficient. Schools of the future are varied!

從5大洲11個國家23所學校的照片例子來說明

本節介紹了從5大洲11個不同國家的23所創新的學校，包括那些在各章節討論的部分。瀏覽這些案例的說明並且補充我們對這些創新學校的特色及未來的觀點。幾乎沒有任何的例子是同時滿足我們所有的期望，但也有很多是接近我們的理想。由Henry Sanoff例子的貢獻是最接近參與到的概念。Kaname Yanagisawa的學校都特別聚焦在資訊技術的方式取得上，但他還描述了如何將動物園附近的環境集成一個學校的概念。

該學校的貢獻是藉由傑夫闡明了『學習景觀』中學習套房和社區的概念。這個例子的描述藉由Rotraut Walden以參考『家庭式』學校創新生態的概念，在這裡， 藉由Peter Hübner提到學校設計，應理解『設計像一個社會的歷程』。“ 一個非常藝術學校的創建是需要學生的幫助且是在『Hundertwasser房子』的是Melanch路德在Wittenberg高中（http://www.wittenberg.edu/）藉由西蒙娜 Borrelbach的描述。所有這些學校的特徵匯集成建造創新型學校重要特徵的清單集錄在章節7和8。這些學校例子的重要特質說明了並不是所有的的理想特性我們一定會在同一時間在某一學校列出看見了。一個概念，對於一個學校在一個特定範圍內將是足夠的集成了這些許多的特點和支持及清晰的教學和學習風格。學校在未來是變化的！


附註：

Hundertwasser房子建於1983年和1986年由建築師Univ. -教授。 約瑟夫Krawina和彼得伯利坎。 其特點是起伏的地板（“一個不平衡的地板是一個神聖的旋律到腳”^[2]），屋頂覆蓋著大地，草，樹木生長的大，從裡面的房間，從窗戶與肢體延長。 洪德特瓦瑟沒有採取任何付款的設計的房子，聲稱它是值得的，醜惡的東西，以防止從持續上升，它的位置。
家內有52個公寓，四個辦事處，16個私人露台和三個公共平台，並共250樹木和灌木。 該Hundertwasser房屋是一種維也納訪問量最大的部分建築，並已成為奧地利的文化遺產（http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus）

Wittenberg