Inventing
the New School Environment |
link to
Master’s NavCenter |
| Education
means to lead out. Most school buildings
trap both student and teacher within - within
the closed box of a building; within a too simple
view of reality and its potential; within a model
of education that is not supported by the facts of
how humans learn. The Master’s environment will be
a cathedral to the human spirit and the experience
of learning. Master’s
Academy will be built in a setting of prospect -
a large
open section of land becoming part of a new mixed-use
subdivision which will be developed in a careful
if conventional way.
This
means there
will
be two
aspects
to the
landscape: the original prairie running to the mountains
and the making of what today is considered to be
a modern human subdivision. How the Master’s
portion of this
tract
is handled,
and
how
the new school relates to both the “natural” landscape
- as it will remain - and the human landscape - as
it will
be built - becomes both a source of an architectural
theme and a major design challenge for the Design/Build/Use [link] Team. |
| This
tug and pull between natural and social landscapes,
each requiring attention and respect, metaphorically
addresses innovation [link] in
the general sense and also the position of Master’s
Academy [link] in
the process of spreading its mission in today’s
local and global educational context. |
| It
should be noted that the “natural” landscape
of which I refer is not so in the pristine sense.
Today, what
we call natural is more often means
devoid of heavy city development. It has already
undergone
centuries of development first
by the indigenous people (themselves once pioneers)
and the European settlers who followed them and now
dominate the state. It is now, that a third wave
is beginning which is the expansion of
Calgary
itself onto this still mostly open landscape. It
is important to realize this ambiguity regarding
the word natural and that the real task
is how we use design and development to create a
new landscape
that is both properly organic and a human
artifact
[link].
The goal is to reconcile this human development/nature
dichotomy. |
| As
modern cities go, Calgary is a very pleasant place
to be and quite livable. It is still steeped, however,
in 20th Century technological assumptions and means.
As a city of about one million, it will become increasingly
difficult to sustain its present expansion
much
longer without a change in design strategy
- but this is not an insight for the majority at
this time nor is it an issue for the Master’s
project unless the decision to build within this
subdivision is challenged. To the extent that the
school, with
its considerable acreage,
can
demonstrate some alternative approaches to urban-suburban
spread is, at present, an open question for the Program
process to address. Here something very
useful may be achievable. Taliesin West is an example
of a natural
setting of significance surrounded now by suburban
bloat. In this case, is was a half a century of growth
that
caught up with a small enclave in the desert. The
result is informative and systematic study may yield
insights. How would have Taliesin been designed
if it were
assumed that someday this encroachment would happen?
Could this have been successfully done? If not, how
could it, designed the way it is, not become the
anomaly that it appears today? |
| Modern
civilization has progressed along a mostly linear
path with periods of extreme punctuated evolution.
Each
major
step has been the result of the synergy of
a number of factors present at the time. The major
constraint and driver has often been the limits and
capabilities of the technology available. The problem
is that most
of the trade-offs made, at any given moment, emerged
without too much awareness or debate by the greater
body politic. Today, people do not know what was traded
for what based on what assumptions and they have
not revisited how the decision might have gone if
the
tools we have today - and will have in the near future
- had been present. The habits of the past
just get dragged
forward amplified
by
the conventional application of the latest generation
of technology. Layers upon layers of unresolved design
problems “fixed” as best one can. Design
by expediency. In the case of our cities, the major
factor that
determines
their
form
is the
automobile
and the technical/social/political structures that
presently support this technology. |
| We
stand, now, at the cusp on several new technical
revolutions: the hydrogen economy, personal work
augmentation tools
and nano-scale materials engineering, faced with
the task of creating a major campus to educate
a generation of children who will grow up and live
in a world possibly as different from ours as ours
is from the time when this land was undergoing its
first wave of “indigenous” development.
These buildings, presumably, will be built to last
a hundred years.
What will this architecture teach and facilitate?
What habits will it impose upon this new generation
of global citizens and those who instruct and guide
them? What will be the educational consequences of
this “hidden
hand?” |
| Design
should always start with as much of a blank slate
as it can. The purpose of this potion of the Master’s
program Statement is to do just that; to ask
as fundamental as set of questions as possible with
an open mind
to where their answers may lead. We will avoid avoiding
those questions to which there is no apparent answer
or lead to uncomfortable conclusions. In a short
time, these “answers” will have to be reconciled
with the
world of a real project that has to build in a real
social setting and economy. These considerations
should not drive the questions, however. The questions,
if matured properly, will lead to ideas that
then can “play” with the in-place world to the benefit
of
both. This is the process of innovation: the mixing
of high ambition with a real task to get done. Master’s
is an innovative school. It has the mission
to
positively effect education globally. This means
it has to deal with transfer and issues of scale.
We seek, in the Program phase of design, the appropriate
architectural expression of all the
factors that must be brought into form in
order to create utility and relevance for both the
present
and future - for both Calgary and the world. |
|
|
4
Projects explores both the value of creating
a new urban workplace and the means necessary
to accomplishing it.
Link
to go to individual projects, click on pictures
|
|
| The
following questions - and speculations - are offered
up as a starting position to fuel the Program development
process. More of them will emerge as we progress. |
1
Can
we turn the Prairie back into a
true prairie landscape; and if so,
can the
the Campus sit within it with enough
surround so that the school property
and the subdivision boundaries
are preserved and modulated? |
1a
Even
if we can do this, is it a proper setting
for the school given the total circumstance?
Is it a proper social statement? Can
we fit the Campus in and allow for
future growth? Is the idea sustainable? |
1b
If
so, to all of the above, would this
setting with a modern Campus set
in it, be the best experience for
the
students and faculty? Would it create
the statement and context that presumably
it can and would this be the right
one to inspire the architecture? |
1c
Can
the school be set - in a prairie-schema
- so that the mountain vista and
sweeping openness can be maintained
while “blocking” awareness of the
suburban development? Is the resulting
sense of enclave a good one? |
2
Should
the master’s Academy embrace the
suburban landscape, seek to be highly
interactive with it similar to a
college campus in a college town? |
2a
Can
Master’s sufficiently influence
this setting so that true engagement
is
achieved and also maintain the
safety and the serenity necessary
for education? |
2b
Would
a suburban setting enhance the NavCenter,
arts and business agendas of the
school or would a prairie enclave,
with the same accessibility actually
serve these better? |
3
Premise:
one
or the the other of these approaches
are best; what will not work is some
sort of compromise between the two.
Is this a valid design assumption? |
3a
Alternative:
the Master’s Campus can be suburban
where it interfaces with the subdivision
and predominately prairie elsewhere;
can this be accomplished? would this
provide the most compatibility with
the physical/social setting? |
4
All
educational institutions are futurists
no matter if they recognize this
or not; their “product” - educated
humans
- live
and work, create or fail to, in the
future; and, in many cases, reach
peak social influence a half century
from
the time of their initial educational
experience. Should we raise these
children in an environment that reflects
the energy values of the past or
the future? What should be our level-of-ambition
in regards how the Master’s Academy
employs energy? |
4a
Values
are taught in the abstract. They
are learned in the concrete. The
basic cycles of human health, shelter,
food production and consumption,
security, learning, celebration,
production and energy use are taught
by example and reinforced by daily
habit. Our architecture both reflects
and forms our attitudes about these
things. Premise: as an educational
institution, Master’s Academy should
be a cutting edge example and exemplar
in practice of the entire energy
cycle in all its forms. Is this a
valid goal? A prime Program objective? |
5
Should
there be any? This question is a
way to challenge all of the fundamental
assumptions about rooms, furniture
arrangements and building configurations. |
5a
What
kinds of environments promote learning?
Should we educate in an environment
that is a facsimile of the past
or the future that the students will
actually
live and work in? How do we forge
the specific environments - and use
them well - that address the many
different
learning/thinking
styles
of the teachers and students? |
5b
What should
be our model? The artificial construct
of what today is called a school? Or, a
community of knowledgeworkers where
living, work, celebration and play
are integrated with learning as a
life-long exercise? [link] |
5c
What kind
of a social and organizational environment
would best prepare these students
for the futures they are likely to
encounter? How is this taught, experienced,
made part of a culture gestalt? How
does the architecture, in this regard,
reinforce and exemplify the policy
of
the
school
and the ideas/values that are being
taught? |
| Scale,
Armature and Modules: |
6a
How
do we deal with the Taliesin Syndrome
mentioned above? |
6b
What are
the Armature [link] elements that
will tie the Campus together and
make
a coherent whole that is interfaced
well with the greater community
and landscape?
|
6c
How
do the schools have distinct functionality
and “brand” and act as an integrated
Campus that supports cross-grade
activities and learning.
|
6d
How
do we preserve and enhance the
character of the site by what we
build?
|
6e
What
should be the fundamental MODULE
of this campus? |
6f
What
is the standard of human scale?
We have children of all sizes and
adults, how do we resolve these
scale differences?
|
|
|
|
link
to August 03 DesignShop Documentation
link to
Master’s NavCenter |
Matt
Taylor
Nashville
June 16, 2003
|
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
INSIGHT • POLICY • PROGRAM
|
posted:
June 16, 2003
revised:
February 8, 2004
• 20030616.302523.mt • 20030706.358870.mt •
• 20030715.298888.mt • 20030820.887109.mt •
• 20040208.3009810.mt •
(note:
this document is about 15% finished)
Copyright© Matt
Taylor 2003, 2004 |
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