Throughout the design process I keep attempting to go back to my initial concept diagram in order to understand what it is I am actually striving for. As R.M. Schindler put it,
the preliminary sketch and design is “the very crux of the architect’s contribution, his main creative effort”.
In a way the concept diagrams we made at the beginning were the unpolluted and ideal relationships we thought best embodied OSL; the hard part is to not lose that along the way. In my opinion, great architecture comes from an inseparable pairing between the initial dream and the following design development.
For most of my design process thus far I have been organizing. I’ve been laying out the program in such a way as to reinforce a central idea of my concept: making the space your own. But what does that mean? Well it means a lot of things.
One, it means having a space where you can keep your things (projects, backpacks, laptops, tablets, etc…), much like our studios. Two, it means having a space that you can define; a place that you can make your own through decoration, transformation, and even possibly hacking (one of my initial concepts involved the idea of student built homerooms). Three, it means having the opportunity to take responsibility for your work and share it with others.
One of my beliefs is that effort is reinforced and heightened through passive critique. If you’re sitting at home on a Sunday morning watching Always Sunny in Philadelphia with a mug of hot cocoa, you could care less what you look like and will probably wear whatever you slept in. If, however, you are planning to walk around downtown and go get some coffee at Linnaea’s, it’s an entirely different story; the passive critique of things we take pride in (which for many of us includes how we look) completely alters the amount of effort we put into a given activity. As I sit here writing this, however, I continue to struggle with the question of whether or not this is a socially created or built-in behavior. As 80short remarked at the beginning of the quarter, there is indeed a “third party that has a stake in our education” which is Corporate America. So are we taught by commercials and advertisements to increase effort for the commons? or is this a social tool instilled within us since birth?
Depending on the answer I find to that question I think my design could radically shift. My focus for the cluster was this idea of reinforcing work through exposure to the commons. This diagram I created represents how that system works temporally, with “nest” spaces closing for focused study, and opening to encourage information sharing and exposure (the informal learning).
Through the process of making this diagram I also came to another realization: disciplines share their work differently. For example, where an art student may need public pin-up space to talk with the passerby about his or her work, someone studying culinary arts may need a table or food bar where they can serve their creations to hungry friends and faculty. This idea is also reconstructing how I think of the cluster itself; initially I had linked the clusters to the interest groups, but now I understand that what I had really wanted to do was organize the clusters by how they share their work.
This shift in thinking may also affect the layout and development of my overall plan. Whereas before I saw the interest groups as typologically different cohorts, I now see them as topologically connected.
One of the main critiques of my overall layout was its lack of connection to nature, and the next step of my process is really delving into this connection.
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out I found, was really going in.
-John Muir
I think that every learner, whether they are studying engineering or performing arts, can draw inspiration from nature; so for an open source learning hub this connection is essential, and yet has been overlooked in my current layout. My current plan to start incorporating this essential piece of the dream is to breakdown my design (which is mostly an organizational layout) and critique it bit by bit, starting with the commons. Another thing mentioned during my LPA discussion was the idea of sequencing the common space; if you barrage an occupant with this grandiose common space right as they walk in the door, filled with information and people and noise and projects, it’s going to be overwhelming. By creating a sequence of events, I can start to create focal points and a sort of narration through the space. The challenge will be balancing the purpose of the common space–sharing information–with this sequence of experiences. One strategy I am currently investigating involves “layers of transparencies” such as those eyarosh referred to in our discussion of High Tech High.
The other area of development I need to focus on is site-scale relationships. How can the area between the residences/foundation and the academy become a cultural/community main street that revolves around OSL and sharing? How can the connections within the Residences and Foundation themselves become more like those in the academy? Is the parking lot just a big asphalt blob on an otherwise beautiful site? These questions and others keep popping up in the back of my mind, but are constantly lost when I scale down to look at the Open Source Learning Academy itself. So as I continue to scale down to even smaller boundaries and systems, I must also address these large scale connections.
As I flipped back through my notebook to my concept-diagram-think-page, I came across the central question that started this all:
How can the physical learning environment become a network itself?
I think I have partially answered this question, but there is still a long way to go before a spatial answer is completed for this complex spatial problem.
A really healthy struggle going on here. A few potential traps:
“So are we taught by commercials and advertisements to increase effort for the commons? or is this a social tool instilled within us since birth? Depending on the answer I find to that question I think my design could radically shift.”
Powerful questions, and I have a long answer, but maybe the shorter answer is best: is this your decision to decide for all? How can the architecture encourage (not mandate) the direction you would wish society to go in? After all, this does point to Dewey: before we establish school, we must first establish what is the society (culture) we wish to create. I don’t think architecture can answer this question, but can encourage…
I most appreciate you went back to the original OSL diagram. How architecture can support this network thinking is…well damn tough. And certainly most schools are the antithesis of this…so precedents can be tough. But that is the healthy struggle.
Profound:
“disciplines share their work differently.” This gets back to your habitats. I think that got lost in the “nest” and “tools” – where is the habit in this, and how can different habitats support how knowledge is shared differently? Interesting to think of Dale’s studio presentation yesterday, and the fact you came from Dale’s studio in Fall: can you think of designing learning habitats that support different “pollinators”??? Rather than humming birds, we are now talking about students with particular interests. Perhaps you should define the different “pollinators” and their ideal habitats. Then you can design for them. If we are talking then about a learning ecosystem, there will be multiple types of pollinators which all feed off of each other. RISK here: do let the metaphor get you to think otherwise, but don’t let the design be a metaphor. We can talk about that one….
And that then, brings us to nature – not metaphorically, but literally. Couldn’t agree more with the critique and your sentiments. As you say, your focus has been an “organizational one” and I agree to an extent, and the pieces of that organization did not include nature so well, naturally, it would not be there. Now it is time to break open the puzzle, make it more porous, and let nature in, and the program out.
I hear you on the parking lot….but would just ask that you pick the battles that mean the most to you. Until parking fits into your model of Open Source Learning, don’t let it cloud your productive design direction. Eradicate the image of asphalt parking, and think of it as an oasis of bio swales…so you can then forget about it.