Open Schools English 1
Transcript of Open Schools English 1
From Closed to Open Schools:
Institutional Ruptures and Architectural Dismantlings K. Xanthopoulos
The Past “The most assured way to emasculate the mind and soul of children is to offer them ready solutions”. N. Matsaniotis
Buildings for education, schools in particular, have always been amongst the most
fascinating projects for architectural thinking and design, already from the time when
modern educational theory was in the making. The emergence of the modern publicly-
run school in Europe may be dated at the end of the 18th
century, when Johan Heinrich
Pestalozzi, the great Swiss pedagogist, spoke out for the value of public education.
There have been several highly important watersheds in the science of education and
curriculum since then. Particularly worthy of note, for their lasting value as well as for
the response in terms of school architecture that they obtained, are the pedagogical
views of the German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel (the role of play in education), the
“scientific pedagogics” of Maria Montessori and of Loris Malaguzzi (the built
environment as a ‘third teacher’ and the schools in Reggio-Emilia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach), the ideas of Swiss composer
Emile Jacques-Dalcroze (pedagogic of physical exercise, music and eurhythmics), and
also those of the Austrian anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner (see Waldorf schools, figs.1,2).
Fig. 1
Views from Rudolf Steiner Seminary at Jarna, Stockholm, Sweden 1968-1992. Architect Erik Asmussen.
Of the most interesting complexes of a large scale organic wood architecture,, influenced from R. Steiner’s philosophy. Such Schools as
Orjanskola and Sankt Kristoferskola are included amongst buildings serving complementary to education uses. For a comprehensive
reference to such school approaches, as well as a description of the Dornach initiative in Switzerland, see Kenneth Bayes, Living
Architecture. Anthroposaphic press & Floris Books (publ.).1994.
Fig. 2
Ground floor Plan of Waldorf School in Koln, Germany. 1996. Architect Peter Hubner
In tandem with those developments in pedagogical methodology, school architecture
becomes more self-reliant and is seen progressively to emerge as a sub-discipline per
se, through its apt treatment of the special requirements it addresses of a functional,
morphological and structural nature. Designers gradually overcame the stylistic
fixations of each period, and frequently established their own distinct building style, as
a result of emerging needs and requirements with respect to functionality, mass
production, standardization, technology or aesthetic expression that were changing with
the passage of time. In the beginning of the 20th
century, also after the horrendous
destruction of WWI, a common European awareness began to develop, that the mass
education of the young could avert such failures of civilization(!). Access to mass
education coincided more or less with a distancing on the part of architecture from
previous eclectic, or occasionally authoritarian styles (the romanticism of the 19th
to the
20th
century), and a turn towards the dynamism and abstraction of architectural
constructivism and functionalism, presaging and/or belonging to the modernist current
that traversed the entire 20th
century (fig.3). The need for swift and en-masse
implementation, chiefly in as much as it concerned the propagation of the fundamental
cell of the school, i.e. the “classroom”, found an ally in the norm that had become
predominant, thanks to the new constructional possibilities offered by industrial
standardization and structural prefabrication.
Fig. 3
Isometric drawing of cantilevered constructivist court of Petersschule in Basel, Switzerland, attributed to Paul Klee. Competition proposal
by Hannes Meyer & Hans Jakob Wittwer. 1926
Fig. 4
Plan and elevation of proposed school for the Agricultural Co-operative by Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret. 1934-38.
With the spread of the wave of functionalism and of its concomitant principle of
continuous openings that it claimed for, recourse to industrialized production assumed
the character of a manifesto. In 1925 Le Corbusier called upon the industrialists of the
time, in his “Appel aux industriels”, for a new industrially patented window: an appeal
that he launched a propos of he inauguration of he Esprit Nouveau Pavilion.(fig.4)(1) As a
matter of fact the ‘new window’ was not unrelated to the trend of opening up to nature
and pursuing healthy living. The trinity ‘light-air-nature’ encapsulated the persistent
demands of architects and presaged the architecture of ‘healthy living’. The proposals
of open, quasi-open-air school, or an open-air classroom were not at all unrelated to
those tendencies of the 1930’s that favoured ‘natural living' (Johannes Duiker fig.5,
André Lurcat, Eugene Beaudouin fig.6, et al). Those projects left their mark on the
architecture of school buildings (see l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, “Architectures
revisitées” #370, mai-juin 2007) and constituted experimental models for the
subsequent intensive research that was undertaken, which had to do with questions of
natural compared with artificial lighting, the control of natural lighting, ventilation and
cooling, all the way to, and including such present ecological applications as have
emrrged in the field of energy distribution, conservation and sustainability within
school settings.(2)
(1) It is interesting to note here that the school and its architectural planning and design had been almost a terra incognita for Le
Corbusier, Alvar Aalto and Mies van der Rohe. The proposals of Le Corbusier in the context of the ‘Village coopératif’ (1938) and
the ‘´Ecoles volantes’ with Jean Prouvé (1940), or of Alvar Aalto in respect of the Inkeroinen Elementary School (1938), document
at a minimum the immense value of the wealth of architectural output by the great masters of 20th century architecture.
(2) Similar research initiatives have been also undertaken in Greece relatively recently. By way of indication we mention here the
projects of the Group for Research on the Built Environment of the Physics Department of the University of Athens, under the
leadership of Professor M. Santamouris.
Fig.5
“Open-air” School in Amsterdam, 1929-30. Architect: Johannes Duiker
Fig. 6
“Open-air” School classroom Suresnes, Paris. 1932-1935. Architects: Eugene Beaudouin & Lods
Equally undeniable is the qualitative influence of school transparency until even our
present times, in the exceptional cases when architects themselves designed school
buildings amenable to standardization in cooperation with industry (Jean Prouvé fig.7,
Richard Neutra fig.8, Arne Jacobsen fig.10, the SCSD School System fig.9, etc.). Of
course such tectonic practices and their corresponding aesthetic expression did not
always yield noteworthy as such results. In pursuing such directions, school stereotypes
were developed and still do even to the present day, mainly on account of a growing
construction industry, but, though satisfying indeed the social and practical demand for
more ‘classrooms’, regrettably do so with very few interesting applications.
Furthermore, the dogmatic fixation of architects of the modern movement on one-sided
principles of typology, often produced indifferent buildings that did very little to
promote a positive pedagogical environment, with only very few exceptions, found
chiefly under circumstances where the topography served as an impetus for inspired
architectural solutions (Dimitris Pikionis, fig.11). In other words, to a substantial degree,
architecture seemed unable to contribute to the creation of an environment that would
support and promote the predilection of the young human being for real learning,
individual and collective expression, and communicative conviviality (3)
Fig. 7
Prefabricated School in Vantoux, France. 1950. Designer: Jean Prouvé
Fig. 8
“Open-air” School at Corona, California, U.S.A.. 1935. Architect: Richard Neutra
‘Lesson at the courtyard’.
Fig. 9
The flexible building system SCSD as designed for application ifor schools in the U.S.A. (source: SCSD.Educational Facilities
Laboratories-EFL: 1970)
Fig.10
Ground floor plan of Munkengaard School, Gentofte, Denmark. 1954-56. Architect:Arne Jacobsen
(example of symmetrical-“hippodamic” organization of classrooms, atriums and circulation axes with central
location of meeting hall)
(3) See the pertinent dictum of Architect Louis Kahn on ‘institutions’, the institutions that the modern
city should inspire and possess; those that enhance: ‘the inspiration to meet’, ‘the inspiration to learn’
and the ‘inspiration to express
Fig.11
Plan of Primary School at “Pefkakia”, Athens,1932. Architect: Dimitri Pikionis
Fig.11a (see English tranlstion text)
Photographic view of School at “Pefkakia”, Athens, 1932 by D. Pikionis
The Present and the future: towards the ‘Open School’
“If childhood is a journey let us see to it that the child does not travel by night”. Aldo van Eyck
What form does the Pedagogy of the present assume?
Concomitantly, how does the architecture of today’s school
express itself?
What factors create the character of the new school and its
‘classrooms’?(fig.12)
Fig.12
Classroom typologies (source: Alfred Roth: The New Schoolhouse, p.44)
Perhaps we should not be looking for definitive answers to all
those questions, but should rather seek to establish several
creative arguments and counter-arguments that might open up
new windows and perspectives as regards the role of schools and their architecture.
That is the important thing for our present era of pluralism, with its newand variegated
conditions of work, with the impact of its profusion of offerings, with the causality
underpinning its technology, while our natural environment and climate are in the
process of being destroyed, and bio-diversity is at risk, while also our societies assume
a multicultural character, with the corollary of individual retrenchment and consequent
social isolation and loss of humanizing personality traits, in the grip of the vicissitudes
of change that lie beyond our control, etc. However, even now, each society, for its own
reasons that seem obvious to it, and perhaps with greater intensity than ever before,
looks to establish a system of high quality education, capable of differentiation, such
that would lend itself to assessing, evaluating and incorporating the volatile, albeit
actual circumstances, and the existential concerns and worries, as well as the visions of
its young.
To this purpose, pedagogical programs have been implemented already and have
widened the scope of young people’s learning and cultivation by encompassing
initiatives and actions of self-affirmation, artistic expression, social inclusion and
coexistence, as well as inter-communal involvement. There have already been several
notable architects pursuing such objectives who, in the school buildings that they have
proposed and designed have sought, if only in part, to invest school space with this kind
of significance and make it the ‘other teacher’. Those are the school environments that
may be seen to belong to the contextual realm of ‘humanistic modernism’, where space
becomes fluid; schools that not only declare their tectonic quality, but also assume a
clearer, frequently multi-faceted and occasionally expressionist character through their
form, their scale, their texture and their color settings, their light, or the range of
possibilities that they allow for, and the ambience that they excite and produce (fig.13)
(q.v. e.g. Hans Scharoun fig.14, Gunter Benisch fig.15, Alison and Peter Smithson fig.16,
Aldo van Eyck fig.17, Denys Lasdun fig.18, Takis Zenetos fig.18a, Carl Nyren, Hardy-
Holzman-Pfeiffer Assoc.fig.19, Herman Hertzberger fig.20, more recently, Henri Ciriani
fig.21, the Morphosis Architecs fig.22, Patkau Architects fig.23, Zvi Hecker fig.24, et al.,
including a number of public agencies’architects that have designed distinguished
school installations figs.25,26).
Fig.13 Light and space at Suna School in Espoo, Finland, 1985. Architects: Kari Jarvinen & Timo Airas
Fig.14 Plan of Geschwister School in Westphalia, Germany,1958-62. Architect: Hans Scharoun
Fig.15 Interior view of School at Bad Rappenau,1992. Architects:Gunter Benisch – Benisch & Benisch
Fig.16 Wokingham School 1958. Plan & elevation. Architects: Alison+Peter Smithson (see “class street” concept)
Fig.17 Orphanage in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1955-60. Plan. Architect: Aldo van Eyck
Fig.18 “designing a plant …”, a metaphor application in the plan of Hallfield School, Paddington, London, England, 1952. Architect:
Denys Lasdun
Fig.18a Plan of School at Aghios Dimitrios, Nea Smyrni, Athens, 1969-74. Architect: Takis Zenetos
(the “potential school of the future” according to a relevant comment of E.Kalafati and D.Papalexopoulos in their recent book: Takis Ch.
Zenetos, Digital visions and architecture. Libro publ., Athens 2006 –in greek)
Fig.19 Salisbury School, Maryland, U.S.A. 1973. Plan. Architects: Hardy,Holzman,Pfeiffer
Fig.20 View of meeting and circulation space of the Montessori College at Oost, Amsterdam, 1999. Architect: Herman Hertzberger
Once again, the school becomes a nodal point between the home, the work place and
leisure facilities, within the wider community of which it is a part and which it also
serves, under a new perspective for a ‘life-long’ educational and learning process.
Subsequently, the demand for a new sort of school aims largely at regaining and/or
creating conditions of ‘open’ learning –an educational environment as it had been
attempted in the recent past, under slightly different terms, and as it has therefore
tended to evolve. In a similar sense, the relationship of the school with education and
society aims to be immediate and bilateral, to be fully open in other words, just as the
relationship of architecture with an educational context, and with socio-cultural
conditions generally, is deemed to be necessarily an open one, going both ways, and
decisive in the role it may play.
Fig.21 External entrance view of Nursery School at Marne-la-Vallée, France, 1986. Architect: Henri Ciriani
Transparency between the entrance, the internal reception area and the internal playing field
Fig.22 Diamond Ranch High School at Pomona, California U.S.A.1999-2000. General view. Architects: Morphosis-Thom Mayne
Fig.23 Strawberry Vale School in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1995. Section & elevation. Patkau Architects
Fig.24 First floor plan of “flower-shaped” Jewish School in Berlin, Germany. 1998. Architect: Zvi Hecker (source: House of the Book by
Zvi Hecker. Publ.Black Dog Ltd.1999)
Fig.25 Ground floor plan of High Lawn Primary School, Bolton, England. 1953. Architects:B. Claydon & J.D. Foy
(examplary application of a typical layout of a small school in the 1950’s in England)
Fig.26 Ground floor plan of Wokingham School, Berkshire, England, 1951-53. Architects of the Building Dept. of
the Ministry of Education, England)
This School was innovative in the formation of the street axis at its ground level, around which unfolded social and collective activities,
as well as in the vertical development (4 floors) of educational spaces at the center of the axis (see entrance area 1)
Given how the three previous decades have seen a tremendous broadening in the scope
of the information and knowledge available to us, such persistent harping on the notion
of ‘openness’ assumes the character of a palpable common place. Even countries,
whose educational systems could boast of a tradition of excellence in terms of their
performance or infrastructure, are experiencing the transition as a necessity,
occasionally the upheavals too, in their contemplation of and quest after the appropriate
content and form of the new school.
In Finland for instance, a telling passage in a fairly recent issue of the architectural
journal ‘Arkkitehti’ that had been devoted to he topic of ‘schools’, reads as follows:
“Information networks are expanding, and even schoolboys/girls could study with a
laptop computer at home and in libraries. Are school buildings needed anymore? The
school still has an important role in the socializing of youth; it is a to meet age mates
and to grow up together……….
The space norms regulating school construction have now been dismantled, so the
preconditions for creating new kinds of school buildings and renovating old ones are
good. New school laws give ample possibilities to develop school working methods.
Views on learning have been renewed, and working habits focused on teachers are
changing towards a more pupil-focused approach. Teaching encourages observation
and an independent working style.
The school of the future already exists, as Finland already has a full stock of school
buildings. What should be done to about 4000 comprehensive schools and almost 500
upper secondary schools to make them correspond with the needs of new teaching
methods and practices?...........
The school building of the future will be open, transparent, adaptable and flexible,
combining architectonic diversity and functional versatility. Schools will no longer
consist of successive classrooms with connecting corridors; instead, the central space
will be an open learning hall, information and resource
centre, library-mediatheque, a market place of events.
……….”(4) (figs.27-30)
Fig.27 Ground floor plan of Aurinkolahti School in Vuosaari, Finland, 1998-2001. Architects: Raimo Teranne & Leena Yli-
Lonttinen (note: the school examples from Finland bear as a common feature.s: the open area around them connecting to the
surrounding municipalities and their community facilities, the multi-functional space-central locus of reference, of meetings and
different activities (outside athletic events which take place in the second large area of group activities), around which develop class
clusters with transparent partitions, around common halls and workshops for technical skills, woodwork, music, cooking, etc.) Fig.28 The central multi-functional space at Aurinkolahti School in Vuosaari, Finland
Fig.29 The central multi-functional space at Herttoniemenranta School, Helsinki, Finland, 2000-2001. Architect: Olli Pekka Jokela
Fig.30 The central multi-functional space at Torpparinmaki School, Finland,1999. Architects: Seppo Hakl
(4) see Reino Tapaninen.’A School or barracks for our children’, in Arkitehti #4, 2001, p.25.
The traditional school is tending to distance itself from the still powerfull influence of
the teacher-centered dissemination and dry memorization of notions, the dominant
discipline of the isolated class, the linear arrangement of classrooms usually along a
dull circulation corridor. In other words it tends towards the quest for and application of
an attitude wherein each individual student may, in the context of the school community
and collectivity, choose, manage and extend further the object of knowledge, beyond
and outside the main body of established, yet intelligent teaching, far from the
institutional conception of the school qua stereotype, seeking after new models which
clearly expand the recorded typology of school spatial organization and, by extension,
of school architecture.(fig.31) (Note: As this article was being printed, an excellent reference to the latter point
circulated recently, under the editing skill and expertise of Mark Dudek, by the title:’School and Kindergartens; a Design Manual”,
published by Birkhauser Verlag AG, 2007)
Fig.31 Typological diagrams of school layout organization (source: Bradford
Perkins - see bibliographic references) However, while the persistence of the established
system continues to enjoy momentum, the demand
for the “greening” of the school is neither recent,
nor an invention of the modernizing spirit of a
particular society. Just as with every effort for
radical change, the new school is, even though only
in part, an experiment towards educational and
social transformation, as well as the field of school
design to respond to with its own imput.
The ‘prehistory’ of the ‘open school’ might be
adduced in several important examples, even
through the pedagogical and architectural heritage
of the recent past. The multi-functional importance
of interstitial spaces, the spaces for assembly and
the multiple and/or alternative uses in the core of
the school, the open front of the school to the
surrounding community, the multi-dimensional
aspects of space in the ‘classroom’ with its various
possibilities for organization, etc., have been issues
that were dealt with, as already broadly mentioned,
by many architects of the past with creative intelligence and sensitivity, either as a
result of their programmatic commitments, or through their perspicacious enrichment.
However, if one desires to seek a comprehensive and audacious interpretation thereof,
one should perhaps select a specific period in time in the course of the development of
the notion of the ‘opening’, or of the ‘greening of the school’ and its implementation, in
the case of an example from the USA. This refers to the period from 1965 to 1975, a
time when one could perceive a conviviality of opposing and often conflicting views
ranging from extreme conservatism to the more radical grass-roots movements. That
decade, as one could fairly easily maintain, was an extremely contentious and creative
time, with pioneering visions which expanded and had a substantial impact on the
school system itself. On another side, the dawn of electronic information and electronic
design can be located at that same time. Around 1965 the first computer centers in
universities and research facilities began to be used regularly. As far as the school
system itself was concerned, that was the time when the ‘greening of the high school’
was also proposed, under the guise in which it was initially developed at a Symposium
which saw position statements and proposals coming from 35 school specialists, all of
which dealt substantively with the open school seen in contrast to the existing, which
was the object of scathing criticism.(5)
In formulating the claim for another type of school, the Head of the Education Board of
the City of New York had said at the time:
“We ought to acknowledge that the function of the school has changed and with it the
needs of the built environment. We no longer need classrooms … Individuals can now
be organized around the sources of information and around the means whereby they
look for their peers in their search and management of knowledge. Therefore, we are
looking for different types of space: spaces for small groups, friendly spaces that
nurture and encourage social interaction; spaces for multiple uses and large
assemblies. We need information centers, multimedia centers, spaces for storage and
retrieval, processing and presentation of information; we need broad surfaces, flat,
vertical and three dimensional settings for the exhibition of handicraft, works of art or
other things that it is important to put on display …. we need shops and workshops for
the invention and construction of works of art and science … such spaces, varied in
shape and without predetermined dimensions, are also found under particularly
favorable configurations, in buildings that had been made originally for very different
purposes. Those buildings offer spaces that serve as challenges for new intelligent uses
and solutions that in time can generate new ideas for learning ..’.
New models of school programs, curricula and building installations were presented at
the Symposium, along with indicative means and practices that would allow for their
realization. How the school agendas and their respective environment could ‘open up’
and become more accessible to the individual and spread outwards whilst retaining the
nature of school community? How the school could be humanized? How its negative
productivity might be reversed? These were some of the substantial issues addressed to
during the Symposium, suggesting a breakthrough in the reform of modern education. (figs.32)
Fig.32 Avant-guarde application of the new educational philosophy: the Educational complex or
Human Resources Center at Pontiac, Michigan, USA. 1970 (it is characteristically stated in the
internet that: “..the HRC is an educational institution designed to help develop talents and human potential from early childhood through
adulthood … education is made to serve a broader role than it has in the past…”)
Ground floor plan: 1,2.Kindergarden 6. Arts&crafts workshops 7. Cafeteria, 8. Open learning spaces 9. Multi-media center 13. Music room
14.Gymnasium.
Fig.33 Edward Sorel’s sketch, indicative of the compulsory school system in the 1960’s in the U.S.A. (source: EFL.The Greening of the
High School, p.26
(5) For instance the school was associated with an “unloved and troubled institution”, “the most absurd part of an educational system
pervaded by absurdity”, “a sleeping giant unmoved by the issues swirling around it”, etc. (see Educational Facilities Laboratories: The
Greening of the High School, N.Y. 1973)
Key concepts that were discussed and assessed concerned:
- the uniqueness of the individual,
- the doctrine of the compulsory school and of the ‘captive’ audience of students
(fig.33),
- the school without ‘walls’
- the circadian rhythms of students relative to their established daily program,
- the school as a public place,
- alternative learning options,
- students’ natural posture (q.v. attentiveness and fatigue, ergonomic design for
posture, equipment, etc.)
Today, thirty years and more years later, similar quests after the identity, quality and the
form of the open school constitute a recognized field for interdisciplinary research and
collaboration, social dialogue and applications in several countries. Those endeavors are
of course having an impact on the architectural design of the new school, given that the
implementation of the concept of ‘openness’ is interwoven –perhaps inherent- in the
creative exploration and process associated with the former.
In recent Finnish schools for instance, along with the evolution of modern pedagogical
practice, actual and metaphorical barriers have been removed. Many of the new schools
are freely situated in locations that allow them to function and to breathe towards their
interior and towards their exterior, with networks of pedestrian paths, bicycle routes that
surround them, often set side by side with the municipal library, or the health and
wellness center, the parish center, the sports field, the market place. The school is itself
an inalienable, open and active part of a multifunctional and self-assessed community
where the activities of education, culture and social interaction are all interlinked
without exclusive privileges and occasionally without distinct boundaries (figs.34-38).
Fig.34 Torpparinmaki School, Finland, 1999. Plans
Fig.35 Torpparinmaki School, Finland, 1999. External entrance view
Fig.36 Soininen School, Finland, 1994-96. Ground floor plan. Architects: Kaira-Lahdelma-Mahlamaki
Fig.37 Soininen School, Finland, 1994-96. External view.
Fig.38 School complex at Pukinmaki, Finland. General view
In another recent example from the USA, the competition for ‘Small Schools’ in
Chicago (2003) sought to humanize the school by creating smaller scale entities with
marked features of ‘communality’ that could be assisted by the services of sustainable
multifunctional centers open also to the community at large (figs.39,40).
In Europe too, many countries have pursued
similar orientations to redefine the spatial
characteristics of educational contexts. In several
cases the unified central area for multiple uses
does not only serve exclusively the concept of
providing a ‘social forum’ but constitutes too an
open and flexible landscape for individual and
group teaching-educational-social activities. (figs.41-43,44 a-d) (6,7) Figs.39,40 Architectural entries at the competition for the New Community Schools in Chicago, U.S.A. 2002
- Top: Perspective diagram. Architects: Marble Fairbanks
- Bottom: part of Ground floor Plan. Architects: Lubrano Ciavarra
(source: Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. Robert V. Sharp ed. 2002 – see bibliographic references and
www.bpichicago.org)
Fig.41 Isometric plan of Glastonbury Thorn First School at Milton Keynes, England. 1993. Buckinghamshire County Architects (observe central space for general education # and open classes in recesses … similar approach as
with that of Heinavaara School in Finland)
See also: http://www.futurelab.org.uk
Figs.42,43 Plan and view of Heinavaara School, Finland. 1999. Architects: Cuningham Group Architects – Bruce Jilk (Minnesota, USA)
(example of a School with open learning landscape … see similar approach as with Glastonbury Thorn First School at Milton Keynes …
each student has his/her own work space … work spaces are organized in groups of 10 to thus form a learning “pod” … each group of 10
pods forms a larger ”house” unit consisting of 100 pupils and about 3 teachers … the furniture setting is flexible permitting work in small
or big groups, in rows or semi-circles … at the center of the facility is located the “forum”, a large space which can be used for eating, for
exhibitions, as a place for meetings, as amphitheatre… the School indulges also in extra mural activities, in communal services and
functions)
See. DesignShare:Designing for the Future of Learning.http://www.designshare.com in reference to a Conference of The American
Institute of Architects/Committee on Architecture for Education, Amsterdam 2000.
Fig.44 a-d Plans and elevations of St.Catherine’s British Embassy School in Athens. Indicated in yellow are areas of social
gathering (the “social forum”). Architects: K. Xanthopoulos and M. Milissi in collaboration with Archiplus-Stamatiou and G.
Stathopoulos (Selected project in invited architectural competition, 2008)
(6) A typical example of the typological implications of the open work and meeting place may be drawn from the extensive work of
architect Herman Hertzberger (see: Domino Schools, Bombardon School, Secondary Interm.Vocat. School at Hoorn, Montessori
College Oost, etc.).
(7) See also two recent research projects on the new school: ‘Classrooms of he Future; Innovative Designs for Schools’ and
‘Teaching Environments for the Future-TEF’, of the British Department of Education and Skills.
In summary, what could be some of the salient quality features that render a school an
open and human space at the disposal of the ‘little’ human being?
- scale (providing the sense of identity, answering to needs-questions such as:
where do I belong, where can I retreat to, where can I find myself among
friends, where can I work on my own or with others, in informal and
spontaneous groupings that serve various types of activity),
- personal space (space that belongs both to students and to teachers, and also to
members of he community at large, where they can assemble, work, store and
retrieve information and tools for their work in progress),
- spatial diversity-versatility (dimensions and shapes so that individuals can
interact in pairs, foursomes or groups of ten, or twenty or one hundred, with the
necessary visual and auditory independence that suits such a purpose),
- spatial organization-taxonomy (which is not necessarily the same thing as the
stereotype of typological repetitiveness),
- space manipulability (space that is amenable to transformation so as to serve
alternating functions, that make students feel they own it, that it is a space that
they can possess and appropriate as required),
- access to information and tools (this capability should be easily and
spontaneously available upon request),
- spatial-environmental interaction (users of the school should be able to leave
behind them the traces of their presence and their participation in it, i.e displays,
exhibits, happenings, etc.),
- alternative postures for work performance (standing, sitting on the floor, etc.)
- the sense for the ‘coming of age’ – ageing and gradual refurbishment-
restoration of equipment with the natural wear and tear it sustains,
- the implementation of terms of sustainability and energy conservation,
- the promotion and transparency of the work skills and aesthetics (the
experience of work and activity in general, must be offered to the eyes-to the
senses- of ‘players’ and passers-by, without this disturbing or affecting it)
(figs.45,46).
Figs.45,46 Transparency of the school “work” (pictures from Aurinkolahti School, Vuosaari, Finland)
Ultimately, an ‘open school’ is not just its physical structure, or solely its architecture.
Open schools are not merely one more ‘new fangled’ notion of our un-quiet age. They
have to do with the entire plexus of the institutions of a society, of a state; its policies –
especially its decentralized policies and the role of local government- its culture and
civilization, the way of life (re.genre de vie) of the communities that constitute it. It is
related too to the critical maturity of individuals, groups and institutions, their
educational aspirations, their will and the moral stance they adopt. In other words, the
‘open school’ reflects the attitude, perspective and practice of a democratic society. But,
both the necessary ‘institutional ruptures’ as well as the relevant ‘architectural
dismantlings’ are therefore necessarily in step with the values and pace of each
particular society. And the future of the school needs relevant steps. This future is
invented; it is willed and it is also designed; it does not merely mimic the past nor is it
repeating exactly what went before.
Herein lays the challenge for Architecture.
Rémi who exists in the soul of us all is dreaming as he listens to the sound of the open sea; the sea that
sets free … (fig.47)
Fig.47 “dreaming poetics” of the little Rémi (by French photographer ´Edouard.Boubat)
Selected Bibliographic References
Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (www.bpichicago.org), Robert V. Sharp (ed.)
Architecture for Education; New School Designs from the Cicago Competition.
Tien Wah Press, Singapore. 2002
Department of Education and Skills/School of the Future Steering Group
Schools for the Future; Designs for Learning Communities. Buiding Bulletin 95
H.M.S.O., Norwich. 2002
&
Classrooms of the Future. 2004
(www.teachernet.gov.uk/classroom_of_the_future)
Alfred Roth
The New Schoolhouse (revised edition)
Fr. Praeger, N.Y./Washington. 1966
The American Institute of Architects/AIA
Educational Facilities
The Images Publishing Group. N.Y. 2002
Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies
A Right to be Children; Designing for the Education of the Under-fives
1976
!"#"$/"%&'%()(&*+ ,-./&/01/0
2304µ560 7803590:35&/0;6(9% *%& <600</&*=>
?@4-%, 2001
Centre Georges Pompidou
La ville et l’enfant
Paris. 1977
J.&S. Sauvy
The Child’s Discovery of Space
Pelican (?). 1972
ABµ4/6B> C56µ%-+>
2& /0980& /B> (-D.B>. 7803&*+> 8D60> *%& 5*<%9'5;.B. Gutenberg, ?@4-% 2002
ABµ4/6B> C56µ%-+>
ED60> *%& '&%'&*%.95> %()(4>. F <%&'%()(&*4 <0&+/B/% /0; 8D60;
Gutenberg, ?@4-% 2001
G;6&%*4 H.0;*%3I
HI.5&> ./B .803&*4 %68&/5*/0-&*4¨%<+ /B- <%&'0*5-/6&*4 35&/0;6(&*+/B/% ./B µ5/%µ0-/=6-% <60.=((&.B
#*'. "%6%/B6B/4>. $5..%30-9*B 1998 (?)
G;6&%*4 H.0;*%3I (5<&µ.)
?68&/5*/0-&*4, <%&'9 *%& %()(4
#*'. "%6%/B6B/4>. $5..%30-9*B, 2000.
ETH & Paedagogische Hochschule Zurich, et al.
School Buildings; The State of Affairs. The Swiss contribution in an International Context
#*'.Birkauser, Publishers for Architecture, 2004
Mark Dudek
Architecture of Schools; the New Learning Environments
Architectural Press. 2000/2002(reprint)
Mark Dudek (ed.)
Schools and Kindergartens; a Design Manual. Birkhauser, Berlin 2007
Bradford Perkins/Perkins Eastman Architects PC
Building Type Basics for Elementary and Secondary Schools
Stephen A. Kliment (ed.)
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2001
J013% "%<%-&*03I0;
26(I-).B *%& '&%µ+6K).B /0; 8D60; ./0 -B<&%()(590
#*'. G%./%-&D/B 1994
Robert V. Sharp (ed.)
BPI-Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (www.bpichicago.org) (publ.)
Architecture for Education; New School Designs from the Chicago Competition
D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, New York. 2002
Ruth Weinstock
The Greening of the high school
A report on a conference co-sponsored by Educational Facilities Laboratories/EFL and Institute for Development of
Educational Activities,Inc./IDEA
EFL, Inc. New York. 1973
Richard Yelland
OECD/PEB (Programme on Educational Building) (www.oecd.org/els/education/facilities)
“Designs for Learning”; The PEB compendium of exemplary educational facilities (pdf)
Edinburgh, UK.12-11-2002
White House Millenium Council & American Institute of Architects
“Designing Schools for the 21st Century; National Symposium to offer ideas and models for new learning environments.”
Washington D.C. US Dept. of Education.1998
Kenneth Bayes
Living Architecture (Rudolf Steiner’s ideas in practice)
Anthroposophic Press & Floris Books (publ.)
Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire UK. 1994
George Mesmin (µ5/%K6.". "5-/53&*+>)
H0 <%&'9, B %68&/5*/0-&*4 *%& 0 8D60>
#*'. L-4µB, ?@4-% 1978
26(%-&.µ+> 7803&*D- G/&69)-/27G – A/.B 7.#.#. – Hµ4µ% M65;-%>
G/&6&030(&*I "60(6Iµµ%/% "60.803&*4>, ABµ0/&*4> *%& L=.B> #*<%9'5;.B>
("60'&%(6%K=>)
27G, ?@4-% 1984
?68&/5*/0-&*I <56&0'&*I (<56&06&.µ=-B 5<&30(4):
?68&/5*/0-&*I $=µ%/% 13/1979. “#*<%9'5;.B *%& .803&*I */46&%”
Arkkitehti -The Finnish Architectural Review #4/2001. “Schools”
Detail #43 Serie 2003. “3 Schulbau”
Arkkitehti -The Finnish Architectural Review #1/2004. “Schools”
The article was published in the Intern. Review of Architecture A2L#7 of May 2007 (pp.48-59). The
original text was in greek and a major part of it was translated into english by Alexander Zaphiriou
Note: Figures 1,28,29,30,35,37,38,44,45 and 46 are from the writer’s photographic archive