Experiential Pedagogy through the Built Environment
Experiential pedagogy is a paradigm that has been well researched by various mainstream education experts including John Dewey, David Kolb, and Carl Rogers since the early 20th century (1). Its gaining momentum in present day as the way knowledge is imparted in educational institutions is being tested by the ease with which unbridled 'information' is available around us. Experiential pedagogy on the contrary entails the making of meaning from direct experiences - through reflection on doing or action. (1)
The built environment being a constant interface in every aspect of our lives presents a compelling medium to offer such experiences. The act of living in and 'experiencing' the built environment has the intangible powerful impact of shaping the user's nous and identity. Thus the design of spaces, especially those for education can go beyond merely providing light, bright and airy environments. (2) They can be designed to in fact become virtuoso agents of pedagogy in themselves.
The narrative explores some of the themes that various built environments offer through their design to enable this premise of experiential pedagogy. Each theme is supplemented with project examples that illustrate this facet of their designs.
Built Environment as a Medium of Active Learning:
Design of the built environment can provide students with circumstances that evoke curiosity and create an ambience of direct engagement to learn in action (3). The design of spatial elements and their presentation allow students to interact with them and draw active associations. Such active associations with contextual subject matter enhance fundamental comprehension and future applications. The success of enabling these active associations hinges on creating a 'visibility' of the building elements and systems.
Shenyang Architectural University Campus
Project Location: Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China
Year of Completion: 2004
Site Area: 3 hectares
Project by Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture/ Turenscape
(4)
When tasked to design the new campus for the Shenyang Architectural University on an existing paddy field, the landscape designers, Turenscape, used this as an opportunity to retain the productive landscape and double it as an educative landscape within which the built facilities of the university are ensconced. This gesture made the process of agriculture transparent to the urban students; the trend amongst whom is to aspire for lucrative urban lives detached from the 'soil'. The live productive nature of the landscape allows participation and draws both students and faculty into an active dialogue of sustainable development and food production that goes beyond the theoretical and speculative realms of the classrooms. The landscape is an active test bed for students to explore and imbue the question of food production within the present paradigms of urbanization. Their attachment to this theme is strengthened by the fact that also need to manage the land and soil quality. (5)
Images of Shenyang Architectural University Campus.
Image Credits: Prof. Kongjian Yu
The design for SDE4 succeeds in making the building systems and elements not only visible to the users, but by creating several living test-beds uses these building elements to enhance the users' engagement and association with them. This is of particular interest as the building is designed to achieve a net-zero energy target and each of these architectural and engineering systems work in tandem to deliver the high performance targets. The building shall be a tutor in itself. Students will be able to alter the design of certain elements, like the panels on the eastern and western facade screens with experimental modules of their own design, and thereafter measure the impact on the various parameter's of the building's actual live performance. Whilst others like the rainwater conveyance system integrated within the landscape, shall exhibit the cleansing character of bio-retention basins. During and after a rain event, students will be able to view runoff water being conveyed through these basins and welling out as clean water into a pond around a student's plaza.
SDE4 also attempts to influence another integral part of education - that of nurturing behavior. In a paper published in 1975, J.D Hoover postulates that experiential learning should involve more than cognitive learning to include the learning of behaviors (6). For SDE4, changing the user's perception and behavior is paramount as it directly affects the performance of the building's systems, in particular the stringent energy budget. There are several innuendoes in the design of the spaces and systems which shall challenge certain conventional behavioral tendencies of everyday lives, some of which are detrimental to the cause of energy consumption. For instance, classrooms and studios have been designed with an innovative air conditioning system which provides optimal thermal comfort to users without overcooling the space to necessitate wearing jackets as prevalent in present day classrooms. The notion that only if the air is 'chilled', it is fresh and induces cooling shall be challenged in SDE4. Through these gestures, SDE4 aims to develop a symbiotic relation between the building and its users, wherein the latter can benefit from interacting with the building systems whilst their behavior can also affect the performance of the former's systems and spatial comfort.
Facade test-beds in the SDE4 Building.
Image Credits: Surbana Jurong Consultants Pte. Ltd./ Serie+Multiply
Built Environment which Create Connections:
Conventional classroom bound education tend to impart knowledge within insulated silos detached from the existence and realism of the immediate communities and ecosystems. Knowledge garnered thence is meant to empower us to influence and shape these same communities and the larger ecosystem. It could be thus critical that these learning spaces be better connected to them. Drawing tangible and visible links between academic material and their local milieu can make the classrooms and the communities more meaningful to each other.
Bridge School
Project Location: Pinghe, Fujian, China
Year of Completion: 2009
Built Area: 240 sqm
Project by Li Xiaodong Atelier
(7)
Small, yet modern in design; the main bridge structure strategically assorts within itself spaces and elements which provide physical and metaphorical connections to its context. Suspended and running below the main structure is a small bridge which establishes a connection across the creek for the two parts of this remote village. The main structure above holds the other functional spaces - a public library and classrooms. They enable the villagers to connect to their historical past whilst becoming cognizant of the frantic pace of current developments beyond the village. These spaces also open up to link to public plazas on each end and provide a larger gathering space for community programmes. The school has been able to invigorate the milieu of this remote village through the spaces it offers and the functions they enable. (7)
New Jindai Elementary School
Project Location: Chongqing, China
Year of Completion: 2011
Built Area: 5000.0 sqm
Project by TEKTAO/Tongji University
(8)
The project was part of the rehabilitation effort after the severe 2008 earthquake. The design team in consultation with the local communities, crafted a brief wherein the school building would become more than an agglomeration of classrooms. The new premise designed around a preserved functional terraced agricultural plot, contains a strong central theme of sustainability which include a passive HVAC system using stable ground temperatures to condition the classroom buildings, terraced wetlands which treat rainwater for further use and other passive design features which are comparatively lower in cost yet high in impact. The school curriculum uses its context to foster learning experiences like planting, harvesting and cooking as well as educating them about the passive design features. Such connections strengthen the students awareness of their surroundings and sustenance. The school encourages these same students to become agents of spreading this knowledge to their families and the larger community. The elementary school is making a strong tool out of its rehabilitated context to further the cause of educating beyond the school to a larger needful community. (8)
Built Environment to Facilitate Exchange and Participation:
An essential aspect to facilitating pedagogy through the built environment is creating large flexible spaces that provide for informal occupation over all times of the day. Such spaces allow the users to invest action and designate impromptu functions to them. They become fertile social epicenters which encourage informal exchanges, coalition of ideas, spontaneous conversations and voicing of opinions (3). They encourage occupants to participate, observe and collaborate - qualities which are critical to working as part of and for a greater community.
Melbourne School of Design University of Melbourne(MSD)
Project Location: Melbourne, Australia
Year of Completion: 2014
Built Area: 15,772 sqm
Project by John Wardle Architects/ NADAAA
(9)
The various program spaces are stacked and arranged around a central atrium hall which facilitates and encourages a multitude of informal activities and occupation throughout the day. Students and faculty stream in and out through corridors overlooking this central space. The walls along the corridors serve as display panels exhibiting student works. In doing so, these corridors become an extension of the central space. It lets the classrooms and the studios to spillover, enabling a continuum of space and dialogue from the confines of the classrooms to the more informal and spontaneity of the central hall. Such informal participations, either in the form of conversations and dialogues with peers or mere viewing of their works helps to broaden the pedagogical discourse within the school.
The Central Hall of the Melbourne School of Design.
Image Credits: Peter Bennetts
School of Design and Environment 4 (SDE4):
SDE4 also builds upon this need for informal dialogues and visual associations with the juxtapositions of its different volumes to create shared spaces in the form of plazas, terraces and corridors. These function in a manner similar to that of MSD's , with opportunities for several informal gatherings. This theme is further strengthened as the main plaza becomes the focal point of the connection to the school's existing blocks, allowing it to serve both the new and old premises together.
The main plaza is extended vertically to a suspended volume above the it, called the Forum, which is meant as a space for presentation and crit sessions of student works. Encased in glass, it allows for a dramatic visual experience where students present their work to a larger audience beyond the room.
Image shows the main plaza and forum in SDE4
Image Credits: Surbana Jurong Consultants Pte. Ltd./ Serie+Multiply
Learning while Building:
Akin the radical education system of Finland which is moving away from the notion of subjects to a 'topic' based learning (where a singular topic engages various subjects simultaneously, including vocational skills); the before narrated themes of a built pedagogy find a culmination in nascent initiatives like the Design Build Research (DBR) for architectural designers, based in Vancouver, Canada. Learning is imparted through actual design and build projects (of varying scales) instead of 'courses'. Students work with mentors on live projects for the community and are involved in all aspects and processes of a typical project - conceptualizing the design through to its execution. DBR aims to foster a design aptitude by nurturing the innate creativity of individuals and enabling them with the skills to realize their own designs. It also helps to establish an important missing link in traditional teaching - a constant dialogue with the community i.e, the majority of people who will actually be using these built structures.
A Design Build Research course in action.
Image Credits: Ema Peter (http://www.emapeter.com/)
(10)
Architecture embedded with these ethos can provide the platforms for engagement and create stimuli to induce consciousness and evoke curiosity amongst the users; both of which are powerful avenues to help the users make meaning from direct experiences and associations, thus enabling experiential pedagogy.
Bibliography
1. FIrst Nations Pedagogy Online. [Online] 2009. http://firstnationspedagogy.ca/experiential.html.
2. Frearson, Amy. Well-designed schools improve learning by 25 percent says new study. Dezeen. [Online] January 2, 2013. http://www.dezeen.com/2013/01/02/poor-school-design-can-affect-learning-says-new-study/.
3. Russell, William Cassell and Jonathan. Architecture and pedagogy: The Melbourne School of Design. Architecture AU. [Online] January 5, 2015. http://architectureau.com/articles/architecture-pedagogy/.
4. ASLA 2005 Professional Awards. American Society of Landscape Architects Inc. [Online] 2005. https://asla.org/awards/2005/05winners/090.html.
5. Shenyang Architectural University Campus. Turenscape. [Online] http://old.turenscape.com/English/projects/project.php?id=324.
6. C.J.Whitehead, J.D.Hoover &. Simulation Games and Experiential Learning in Action, Volume 2. s.l. : Reprinted from Bernie Keys Library (11th ed.), 1975.
7. School Bridge / Li Xiaodong Atelier. Arch Daily. [Online] Jaunary 5, 2010. http://www.archdaily.com/45409/school-bridge-xiaodong-li.
8. New Jindai Elementary School / TEKTAO. Arch Daily. [Online] May 20, 2011. http://www.archdaily.com/136017/new-jindai-elementary-school-tektao.
9. Melbourne School of Design University of Melbourne / John Wardle Architects + NADAAA. Arch Daily. [Online] April 23, 2015. http://www.archdaily.com/622708/melbourne-school-of-design-university-of-melbourne-john-wardle-architects-nadaaa.
10. Ingalls, Julia. The school of helpful knocks: the experiential pedagogy of Design Build Research. Archinect. [Online] October` 21, 2015. http://archinect.com/features/article/139051283/the-school-of-helpful-knocks-the-experiential-pedagogy-of-design-build-research.
