Addressing the transition by designing 'School of Thought'
School that redefines learning
Background
Education is a form of absorbing and inculcating knowledge, of which learning is an integral part. Over the years, education has evolved into a system and has been organized and re-written innumerable times to a point where it has now it is majorly constrained to classroom teaching focused on academic learning.
The idea of hands-on experience and vocational training is still not a vital part of the curriculum for the majority of the schools and educational systems around the world. The ability of self-learning and creative thinking are automatically curbed due to this method of teaching, making education, not at par with the current requirement set. The need for cognitive, technological, social and emotional skills is growing, while physical, manual and basic cognitive skills will decline.
Are the curriculum and physical environment of school preparing the children for this?
Brief
This competition invited participants to address the transition in the curriculum from only academic orientated learning to one that infuses innovative models, the physical environment needed an upgrade too. The challenge here was to design a high school where space itself instigates this ideology.
The jury for the competition consisted of esteemed designers, professionals, and academicians from around the world. The Lead Jurors for the competitions were as follows:
Gabriel Askenazi, Partner, Sulkin Askenazi, Mexico
Jack Sulkin, Partner, Sulkin Askenazi, Mexico
FELIPE MESA, Founding Partner & Principal, PLAN:B Architects, United States
Some of the Best of competition projects as follows:
Winning Project: SEEKER HEIGHTS HIGH SCHOOL
By: Abolfazl Mekanik, Mohsen Rezaei & Razieh Shoaei
Description: This project is a student-centered school which helps students find out what their strengths are by using the open field project-based learning environment. They develop their knowledge by exploring their own questions and sharing them with others students. The main concept of this project is to put the students in the focal point area of the school.
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Runner - Up: Fresh Air school
By: Hoan Dao Manh
Description: Let their Imaginations breathe, run further and have bigger ideas for the future! Let our earth breathe, to have a future for big ideas!
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Honorable Mention : Drive Branch
By: Ilona Mulab
Description: The main idea of this building can be described by the keywords of DRIVE and TREE. Drive as a meaning of “one that provides impulse or motivation”, and also it represents the intuitive dynamism children would find in this open environment. Tree is a metaphor of individual development: children start their individual growth at a very young age.
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Honorable Mention: THE DIVERSIFICATION PLATFORM
By: Alexandra Shilova
Description: this school of thought is meant to help the education of the next generation of young people in order to orient them in our technologically & economically changing world by catering to the most variety of their interests and practically linking them to a future profession.
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Honorable Mention: School of Thought...
By: Ádám Nagy, Anna Harangi & Tamás Brech
Description: In our fast-changing world, we face new challenges from day to day. Children need innovative, and adaptive methods to help them succeed in life. School of Thought Alternative Secondary School aims at providing inspiring and flexible spaces, where students can learn in the way most suitable for their personality.
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Honorable Mention: Learn by learning
By: Zhenquan Fang
Description: The concept of this design is based on the famous 20th century American educationist Benjamin Bloom “Bloom’s Taxonomy”, which divides the learning process into three dimensions: “Knowledge”, “emotion” and “behavior”, and subdivides the dimensions to illustrate the learning process.
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Honorable Mention: STREAM SCHOOL
By: DO TO & Hai Mai-Ngoc
Description: A school is a combination of educational and architectural solutions, suitable to apply in many contexts. Model oriented towards career orientation, while improving elements of creativity, emotion, community, ... Students understand the purpose of study, freely choose the field they want and build create your own learning space.
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Honorable Mention: School of Thought - Museum of learning
By: Abigail Hilario, Stefi Lee & Huiyu Jiang
Description: The concept of learning through the act of observation and engagement has been incorporated into the design of this school. This main concept informed the spaces and design language of the school. The school is designed to integrate multi-functional spaces and optimised transitional spaces to become usable and occupiable.
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People’s Choice: Sun Valley School
By: Faisal Al Mahyawi & Somaya Abdulmuhsin
Description: The project aims to develop the idea of sustainable and innovative classes by involving the nature in the design of the classes that can help developing the area. The project can be a starting point developing a special character to the area by using the natural element that already exists and the school name is emphasizing the existence of the nature.
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Editorial Choice: AI ACADEMY
By: Jumbo Globe
Description: Our world is evolving into an Artificial intelligence-based system and students will be the leader of their own learning, just like the program behind AI – self-initiated and knowledge without boundary. Together with the pedagogy trend of self-regulated learning, AI Academy Scarborough can be a model for other new-built educational institutions.
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Editorial Choice: School of thought
By: Sreya Paul
Description: The project aims to provide a space for contemporary education where students learn to live as an independent being . The school expresses itself as a point where the student can sense its existence and outlive the illusions of the contemporary world.
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Editorial Choice: School of Thought
By: Elly Yang & Sijing Liu
Description: In this project, we aim to create student-centered learning experience. In particular, we paid attention to the emotional experience of students. That is displayed through circulation, materials, colors, temperature and natural lighting. We focus on crafting space for socializing, playing and learning to achieve a balanced and holistic education.
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Editorial Choice: School of Thought
By: Yuka Foo & Fishy Ying Xin Tan
Description: We believe education is not simply the transmission of information. It is the indoctrination of a child into a certain way of knowing, a way of learning and a way of being. During the classical periods education institutions moved from wisdom to knowledge, and now schools are shifting from knowledge to information.
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Editorial Choice: GRADE-IENT
By: Dusty Lake
Description: The conceptual ideas presented in GRADE-IENT are built on the instructional position that a global student shaped by cultural, environmental, and behavioral influences with each a unique personality type driving how they learn requires an educational curriculum and environment reflecting diverse methodologies.
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Editorial Choice: Scarborough Vocational
By: Edwin Zawadzki
Description: In the Emilio Reggio tradition, the building acts as a “third teacher.” Its structural is a didactic kit of parts that celebrates tectonics and construction. It is organized in 3 major elements; a theoretical bar, a vocational bar with applied learning spaces forming a bridge to connect them. There is also a Pedagogical Gradient of Spaces that organizes.
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Editorial Choice: The Fourth Space
By: David Law & Selina Chau
Description: “The Fourth Space” aims to create a transformative learning space that cultivates holistic learning and promotes well-being in students, educators, and members of the school community by integrating mindfulness and social-emotional learning into the educational environment.
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Discover the full results here: https://uni.xyz/competitions/school-of-thought/entries
