Labs for Learners – stoa

Autumn 2015

Group X — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 21:00:28 +0000

Name Labs for Learners
Type Studio course
Organizer Aalto University, Department of Architecture, Group X
Partners Aalto Campus & Real Estate (ACRE), Royal College of Art (London)
Level Master
Teachers Antti Ahlava, Jarmo Suominen, Fernando Nieto
Coordinator Fernando Nieto
Students featured Sophia Holl, Zsuzsanna Horváth, Fabio Latino, Joshua Page, Iulia-Elena Radion

High School My School

Group X — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 16:00:16 +0000

The task was to adapt an existing building from the Otaniemi campus for its new function as high-school. The challenge was to figure out what is the role of the building in a project-based, digitalised, dissipated learning process. Thus, the building, the “school” becomes the heart, the hub, the meeting place for students and teachers, a place sheltering a diversity of learning behaviors. A new type of school that focuses on the experience of the learner, a school which exploits all available resources as it expands across the limits of the building. The building transforms to become a hub, a social space where learning happens in interaction with others and with the environment. The variety of spaces emerges from the diverse manners in which learning happens. Each place has a strong identity, in contrast with the anonymity of the prototypical classroom. The project takes advantage of the existing configuration of the building to open it to the rest of the campus and connect it with the surrounding paths through several alternative entrances. The greenhouse on the roof works as a prolongation of the campus forest, a link with the natural context, identifier, lantern, and soft space for playful learning.

A Place to Hang Out

Group X — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:00:11 +0000

Many schools suffer from indoor air problems and are in desperate need of renovation in the Helsinki metropolitan area. For the duration of the renovation the students and staff have to be relocated to an other building, or in many cases to containers in the courtyard. Housing these people temporarily gives a constant headache to city officials. A possible solution is to appoint a building which would serve as a permanently temporary school, where different schools can be relocated every 2 or 3 years while their own building is undergoing renovation. Aalto University has some underused facilities in the Otaniemi campus area and also a willingness to share its spaces with high schoolers, soon to be university students. This unique opportunity gave us a chance to re-examine what school means to the students and teachers nowadays. We organized workshops with the container school currently located in the campus area to find out about the needs of students and staff and developed the concept for co-school with their help. To encourage future users to take ownership of the space, we created a toolkit of cards to facilitate communication and ideation. We also planned several workshops to enable better cooperation between school and university. The main hub for the school is located in an old wood material science building, which will be renovated for this purpose. It will house flexible spaces for learning in groups and individually as well as a large hall and courtyard to serve as a common area.