Interesting Read
http://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/11800-musical-chairs
Like most of my peers, I entered this studio with a very conventional sense of what education should be, and these past 20+ weeks have really altered those beliefs. What exactly was this Open Source Learning, and how was it the “end-all” answer to learning in the 21st century? Through exploring many texts and traversing new cities, I feel as if I have pieced many of the big ideas together.
The Dewey and Illich readings for me were a great introduction into this idea of an open source learning ideal. Having a system that is based off a shared network of skills and ideas rather than a “Sage of the classroom,” as Mark would put it, is essential for a 21st century scholar (Ahem, life long learner). Needless to say, I was convinced. Growing up feeling… less than smart than my peers wasn’t always easy. I struggled in math, but excelled in art, history, and english, which makes me realize that not every student learns the same. The big question for me however was to see how architecture could provoke and ignite these learning conditions: ones that vary in scale and ambiance to bring to best of each student, have each lifelong learner find their own spark. Unpopular opinion: I did however enjoy my high school experience. I felt the way my school went about with teaching it was always refreshing and fun, like many of the schools we visited was highly project based which included projects that bridged science, english, and history.
Our journey to San Diego and Chicago allowed us to rub shoulders with some of the leading educators and architects of this awakening of rethinking education. With these two visits as a collective mind, we as a studio came up with manifestos which embody what learning should be. It was honestly an intense and daunting experience, however with the help our each of the educators we were able to reach a consensus.
The biggest epiphany for me perhaps had to be the notion that Mark had set up our studio as an Open Source environment! I feel like our studio was just a constant exchange of knowledge beyond the bond I got to develop with each one of my classmates. By the end of winter quarter, you started to get an idea who excelled at what, and that honestly was such a big help whenever I didn’t necessarily know how to go about something
Beyond just the big ideas, these past two quarters also pushed me as a designer… and designing with another person. With the integration of ECS and the major focus on section and wall sections this quarter, I felt like the sheer amount of detail was difficult to piece together initially. It definitely comes through many iterations and learning from others at the pin ups. I’m leaving this quarter with a good understanding on systems and how things are constructed to say the least.
First quarter I really explored the idea of integrating my ideas of education with the sectional qualities of my building and the micro scale of the spaces to facilitate different sensorial learning environments. Dialing in on the visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning environments in which to learn from was my design driver. My depth of rhino modeling increased a lot this quarter, and it’s still my favorite project that I’ve done til this day.
Second quarter my partner and I continued these ideas of flexible learning spaces within our school to help make learning fun. These informal places to exchange knowledge, we coined as the living rooms, which offer different scales of sociability. The four living rooms in addition to the interest areas and the Learning Pods combine and allow students to learn in a variety of ways. The process getting to the end was a real struggle though because it honestly felt like our ideas were constantly shot down, and for a while it seemed like every studio Taylor and I would be starting from scratch.
Working with a partner proved difficult at times, but my main takeaway from this whole experience is to hold yourself accountable for everything you say you’re going to do, and I felt like I held myself to these principles. It was challenging at first to set up times for my partner and I to work together, with me being a night person and my partner being the opposite. Sacrificing my own personal needs was in part a way that helped me pull my part of the weight however.
I am a person who does not learn unless I try it out first, I literally learn by doing…. That is why at the beginning of these 23 weeks together the entire idea of Open Source Learning was way out of my comprehension, I was happy with the way my high school handled education unlike many of my peers because I came from a school that was headed toward a similar path of OSL. However, as a studio we didn’t actually experience our first school field trip until midterm of Winter quarter my grasp of the concept was practically non existent. It wasn’t until High Tech High that I had an idea of how these schools worked and more or less what we were striving for as a school environment. Later, in Chicago, we learned how these school are made, what it takes and we as a studio were striving for. It wasn’t until the Manifesto that we realized exactly what we wanted and what it would take to accomplish it. After this enlightenment of an experience I felt like I could try out an OSLA of my own and/or as team with the ability to collaborate and exchange ideas.
When it came to the actual design it was just a matter of trial and error what exactly do you want out of it?
Here’s my go in our ThinkLinks Learning Academy’s Project Concept:
“What’s the story we’re trying to tell? Our project originated by this concept of ‘Links’ which were these four arms that were connected at the ends by four nods. Although, the geometry of the building may not appear the same the general notion of it has remained as well as the project’s concept itself. The four arms have been reduced down to three which is where our interest areas are located and the nodes are the location of our classroom clusters.
Throughout the school you can find meandering paths of circulation as well as ones that are more direct. The former can be found circulating around the two courtyards where you are connected by the arms. Inside these are our lofts in double-story spaces. You have the opportunity to watch what classmates from different interest areas are doing. For example, in the Culinary loft one may hangout above and see what the students are doing, smell what they are cooking, and hear what they are planning. Then they go down and touch/feel what they’ve created but ultimately they can taste what they’ve experienced. This goes for all the others too (media, product, and organizational). By coming in contact with all five senses, in the end, you’ve gotten a sense of belonging. A self-identity that this is your school, our school. You are not all in your four separated areas doing separate things but to the contrary you are all working on different projects together. You need outside perspectives from peers so that they can try your food, test your new invention, or listen to your next big hit. It is a give and take dependent upon each other that brought together by the entire experience of the school and where this experience expands beyond the classroom to the exterior and to the common spaces.”
This was a challenge (in a positive way) because as I found myself explaining the project on our final review it was sort of like a checklist where we asked ourselves did we really meet every single experiential/spatial goal mentioned above? And I think we did, we were able to justify the reasons why we designed the way we did based of the concept.
Although it’s fairly clear that Open Source Learning does help students academically and may prepare them for their future, I’ve always wondered if that would affect them in their college career as classes are taught completely different and the number of students would most likely be higher than what they are accustomed, my question(s) is would they be at an advantage? Would they struggle? Or would they be in the same boat as students from “ordinary” high schools would be?
To be perfectly honest, the first time I heard about the design project of OSLA, I did not respond with overwhelming enthusiasm. There was non of the usual symptoms of receiving a new project – the overwhelming anticipation of designing a monumental structure, the hopeful praying for an unprecedented site and program. Instead, designing a high school seemed, if anything, a little simple. However, after having survived the last twenty or so three weeks, each individual in our Open Source Learning Lab can attest to the fact that this can’t be any further from the truth. Perhaps its the quarter system, or perhaps it’s what I have always been taught about learning; each studio I try to take away something new about architecture. In our double quarter studio think tank, I believed I garnered knowledge about not only architecture, but education itself.
The plethora of challenges that were presented to us winter and spring quarter varied in nature. Fundamentally, as we have learned through careful dissection of our manifestos, designing for education (especially in the future) is a problem composed of variables instead of constants.
Perhaps the overarching roadblock all quarter has been integrating all the tiny pieces of information into one coherent project. As we learned in Chicago, a school is an inclusive environment for a myriad of different individuals: the children, the parents, the teachers, and even the local community. Finding a space that accommodates every part of this holistic group was indeed a design challenge. How do you even integrate a student who might be industrial design focused, with someone whose sole goal in life is to ball, all taught by someone who is determined to enhance the high school band program? Almost impossible. However, I think most groups were able to overcome this simply by designing inside out – program focused designed can really inspect human interaction in a small group scale, allowing us to really thing about each specific space within our projects. Through this method, we were able to consider components of education, like curriculum and counseling, in tangent with the architectural spaces themselves.
The actual submissions themselves were also overwhelming at times. When each project assignment consists of about 20 diagrams, 5 renders, 2 sections, and a cornucopia of other checkboxes, it may seem impossible to complete all of them. I believe that this really matured the studio in several ways. First and foremost, it taught us all to cherish the ‘story’ of our projects and project it into our work as thoroughly as possible. The technical details, though important, dim to insignificance compared to the experiential journey through our Open Source Learning Academies. The deadlines also helped us prioritize the important elements in our projects. It forced us to avoid being stuck in rhinospace – instead of modeling railings for hours on end, we were much more concerned with the larger scope of how the school operates. Finally, having the assignments simply gave us a strict time schedule, ensuring that we were able to finish for final review instead of having work accumulate to impossibility like it usually does.
Partnership in the second quarter, though challenging, was beneficial to each individual student. Although each and every group (except maybe Scott and Waylon, colloquially and lovingly known as Scaylon) had its ups and downs, it really challenged us to accommodate a different point of perspective by re-examining our own. It exposed us to new ways of thought, new aesthetics, and new ways of problem solving. Architecture has always been a major full of self-driven fanatics, and the challenge of resolving two completely different personalities was educational in itself.
To the students of the future:
There is no doubt much advice that you will receive, and must heed, from the 2016 students of the Open Source Learning Academy. However, most of all, I urge you to keep this in mind: though your attention will be entirely focused upon the design and detailing of your own charter high school, it is important to remember that our studio itself a tangible example of open source learning itself. A question that I still pursue today is fully understanding how we as an open source learning studio can exemplify the ‘think tank’ aspect of 21st century learning. Are we creating the eternal learners mentioned in our manifestos?
The most apparent evidence of our studio’s open source perspective is perhaps our website itself. It is a living archive, a source of inspiration, a safe haven of critique, and a vessel of shared ideas. It allows us to all gain a depth of understanding that we alone cannot achieve. From the first week, in our discussion of Dewey and Illich, the group brought up ideas and thoughts much more complex than my own understanding.
The identity of the group is an important aspect of our OSL Lab. It bonds the students (and the professor) together, allowing us to support each other through these 23 weeks. It also helped foster an atmosphere which is accepting, in which our works and knowledge is freely shared (and quite often, copied) throughout the class. Building a group identity is of utmost importance. Our two field trips were both great opportunities to do so, and in these experiences we found a platform to be ‘open source’.
So how will you continue to uphold the traditions and values of the future OSLA? And how do we, as past participants of the Open Source Learning Studio, continue to disseminate its ideas, and carry it’s legacy further into our academic and professional lives?
It has been a truly inspirational 23 weeks. I think we have all achieved more than we have expected and hope for; and for that I would like to congratulate us all. Thank you for your love and enthusiasm these last two quarters.
What is 21st century learning? The question we were given day one of winter quarter, and that I struggled to find an answer to. And now, looking back, I see the reason I struggled with this question so much is because I spent my time answering what 21st century learning is NOT. It is not a square room with a teacher at the front, lecturing for an hour, six times a day. It is not a list of required classes that everyone must pass. It is not the same routine over and over again until someone finally says you can move on to college. So then what is it, and how can the architecture influence it?
With these questions in mind, I spent the first few weeks experimenting with the ideas of merging high school and college. Maybe the issue was the layout of schools. Maybe it had to do with the stereotypical, double-loaded corridor, and buildings just needed to bring more light in.
After visiting San Diego and seeing a variety of High Tech Highs, and talking to the students that attended them, I had a new theory. These students were so passionate and spoke so eloquently and seemed much more mature than their age. They focused on collaborating and mentoring each other and working on physical projects rather than reading out of a textbook. So maybe the issue was less about the physical high school, and more about the social standards. Maybe the issue was separating these students from each other by grade level and not having the collaboration we saw in San Diego.
Spring Break was where I finally had my revelation of what Open Source Learning was trying to accomplish. After going through a hundred precedents of schools all over the world that were changing the way we see learning, I realized the issue was not just one thing, but a combination of everything I had seen the quarter before, and it had been in front of me the whole time. Schools need to be open. Open grade levels, open design focuses, open teachers, open classrooms, open buildings.
Once we partnered up spring quarter, and Vera and I started to talk about all of our interpretations and understandings of learning, suddenly we couldn’t work fast enough. Every day there was a new idea, new inspiration, new precedent, new shape that made us even more passionate about what we were trying to do. We went through rolls and rolls of trace paper and pens sketching out everything until we both fell in love with what we saw. Making classrooms that connected, making the coffee bar a learning space, making the hallways both indoor and outdoor, the list of new ideas every day was endless and so was the passion for this project. The biggest challenge we faced at the end of the quarter was having enough time to finish everything we wanted to accomplish. I have never been so excited for and proud of the project we had. I never thought we could accomplish as much as we did (or sleep as little as we did) in the past 20 weeks, but I enjoyed every second. These past two quarters have been both the most challenging and most rewarding studios I have ever experienced and after becoming so close with the people in this studio, I am seriously going to miss it.
This studio has been an interesting ride. I personally, felt like these past 2 quarters have been 2 completely different projects, which it has been physically, but not really mentally right? Yet it has. When I was developing my own personal project winter quarter, I was very passionate about my project and its shape for it had a very specific form as well, but I realize that I was very naive in my intentions. I still had a cluster like theme in my project but it was very weak. In mine and Karina’s project this quarter, we developed our project focusing specifically around the courtyards and the cluster-theme, making sure our structure and form followed these themes. With my project from winter quarter, I wanted a cluster-like area but I wanted to keep the shape of my building more so than I wanted to accommodate what the program should have been. This quarter has really forced me to think in multiple dimensions, multiple squiggly lines, instead of one straight one. It has forced me to become humble with my intentions, to accept new beliefs and ideas, and be able to mold old ones more thoroughly.
Mark has forced me to mature in my ways of thinking. I was always used to showing a professor an idea and asking “what do you think, should I change something?” and then they would tell me and give me a pat on the back. Mark doesn’t really do that, you’ll ask him a question and he would be like “hmm maybe.” I remember very vividly an experience where I focused-in all of my energy on something that didn’t really help out my project, showed it to Mark, and got the “….???” reaction. I could tell Mark was not very pleased with me, and I was pretty humiliated with myself. After leaving that class frustrated to almost the point of tears, and having plenty of rants ready for my boyfriend, I realized I needed to humble down a few notches. Once I sat down, and fully tuned myself to my project, the ideas started flowing, and I really appreciate Mark for forcing me to grow up a little bit as a person, and a lottt as a designer.
I’ve never been as passionate about a project as I have been about this one. I’ve never know a project so well, as I have this one. I’ve grown close to this project like a friend. Sitting down behind my laptop, cracking my knuckles, and starting where I was like an old conversation “where were we? Let’s revisit.” I’m excited to use this enthusiasm with every aspect of my life. I don’t look at anything that I pursue now and think “hmm I’m only going to put in 80% of my effort,” no I try to put in everything and more. Though I wish I had more time with this project to work on diagrams, I feel like I now know how to truly investigate a project as it should be investigated. This was not just some school we had to design, this was an evolution of thought, an evolution of design process and an evolution of thought, and not every professor is able to help his students envisions this, and for that I will always be thankful, for I feel that I am much more prepared for my upcoming internships than I ever could have been.
THE OSLA JOURNEY
I saved this final post to be written after the first day of my internship for the following two reasons:
1. I wanted to see how odd it would feel already jumping into a new studio culture, and use that to reflect the previous one.
2. It is officially summer and I believe that allows me a bit of time to procrastinate.
However, my first day on the job began the same way my first day in the OSL lab began twenty weeks ago: a group of people huddled around a table, freely exchanging ideas. I did however miss the familiar faces I was so used to seeing around me.
So. Let’s begin by going back to that first day two quarters ago. A little background on me: I grew up with an extended family full of teachers; 5 of them to be exact. Most of the teachers in my family fully hated PBL, so that is the idea that was consistently put into my head at any family dinner table conversation. I went to what you would picture a very standard public school, and never really had any teachers who changed my life. And if we are going to be frank, I really didn’t give a damn about education. I mostly joined this studio for the field trip (sorry Mark). Now, I wish I could go back and tell myself you’ll learn to give a damn, and you’ll love every second of it.
In the beginning, the idea of open source learning really perplexed me. The way it was described with the puzzles, to my understanding, was this idea of transparent boundaries. For the first couple weeks, I just pictured a school with a lot of glass walls. However, little did I know that those puzzles would benefit me so much in the long run, and really help me to understand the notion of spacial boundaries, and well as the importance of the iterative processes that are necessary in architecture.
The turning point in this studio for me really came from the field trips, first starting with San Diego. To be able to not only see schools that really heavily pushed for 21st century learning, but also speak with the designer who made it possible, was a hugely perspective changing experience for me. I am very much a visual and experiential learner. The real importance of education didn’t click for me until I was able to experience these schools firsthand, see the students passion they felt towards their education, and really understand the architects priorities when designing a school. My first quarter began to process some of the same ideals, but it had a long way to go. While I understood some aspects of 21st century education, such as flexibility, transparency, and freedom, I didn’t know exactly how to apply them. The lay out was messy and missing one huge key that I believe changed everything the second quarter: the manifestos.
While I thought San Diego was eye opening, Chicago was the true life changing experience, and the one thing that allowed me to rethink everything I thought about education in a short span of 10 weeks. Meeting with the different architects and educational leaders who held a true passion for children and schools and then writing a document combining all of their ideals is truly really inspired me. I have never seen people so passionate about changing a group of students lives then I did on this trip. It is here I began to see how architecture could change lives. Since the first year, we’ve always been told to build architecture that makes a difference. This is the studio where it really clicked. This is the studio where I really understood the importance of consistently questioning and challenging what we’ve been told. I believe I realized good architecture will always go against the grain and challenged the issue that is being presented in front of it. Our issue was to redefine something that had been ingrained in our heads for so long, and realizing that with architecture we were shaping one of the most important times in a person’s life.
Second quarter for me was the quarter where everything clicked but also everything fell apart. The manifestos were my saving grace, and helped guide me through design. I think the strong suit of Allen and I’s project was the fact we pulled heavily from each manifesto to create our concept. Without the manifestos, I’m not sure our concept would have been as easy to design around. If there’s one thing I will always take away from this studio, its the importance of concept and how you can truly base a full design off that. It seemed as if every question that arose these past ten weeks was easily answerable if it fit into our concept; and, if it didn’t, we knew that aspect had to be changed. These past twenty weeks taught me the importance of iteration, and that problems will not be solved on the first go. In the end, we ended up with a building that we thought reflected the manifesto to the best of our ability in the 10 weeks we had; it may not be perfect, but it began to incapsulate for the first time the newfound ideals and passions we held. This is the one project I wish I could work out a thousand times over, until I finally felt like I got it right. The fact that twenty weeks is gone and I still feel like I had so much more to add and so much more to learn is both frightening and exciting. I may have not had an educational experience that changed my life while growing up, but I think I finally found the one. Its better late than never, right?
CHALLENGES
The main challenge for these past two quarters for me was how to create a school that really had an impact. The only way for me to really do this was to picture myself as an experiential user. Never before have I placed myself so deeply into a project than I did with this one. The challenge here was to go against what I had grown up with and what I had been taught to create something radical and new. I really believe school is a big part of what shapes you as a person, and the challenge while designing this school was thinking about what type of student I would produce through the influence of architecture? I wanted a progressive student who was able to challenge what they were being taught, and act independently on their own to shape their education how they wished. That meant I needed to be that student. The challenge was questioning what I knew and acting independently from the norm. This studio taught me its okay to question what you know, and even better if those questions are left open-ended.
QUESTIONS
I really had two main questions leaving this studio.
TO CLOSE
I’m not sure I will gain the same passion for wine and wineries as I did for education and school. There’s nothing really life changing about wine like there is about education (but I guess that depends on who you ask.) The passion I feel not only towards education in general, but my own education as well, will now always have a huge impact on me. No longer will I look at schools the same, or blow off any ideals about education. This studio truly taught me that architecture could really do something to change the world, no matter how cheesy that sounds. But it also taught me that architecture holds its core in the community, and without truly dedicated people we might not be able to change education. Over these twenty weeks, I saw 18 acquaintances grow into one large family with a desire to really make a difference in a me, we, community setting. Even though I now huddle around a different table, and will huddle around many more tables to come, I’ll always look back to the one who really truly inspired me for the first time. Thanks OSL Lab.
I’m going to be frank. I scoffed at the idea of open source learning and its ability to redefine education in the 21st century as over-idealistic, cheesy, even, when it was first mentioned 23 weeks ago. The first set of readings by John Dewey, the chapter titled Democracy and Education, in particular, presented education in new light—as an apparatus based on social and democratic ideals—but I was not convinced that the apparatus (education itself) had the ability to affect change in these values. With that, I proceeded under the impression that the learning model would come second to the architecture. In hindsight, that was a self-imposed obstacle that would give me some trouble throughout the first ten weeks. In the first of the two studios, I was never fully convinced that open source learning would work. However, in making and referring back to our conceptual puzzles, I began to see glimpses of how space and education can play off of and reinforce one another to affect social change, first through the reevaluation of programmatic adjacencies and, later, the kinds of spaces themselves.
Over the course of two quarters, the Open Source Learning Academy consistently grew in complexity. First, it was expressing and reinforcing the concept of learning through the architecture of the school’s extensive program. HVAC, circulation, site, and structural assemblies slowly made their way into the discussion. With the ever-growing complexity of the project, we had to find a way to synthesize and piece everything together. We had to tell the story, but we had yet to discover the all the pieces to the puzzle.
First, the challenge was to define open source learning in terms of the curriculum. With our trip to multiple High Tech High Schools in San Diego, the open source learning model was reinforced as learning by exploring and learning by sharing. It was our first glimpse at interdisciplinary project-based learning. While interdisciplinary project-based learning and open source learning have become virtually interchangeable for us, it was difficult to remember that we had to reinforce the open source with the project-based learning.
With our trip to Chicago, the focus fell upon the spatial manifestation of open source learning. From an early stage, I took open source learning to mean accessibility and inclusivity for all kinds of learners, or simply providing a range of environments. At the schools we visited, Intrinsic, in particular, I came across the idea of structured flexibility, a key driver in my spring quarter project that almost became too open and too flexible.
Despite the focus on the curriculum and space, we had to return to the ideals that they ought to reinforce. As one of the more difficult and thought out pieces of writing this year, the manifesto proved to be the piece that got me 100% on board with the idea of open source learning. In concise detail, we explored the cyclical relationship between the curriculum, the ideals, and the physical environment of open source learning. In brief, the manifesto’s aim is to promote the ideals of self-determination, empowerment, identity, and self-awareness in the individual. As a collective, the goal is to promote collaboration, the free exchange of ideas, collective ownership of ideas, and a sense of community. This is achieved by providing choice and accessibility, physically and intellectually. With the manifesto, I found the big-picture understanding that I needed. Everything we had touched on up until that point finally made sense, preparing me for a spring quarter project with depth and rigor that I have never experienced before.
It’s a fact that often gets overlooked. We really can’t draw the negative that is space. To capture it, we have to consider how walls and structure work to create space. In our project, this was achieved through the plans in the early stages. As we moved beyond the wall and into the other systems, things we not as clear-cut. The development of the circulation proved difficult until we looked the system as a type of space in itself that played off of the boundaries expressed in plan. Working in three dimensions, we were also afforded the opportunity to explore and capture the qualities of a space not possible in two-dimensional representations. Most notably, in the Day in the Life diagrams and renderings, we were able to capture the effect of the split-level components that essentially act as filters between two adjacent spaces and the experience created by the column and facade elements. Working in section and elevation, we worked through roughly 4-5 vastly different envelope strategies before finding one that worked. In dealing with site, we faced a similar, iterative process in search of a strategy that would enhance the educational experience and architecture. Trial, error, and refinement defined our design process in the spring quarter.
To work through and connect all these components, we relied heavily on the geometry set-out. As intended, it was and continues to be the backbone of our project, helping us reference and convey the relationships between seemingly unrelated elements in our building (think circulation and HVAC). In effect, we were literally assembling the OSLA, one piece at a time, knowing that every piece had to fit in relation to the others.
-Waylon
Open Source Learning. In January, I walked into this class, not knowing what exactly this meant. However, for the past six months, I have explored 21st education and discovered the multiple complexities of this issue, but also realized how far this problem spread throughout the architecture discipline. From San Diego to Chicago, educators and designers were attempting to understand the complexities of education and we, 3rd year students were just beginning to comprehend the role of architecture in this big web.
For me, personally, this double quarter studio and thinking about schools greatly impacted me not only as an architecture student, but also as a person, changing the way I thought about myself as a “lifelong learner.” First quarter, I struggled to understand the role of the student and teacher, as well as what exactly needed to be taught. Through this project, I learned that I valued freedom and informal, interdependent learning, focusing heavily on self-discovery.
Upon many critiques, visiting Chicago, and understanding why school was so valuable, I realized that I was not learning the way I thought was best. I had an epiphany that as a third-year, this last quarter, I was going to be fearless and take the risks I was too afraid of taking in the past to experiment and discover more of my identity as a designer.
So, realizing that KMoo and I not only worked well together, but also shared the desire to push for a “fun” school, we set off working with bold ideas, setting no limits, and making it important to have fun even during the process.
As partners, for most of the quarter, because we were best friends and shared the same studio education for the past two years, we worked well. We were probably known as a little crazy but it was because we were attempting to tame our wild ideas into the realm of architecture. In a way, we were allowing our child-like imagination to shine through, always playing. It was this play that brought about the idea of reigniting this playfulness and fun in the students at our school. We were intrigued by the idea of the supermaze and knew that our school needed to be dynamic and a little chaotic, similar to the disorder and messiness that came with learning in adolescence.
School for us became about having fun, sharing, and exploring. We wanted to remove the stigma of high school being serious and about college-prep, instead redirecting learning to be about self-exploration and learning to be empathetic and collaborative. In our society, we are taught that adults need to be so serious and education needed to be serious, as though learning was a discipline. However, we both knew that this image of education could be transformed from being required to desired.
For the most part, we were synced so well, agreeing, being open-minded, and naturally driven by the excitement flowing from our many ideas. However, we did have disagreements, mostly technical, as we were working in a design development quarter, the grueling tasks of designing the structure and systems definitely took a toll. However, it was always arguing for the sake of making the project great. Orbi-tech became our baby and we were parents that wanted the best.
This was the first time we were working with such intricate and amorphous geometries, modeled them, and understood the true complexities of detailing certain materials and connections. For the design development stage, we were dangerously experimenting with things we had never done before. However, it was all worth it in the end. Not only did we develop probably our best project, but also developed as architecture students.
Looking back, I suppose that we could have more clearly defined a more focused conceptual idea. But, I am glad that we did not limit ourselves. We did everything we wanted to do and were steadfast, determined to do what we wanted to do, despite the warnings of critics. We had fun and learned a lot in the process.
Little did I know that when I joined this double quarter studio… that it was going to become something I was so passionate about. I do not know how to converse with people without asking them about their high school experiences and then introducing Open Source Learning to them. These last 23 weeks have been truly rewarding and I believe it has been because we were learning through the Open Source way.
At first, it was challenging to understand what this meant, but after numerous chats around our wobbly table (sorry that was never fixed!) and creating the conceptual puzzles, I grew to understand was this new learning style was. To do this, I had to forget about how I was taught and instead think about how I would like to learn – that is the basis of Open Source in a way. It is not so complex as I originally thought… Open Source Learning is an idea that needs to spread and that is where the conceptual puzzles come into play. The puzzles were so fantastic because we were able to interact with other kids, teachers, passerbys…and come up with new ways to design a potential school based on adjacencies. I loved the puzzles! What made them so special and so Open Source is because we created something that people who do not think like architects could also come up with a solution. In order to have Open Source spread, something simple like a puzzle or board game could allow others to start brainstorming ways to transform high school (or the school system in general).
Open Source Learning is simple and I believe that it has to become the future of our current day school systems. It is a system that creates lifelong learners, because that is what our future needs. Originally I believed my high school should be based on playfulness to have students intrigued to learn and grow, but more is needed. The manifestos and trips to San Diego/Chicago have taught me so much about our goal in this studio – what do people want to be in contact with when they learn? The schools we visited made everything that we had been learning a reality. High Tech High in Chula Vista stood out to me because they seemed like they were running on their own system. The architecture suited the needs for the users and was flexible for the different ways of learning. What stood out were the students that attended this school. They seemed proud to go there… they seemed happy and excited to continue their learning journey. I believe that is a result of High Tech High not “running” like the usual school system. In this system, different subjects are morphed together and there is a set program that the kids have to follow in order to graduate. It is also a project-based learning school and you could see with all the work displayed that the students were passionate about their projects and what they learned. High Tech High has its own system…why cannot Open Source?
After all the trips, tours of different firms, and accumulating all the information into the manifestos, I understood the qualities of Open Source by heart. If I had a chance, I would be lucky to attend any of the schools designed in this studio by my peers. For the second half of the quarter, I worked with KMi and it has been a pleasure to work with this gal again! She is so passionate and is able to comprehend the words that are sometimes hard for me to convey. Working with Kmi was loads of fun, and you can clearly see it with our design. Orbi-tech was a challenge because we started from scratch and we really thought about the how we could have students become lifelong learners after attending our school. This caused us to delay in the beginning, but we made it to the end after thinking hard, also realizing that we do not have the power to control everything…we realized that there was this chaos that was necessary for the students to learn in. KMi and I came up with a fun, share, and explore theme that would guide us through the end of our Open Source Journey.
This journey is not over for me because I am going to continue introducing about Open Source Learning to people that I meet (it is all I know how to do now!). Maybe next time I will ask how can school systems actually be changed or how hard is it to change the school system? How can Open Source be integrated with other building types? And lastly, how can others, who have never experienced Open Source, truly know the benefits of this new system (like we did with our studio)?
What were the primary challenges you faced in designing for Open Source Learning environments?
Over the entire course of the double quarter, we, as designers of Open Source Learning Environments, were meant to challenge what it means to be in a learning environment. In the first few weeks, some research and exposure into more scholastically critical passages enlightened our perspectives on our educational system and learning in general. Upon understanding what educational environments are meant to be and what they are meant to encourage [passion, self-exploration, individuality, etc.] we could then begin to develop and design our own learning environments through an inside-out approach. This initial phase in the Open Source Design Lab was meant to recognize the current problem or potential area to improve our educational system. In a way, I see “Open Source Learning” as the evolution of learning into the 21st century. As the digital age paired with the internet and social media grows greater and greater, the rate at which information is spread, shared, and relayed between individuals is increasing at an alarming rate. So what better way to educate people than through the current trends? So to bring this back to the original question, the first challenge was understanding what “Open Source Learning” really is. Understanding how it can be implemented and how it can be effective. The full understanding of what education in the 21st century is was never officially nailed down until we wrote our education manifestos at the end of the Chicago trip.
After developing a understanding of open source learning, by making a diagram of a Learning Network we could then begin designing educational environments through the conceptual puzzles. The conceptual puzzles were a very effective means of getting us designers to think outside the box. Rather than translating our ideas of learning directly to a building / piece of architecture we were asked to apply our learning in a more abstract and thought provoking manner. By taking a simple tessellation and working the geometry of that tessellation to distinguish space and program we have a result that kind of looks like a school. This was a great place to start at the beginning of Winter quarter because it didn’t make us worry so much about pragmatic issues, like wall assembly detailing, egress stairs, or restrooms. It was purely about the learning spaces.
Perhaps the most challenging part of designing an Open Source Learning Environment is the inclusion of all the detail and life that goes into designing the environment. The spatial diagrams of the conceptual puzzles was meant to get the ball rolling on showing the effectiveness of these learning environments. I’d like to make an immediate connection between these conceptual puzzles to the Day in the Life Diagram which came towards the end of Spring quarter. In my opinion, this diagrammatic technique is so valuable to convince a viewer on the effectiveness and target vision for the space.
The axonometric diagram is an excellent form of representation because it give the viewer the omniscient perspective over every single room and space within the school. But the amount of detail necessary to populate a school’s 3-D model is enough to crash a student’s computer. Although a very effective and useful diagram, the amount of work that goes in to representing the “life” the “fun” the “playfulness” or whatever sense your capturing can be very difficult. But, once it is done right, nothing is left out, every single nook and cranny is designed as a school should be. For me it goes without question, the most difficult part of designing an Open Source Learning Environment is the amount of population needed to represent the variety of educational activities that would take place within the school. And so much of this “population” brings up the other issue of Structure vs. Flexibility. Certain pieces of structured furniture can define the program and intended use of a space. Where as more flexible environments have furniture with freedom that allows the people within the space to define their own intentions. As the designers, we have to be careful to recognize both forms of spaces. For instance, the culinary lab may have more permanent fixtures to house burners and stoves, whereas a classroom may have some interactive furniture that could be used for a normal class session, or be pushed to the side for activities. As a designer of an open source learning environment, your not just an architect designing the spaces, boundaries, walls, and circulation. But your also a planner of the curriculum. Obviously, in order to design a space, you need to understand what is necessary to go into that space. The architecture/furniture can have such a strong impact on the way the space is meant to be used.
Are there any “big questions” that you are leaving this studio with?
How can the what I learned about designing a high school be applied to other building typologies.?
Once a school is designed and built, how can the students attempt to apply their own sense of character and individuality to the school?
Is the boundary between teacher and student meant to be respected? or torn down? Do teachers get a lounge? or should they be encouraged to interact with students?