SCI-Arc/ ASU
RoTo-Underwood, Spring Studio 2023
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SCI Arc, Spring Studio 2020
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Quotes
VSsp2023__Learning Futures
Space_Place_Form________________The Third Teacher
a. Leaping Across Disciplinary Silos:
_re-imagining the classroom space and connective spaces in-between
b. The Next Education Workforce:
_how team-based staffing models can improve learning outcomes
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain Volvox colony
_Learning Futures
prospectus
Let us pause a few moments to reflect on a few landmark Incubators of Learning – Michelangelo’s studio, Thomas Edison's laboratory, William Shakespeare’s theater, Orville and Wilbur Wright's bicycle shop, Watson and Crick's Cambridge laboratory, MIT Building 20, and Hewitt Packard’s garage. They were all filled with the highest level of human inquiry, endless experimentation, speculation, prototyping, and ultimately, discovery, whose lasting influence continues to impact our lives today.
Our proposed new Learning Incubator will be one such place, filled with a broad range of campus, local community and global collaborators who share an affinity for investigating the emerging big ideas and challenges, which are the drivers of future change (like Artificial Intelligence, climate change, convergence, demographics, energy, food, oceans, poverty, urbanization, waste, water, and more). The Learning Incubator will be open, flexible, adaptive, always evolving and transforming to meet the needs of investigating new ideas, visualizing, prototyping and testing endless possibilities, and making new impactful discoveries together, while changing the lives of everyone involved.
purpose
The Learning Incubator is comprised of physical, virtual and intellectual learning spaces for shared exploration, creation, and the celebration. The incubator will include:
physical space
We imagine an living ecology of flexible and adaptable learning spaces where large and small groups come together. These learning spaces are a skunk works for prototyping the future of learning, and can shift from an empirical research lab,
to an applied new learning prototyping space, to a hands-on demo space, and to an Exploratorium for learning.
virtual space
Complementing the physical learning spaces are virtual learning spaces that allow for extended engagement, communication, outreach and play. These virtual spaces are also arenas to explore new ways of representing information, new approaches to developing knowledge, and novel new ways of learning.
intellectual space
The Learning Incubator provide extended research opportunities on education, design and learning. Researchers and scholars will bring their theoretical and conceptual perspectives to the work being done in the studios and the programming offered.
physical space
What if the space of a classroom was re-imagined as one grand volume, with multiple platforms
of various in dimension, floating in the volume and sized for one, few and many people?
students and teachers
a rhizomatic network of bridges, ramps, and stairs connect the platforms so the students and teachers can easily move from place to place, to move and think, and to learn from each other and share friendship
We will spend time, thinking, conversing, and making learning spaces that align more closely, with the ways we communicate in our highly networked society and explore the spatial / architectural equivalent. This search for a space conducive to student-centered and interdependent learning is inspired and conceptually modeled on historical and present day, radical pedagogies and their architecture.
Our specific focus will be the relationships of learning, to the character and qualities of space, place, and form.
As we explore, we will learn more about Reggio Emilia Founder, Loris Malaguzzis’ concept of the Third Teacher, which states that the physical environment plays a vital role in learning.
The character of the environment promotes relationships, communication, collaboration, and exploration through play.
Also, we will learn more about a research project underway in ASU College of Education, that addresses 2 significant factors, teacher shortages and engaging minds in their dynamic mode. The need for students to learn from multi-disciplinary teams will address their need to broaden literacies, skillsets, and values. The Next Education Workforce argues that the one-teacher, one-classroom model is outdated and suggests that schools should create teams of educators with distributed expertise who can deliver deeper and personalized learning experiences to all students.
play and Informal learning.
Many animals play but mainly to practice basic survival skills. Generally, humans have the longest period of protected play, which begins in early childhood, and extends until the rites of passage in our early teens, approximately 10 years. Children play to cultivate imagination, creating hypothetical scenarios, inventing stories, to riff, to test and to learn.
We do less of this, as our behavior becomes more routine, as we get older.
play and speculation
In a world where the only constant is change, we develop a greater awareness of needing to anticipate the unexpected and address the current challenge in a speculative manner. Decentralizing of social, cultural, economic, and political systems are future, where rules change, guidelines are fluid, and planning must be incremental yet visionary (speculative). The basis for defining problems and making decisions must in principle, place a premium on pattern recognition, open minds, and Improvisation. Improvisation is fundamental to play, and play is fundamental to learning.
physical space
What if the space of a classroom was re-imagined as one grand volume, with multiple platforms of various in dimension, floating in the volume and sized for one, few and many people?
spatial intelligence
a rhizomatic network of bridges, ramps, and stairs connect the platforms so the students and teachers can easily move from place to place, to learn from each other and share friendship
We will spend time, thinking, conversing, and making learning spaces that align more closely, with the ways we communicate in our highly networked society.
This search for a space conducive to student-centered, independent and interdependent learning is inspired and conceptually modeled on historical and present day, radical pedagogies and their architecture.
Our specific focus will be relationships of formal and informal learning, to the qualities of space, place, and form. As we explore, we will learn more about Reggio Emilia Founder Loris Malaguzzis’ concept of the Third Teacher, which states that the physical environment plays a vital role in learning. The character of the environment promotes relationships, communication, collaboration, and exploration through play.
Also, we will learn more about a research project underway in ASU College of Education, that addresses 2 significant factors, teacher shortages and student boredom. The need for students to learn from multi-disciplinary teams to address their need to broaden their literacies and skillsets.
The Next Education Workforce argues that the one-teacher, one-classroom model is outdated and suggests that schools should create teams of educators with distributed expertise who can deliver deeper and personalized learning experiences to all students.
_Premise 1
Evolution made us learning machines,
Collectively, we are a learning organism.
Collective learning gave us a history,
making it possible for us to learn more, faster when in proximity to others.
Our experience at SCI-Arc is evidence of this fact.
Collective Learning has continued to inform and shape, in varying ways,
the evolutionary processes of Human Societies.
Over time, humans have become highly networked and inter-dependent creatures.
We want to leverage this fact by exploring an uncommon spatial strategy
-one grand volume
-multiple platforms of various in dimension, floating in the volume and sized for one, few and many.
-a network of bridges, ramps, and stairs connect the platforms, so the people can easily move from place to place, to learn from each other and share friendship
_Premise 2
Current systems of education (with growing exceptions) were developed to meet the needs of a former age.
Now we are in the midst of epic changes driven by existential challenges to our Human enterprise at local and global scales. discoveries in science, advances in technology, a hyper-connected global population, and the corresponding literacies that empower the social and ethical self with an awareness to understand differences within individual experiences.
We want to continue,
_Premise 3
We must learn in new ways,
preparing us to solve problems we cannot anticipate at this moment,
using technologies that have not been invented yet,
for jobs that do not exist yet,
using technologies that have not been invented yet,
to solve problems we cannot anticipate at this moment.
Bring it on!
We have an Architectural Mind that is ‘fired up and ready to go’
_Premise 4
It has been observed that ‘The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges’, and this is becoming increasingly clear in education and the workplace. People now need to be creative to be successful, but while the idea of success has changed, the education system has not always adjusted its methods or goals to meet it.
A 20th century education emphasized compliance and conformity over creativity,
_Premise 5
Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience.
Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways – through communities of practice, personal networks, and through completion of work-related tasks. Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work-related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same.
_Introduction
A.
Intentionality
My intentions as a teacher and mentor, is for you to learn more about architecture, gain insight into your own creative process and how it accesses the depth of your architectural mind and its’ tributaries that extend into the unbounded imagination, unfolding since early childhood, that engages the world around you, in speculative ways. Once in creative mode, our objective together, is to connect your architectural mind to places, events, and subjects beyond architecture.
B.
Main Subject
Our main subject will be learning and teaching;
lifelong (time), universal (expansiveness), formal (education), and informal (experience) ,
and how it is augmented and amplified in proportion to the qualities and character of the architecture.
C.
Inside Out
Our object of focus will be a new type of classroom, the networked life within, and the connective spaces and places in between.
architecture from the inside out, space to form.
Life gives form to architecture.
D.
Social
There are 3 factors to consider, if we are to re-imagine the classroom space.
How we work collectively.
How we create privately.
How we connect physically in space.
note: solitude and community, will be central to our conversations.
E.
Projects
There will be 2 projects.
P 1 – A Board Game in 3 dimensions / the future of learning in present day
P 2 – A School with a population of 670. (450 University, 100 early childhood, 70 faculty, 50 staff)
F.
Narrative Program
We become smarter when in proximity to other people, especially when searching for common ground.
So, the Classroom we design,
The spatial strategy for the Hub (classroom) will be
-one volume
-multiple platforms sized for specific numbers of people
The spatial strategy for the Infinite Trail connecting the classrooms will be
-one linear volume with intertwining lines of movement on 4 levels
-multi-textured with enchanted objects and phenomena
The spatial strategy for the Porch will be
-mediate the spaces of the Hub and the Trail
The spatial strategy for the Aviary will be
-a large volume running adjacent to the Trial and in-between the Hubs
-bringing nature to the place and the curriculum
G.
Main Components
The Hub / Caravanserai
⁃ These will be big learning spaces / volumes
The Porch / Time Square
⁃ interface of the Hub and the Trail
⁃ It will mediate formal (inside) and informal (outside) learning
The Infinite Trail / Silk Road
⁃ connecting 5 Hubs - for moving and thinking, making, conversing, and slow looking
The Aviary / mini-Forest
⁃ We will learn more about why birds matter and create a natural place for them to inhabit
⁃ The dynamics of our mini forest will be a part of the curriculum and a place to mentally re-center.
H.
Functional Program
The Hub / Caravanserai
5 units
50x50x50h cube+sphere (125k c ft)
1 volume with multiple-varied-connected platforms , no walls.
-classrooms (s-m-l)
-fab labs-workshops
-studio
-silence space
-gathering
-cafes-demonstration kitchen
-aviary-garden-forest
-resource-materials depot
-theater
I.
The Porch / Times Square
5 units
50x50h
gathering
display
verandah
J.
The Infinite Trail / Silk Road
600’ l x 25’w x 40’h
1 unit
4 linear bridges ‘weaving’ thru the volume lengthwise
cafe (2)
kitchen - teaching / demonstration
dining / lounge
-aviary / garden / forest (adjacent
K.
Spaces and Places
A place is security (limits)
A space is freedom (infinite)
-classrooms without walls is visibility
-platforms (places) of varied size in a cavernous volume (spaces)
-fluid, connected places in grand spaces
-flexibility
-active spaces for stimulation
-passive spaces for reflection
L.
Word-Concepts
Creative Freedom
We will practice creative freedom and its role in producing the type of open mind relationship for creativity, curiosity, and learning, this semester.
We will explore, through 2 projects, a Board Game and a school for aspiring polymaths.
paces and places that will best facilitate the physical environment plays a vital role in learning
and 2 additional pressing needs that we all have and will address,
the need to claim ones’ own identity and
the need to belong to a larger group.
M.
Polymath
To survive the 21st C, you must have a broader set of literacies and skills.
A Generalist’s intelligence
A Specialists’ skillsets, and the creative confidence to solve problems of any type, scope, or scale.
You must continue to grow and strengthen your capacities to be a POLYMATH, driven by intense curiosity and connectivity, pursuing a broad range of interests across many disciplines and domains of practice,
Leo Da Vinci was one of the great creative minds of the Italian Renaissance (15th-16th C),
Leonardo worked equally as an artist and a scientist. They served each other.
He was driven by intense curiosity and connectivity, pursuing a broad range of interests across many disciplines and domains of practice, including, art, architecture, science, music, mathematics, aeronautics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.
Conceptually, he will be our role model and mentor.
“I’m curious about many things at once, harboring a desire to know everything that surrounds me” L da V
N.
Constructivism -
Constructivism emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, giving rise to the idea that learners are not passive recipients of information, but that they actively construct their knowledge in interaction with the environment. Learners are therefore viewed as more than merely a recording given information, but interpreting it. This view of learning led to the shift from the “knowledge-acquisition” to “knowledge-construction” metaphor. This is referred to as project-based learning, testing ideas by making things in real time. Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner were proponents of this approach. In this learner-centered approach, the teacher becomes a mentor and guide of a students learning and not a knowledge transmitter.
O.
Student-centered learning,
broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence by putting responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students. Student-centered instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent problem solving. Student-centered learning theory and practice are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner's critical role in constructing meaning from new information and prior experience.
P.
The Next Education Workforce
argues that the one-teacher, one-classroom model is outdated and suggests that schools should create teams of educators with distributed expertise who can deliver deeper and personalized learning experiences to all students. Steps to achieve this include offering actions to help facilitate sustainable systems change.
Important considerations: research for discussion
Bodies in space, spatial awareness, spatial IQ, spatial feedbacks, body moving in space (speed, fluidity, sequence
senses, perception, space, light, sound, view, scale, proportion, hierarchy,
systems (evolution, processes, ordering), geometry.
