From Closed to Open Schools:

Institutional Ruptures and Architectural Dismantlings K. Xanthopoulos

The Past “The most assured way to emasculate the mind and soul of children is to offer them ready solutions”. N. Matsaniotis

Buildings for education, schools in particular, have always been amongst the most

fascinating projects for architectural thinking and design, already from the time when

modern educational theory was in the making. The emergence of the modern publicly-

run school in Europe may be dated at the end of the 18th

century, when Johan Heinrich

Pestalozzi, the great Swiss pedagogist, spoke out for the value of public education.

There have been several highly important watersheds in the science of education and

curriculum since then. Particularly worthy of note, for their lasting value as well as for

the response in terms of school architecture that they obtained, are the pedagogical

views of the German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel (the role of play in education), the

“scientific pedagogics” of Maria Montessori and of Loris Malaguzzi (the built

environment as a ‘third teacher’ and the schools in Reggio-Emilia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach), the ideas of Swiss composer

Emile Jacques-Dalcroze (pedagogic of physical exercise, music and eurhythmics), and

also those of the Austrian anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner (see Waldorf schools, figs.1,2).

Fig. 1

Views from Rudolf Steiner Seminary at Jarna, Stockholm, Sweden 1968-1992. Architect Erik Asmussen.

Of the most interesting complexes of a large scale organic wood architecture,, influenced from R. Steiner’s philosophy. Such Schools as

Orjanskola and Sankt Kristoferskola are included amongst buildings serving complementary to education uses. For a comprehensive

reference to such school approaches, as well as a description of the Dornach initiative in Switzerland, see Kenneth Bayes, Living

Architecture. Anthroposaphic press & Floris Books (publ.).1994.

Fig. 2

Ground floor Plan of Waldorf School in Koln, Germany. 1996. Architect Peter Hubner

In tandem with those developments in pedagogical methodology, school architecture

becomes more self-reliant and is seen progressively to emerge as a sub-discipline per

se, through its apt treatment of the special requirements it addresses of a functional,

morphological and structural nature. Designers gradually overcame the stylistic

fixations of each period, and frequently established their own distinct building style, as

a result of emerging needs and requirements with respect to functionality, mass

production, standardization, technology or aesthetic expression that were changing with

the passage of time. In the beginning of the 20th

century, also after the horrendous

destruction of WWI, a common European awareness began to develop, that the mass

education of the young could avert such failures of civilization(!). Access to mass

education coincided more or less with a distancing on the part of architecture from

previous eclectic, or occasionally authoritarian styles (the romanticism of the 19th

to the

20th

century), and a turn towards the dynamism and abstraction of architectural

constructivism and functionalism, presaging and/or belonging to the modernist current

that traversed the entire 20th

century (fig.3). The need for swift and en-masse

implementation, chiefly in as much as it concerned the propagation of the fundamental

cell of the school, i.e. the “classroom”, found an ally in the norm that had become

predominant, thanks to the new constructional possibilities offered by industrial

standardization and structural prefabrication.

Fig. 3

Isometric drawing of cantilevered constructivist court of Petersschule in Basel, Switzerland, attributed to Paul Klee. Competition proposal

by Hannes Meyer & Hans Jakob Wittwer. 1926

Fig. 4

Plan and elevation of proposed school for the Agricultural Co-operative by Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret. 1934-38.

With the spread of the wave of functionalism and of its concomitant principle of

continuous openings that it claimed for, recourse to industrialized production assumed

the character of a manifesto. In 1925 Le Corbusier called upon the industrialists of the

time, in his “Appel aux industriels”, for a new industrially patented window: an appeal

that he launched a propos of he inauguration of he Esprit Nouveau Pavilion.(fig.4)(1) As a

matter of fact the ‘new window’ was not unrelated to the trend of opening up to nature

and pursuing healthy living. The trinity ‘light-air-nature’ encapsulated the persistent

demands of architects and presaged the architecture of ‘healthy living’. The proposals

of open, quasi-open-air school, or an open-air classroom were not at all unrelated to

those tendencies of the 1930’s that favoured ‘natural living' (Johannes Duiker fig.5,

André Lurcat, Eugene Beaudouin fig.6, et al). Those projects left their mark on the

architecture of school buildings (see l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, “Architectures

revisitées” #370, mai-juin 2007) and constituted experimental models for the

subsequent intensive research that was undertaken, which had to do with questions of

natural compared with artificial lighting, the control of natural lighting, ventilation and

cooling, all the way to, and including such present ecological applications as have

emrrged in the field of energy distribution, conservation and sustainability within

school settings.(2)

(1) It is interesting to note here that the school and its architectural planning and design had been almost a terra incognita for Le

Corbusier, Alvar Aalto and Mies van der Rohe. The proposals of Le Corbusier in the context of the ‘Village coopératif’ (1938) and

the ‘´Ecoles volantes’ with Jean Prouvé (1940), or of Alvar Aalto in respect of the Inkeroinen Elementary School (1938), document

at a minimum the immense value of the wealth of architectural output by the great masters of 20th century architecture.

(2) Similar research initiatives have been also undertaken in Greece relatively recently. By way of indication we mention here the

projects of the Group for Research on the Built Environment of the Physics Department of the University of Athens, under the

leadership of Professor M. Santamouris.

Fig.5

“Open-air” School in Amsterdam, 1929-30. Architect: Johannes Duiker

Fig. 6

“Open-air” School classroom Suresnes, Paris. 1932-1935. Architects: Eugene Beaudouin & Lods

Equally undeniable is the qualitative influence of school transparency until even our

present times, in the exceptional cases when architects themselves designed school

buildings amenable to standardization in cooperation with industry (Jean Prouvé fig.7,

Richard Neutra fig.8, Arne Jacobsen fig.10, the SCSD School System fig.9, etc.). Of

course such tectonic practices and their corresponding aesthetic expression did not

always yield noteworthy as such results. In pursuing such directions, school stereotypes

were developed and still do even to the present day, mainly on account of a growing

construction industry, but, though satisfying indeed the social and practical demand for

more ‘classrooms’, regrettably do so with very few interesting applications.

Furthermore, the dogmatic fixation of architects of the modern movement on one-sided

principles of typology, often produced indifferent buildings that did very little to

promote a positive pedagogical environment, with only very few exceptions, found

chiefly under circumstances where the topography served as an impetus for inspired

architectural solutions (Dimitris Pikionis, fig.11). In other words, to a substantial degree,

architecture seemed unable to contribute to the creation of an environment that would

support and promote the predilection of the young human being for real learning,

individual and collective expression, and communicative conviviality (3)

Fig. 7

Prefabricated School in Vantoux, France. 1950. Designer: Jean Prouvé

Fig. 8

“Open-air” School at Corona, California, U.S.A.. 1935. Architect: Richard Neutra

‘Lesson at the courtyard’.

Fig. 9

The flexible building system SCSD as designed for application ifor schools in the U.S.A. (source: SCSD.Educational Facilities

Laboratories-EFL: 1970)

Fig.10

Ground floor plan of Munkengaard School, Gentofte, Denmark. 1954-56. Architect:Arne Jacobsen

(example of symmetrical-“hippodamic” organization of classrooms, atriums and circulation axes with central

location of meeting hall)

(3) See the pertinent dictum of Architect Louis Kahn on ‘institutions’, the institutions that the modern

city should inspire and possess; those that enhance: ‘the inspiration to meet’, ‘the inspiration to learn’

and the ‘inspiration to express

Fig.11

Plan of Primary School at “Pefkakia”, Athens,1932. Architect: Dimitri Pikionis

Fig.11a (see English tranlstion text)

Photographic view of School at “Pefkakia”, Athens, 1932 by D. Pikionis

The Present and the future: towards the ‘Open School’

“If childhood is a journey let us see to it that the child does not travel by night”. Aldo van Eyck

What form does the Pedagogy of the present assume?

Concomitantly, how does the architecture of today’s school

express itself?

What factors create the character of the new school and its

‘classrooms’?(fig.12)

Fig.12

Classroom typologies (source: Alfred Roth: The New Schoolhouse, p.44)

Perhaps we should not be looking for definitive answers to all

those questions, but should rather seek to establish several

creative arguments and counter-arguments that might open up

new windows and perspectives as regards the role of schools and their architecture.

That is the important thing for our present era of pluralism, with its newand variegated

conditions of work, with the impact of its profusion of offerings, with the causality

underpinning its technology, while our natural environment and climate are in the

process of being destroyed, and bio-diversity is at risk, while also our societies assume

a multicultural character, with the corollary of individual retrenchment and consequent

social isolation and loss of humanizing personality traits, in the grip of the vicissitudes

of change that lie beyond our control, etc. However, even now, each society, for its own

reasons that seem obvious to it, and perhaps with greater intensity than ever before,

looks to establish a system of high quality education, capable of differentiation, such

that would lend itself to assessing, evaluating and incorporating the volatile, albeit

actual circumstances, and the existential concerns and worries, as well as the visions of

its young.

To this purpose, pedagogical programs have been implemented already and have

widened the scope of young people’s learning and cultivation by encompassing

initiatives and actions of self-affirmation, artistic expression, social inclusion and

coexistence, as well as inter-communal involvement. There have already been several

notable architects pursuing such objectives who, in the school buildings that they have

proposed and designed have sought, if only in part, to invest school space with this kind

of significance and make it the ‘other teacher’. Those are the school environments that

may be seen to belong to the contextual realm of ‘humanistic modernism’, where space

becomes fluid; schools that not only declare their tectonic quality, but also assume a

clearer, frequently multi-faceted and occasionally expressionist character through their

form, their scale, their texture and their color settings, their light, or the range of

possibilities that they allow for, and the ambience that they excite and produce (fig.13)

(q.v. e.g. Hans Scharoun fig.14, Gunter Benisch fig.15, Alison and Peter Smithson fig.16,

Aldo van Eyck fig.17, Denys Lasdun fig.18, Takis Zenetos fig.18a, Carl Nyren, Hardy-

Holzman-Pfeiffer Assoc.fig.19, Herman Hertzberger fig.20, more recently, Henri Ciriani

fig.21, the Morphosis Architecs fig.22, Patkau Architects fig.23, Zvi Hecker fig.24, et al.,

including a number of public agencies’architects that have designed distinguished

school installations figs.25,26).

Fig.13 Light and space at Suna School in Espoo, Finland, 1985. Architects: Kari Jarvinen & Timo Airas

Fig.14 Plan of Geschwister School in Westphalia, Germany,1958-62. Architect: Hans Scharoun

Fig.15 Interior view of School at Bad Rappenau,1992. Architects:Gunter Benisch – Benisch & Benisch

Fig.16 Wokingham School 1958. Plan & elevation. Architects: Alison+Peter Smithson (see “class street” concept)

Fig.17 Orphanage in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1955-60. Plan. Architect: Aldo van Eyck

Fig.18 “designing a plant …”, a metaphor application in the plan of Hallfield School, Paddington, London, England, 1952. Architect:

Denys Lasdun

Fig.18a Plan of School at Aghios Dimitrios, Nea Smyrni, Athens, 1969-74. Architect: Takis Zenetos

(the “potential school of the future” according to a relevant comment of E.Kalafati and D.Papalexopoulos in their recent book: Takis Ch.

Zenetos, Digital visions and architecture. Libro publ., Athens 2006 –in greek)

Fig.19 Salisbury School, Maryland, U.S.A. 1973. Plan. Architects: Hardy,Holzman,Pfeiffer

Fig.20 View of meeting and circulation space of the Montessori College at Oost, Amsterdam, 1999. Architect: Herman Hertzberger

Once again, the school becomes a nodal point between the home, the work place and

leisure facilities, within the wider community of which it is a part and which it also

serves, under a new perspective for a ‘life-long’ educational and learning process.

Subsequently, the demand for a new sort of school aims largely at regaining and/or

creating conditions of ‘open’ learning –an educational environment as it had been

attempted in the recent past, under slightly different terms, and as it has therefore

tended to evolve. In a similar sense, the relationship of the school with education and

society aims to be immediate and bilateral, to be fully open in other words, just as the

relationship of architecture with an educational context, and with socio-cultural

conditions generally, is deemed to be necessarily an open one, going both ways, and

decisive in the role it may play.

Fig.21 External entrance view of Nursery School at Marne-la-Vallée, France, 1986. Architect: Henri Ciriani

Transparency between the entrance, the internal reception area and the internal playing field

Fig.22 Diamond Ranch High School at Pomona, California U.S.A.1999-2000. General view. Architects: Morphosis-Thom Mayne

Fig.23 Strawberry Vale School in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1995. Section & elevation. Patkau Architects

Fig.24 First floor plan of “flower-shaped” Jewish School in Berlin, Germany. 1998. Architect: Zvi Hecker (source: House of the Book by

Zvi Hecker. Publ.Black Dog Ltd.1999)

Fig.25 Ground floor plan of High Lawn Primary School, Bolton, England. 1953. Architects:B. Claydon & J.D. Foy

(examplary application of a typical layout of a small school in the 1950’s in England)

Fig.26 Ground floor plan of Wokingham School, Berkshire, England, 1951-53. Architects of the Building Dept. of

the Ministry of Education, England)

This School was innovative in the formation of the street axis at its ground level, around which unfolded social and collective activities,

as well as in the vertical development (4 floors) of educational spaces at the center of the axis (see entrance area 1)

Given how the three previous decades have seen a tremendous broadening in the scope

of the information and knowledge available to us, such persistent harping on the notion

of ‘openness’ assumes the character of a palpable common place. Even countries,

whose educational systems could boast of a tradition of excellence in terms of their

performance or infrastructure, are experiencing the transition as a necessity,

occasionally the upheavals too, in their contemplation of and quest after the appropriate

content and form of the new school.

In Finland for instance, a telling passage in a fairly recent issue of the architectural

journal ‘Arkkitehti’ that had been devoted to he topic of ‘schools’, reads as follows:

“Information networks are expanding, and even schoolboys/girls could study with a

laptop computer at home and in libraries. Are school buildings needed anymore? The

school still has an important role in the socializing of youth; it is a to meet age mates

and to grow up together……….

The space norms regulating school construction have now been dismantled, so the

preconditions for creating new kinds of school buildings and renovating old ones are

good. New school laws give ample possibilities to develop school working methods.

Views on learning have been renewed, and working habits focused on teachers are

changing towards a more pupil-focused approach. Teaching encourages observation

and an independent working style.

The school of the future already exists, as Finland already has a full stock of school

buildings. What should be done to about 4000 comprehensive schools and almost 500

upper secondary schools to make them correspond with the needs of new teaching

methods and practices?...........

The school building of the future will be open, transparent, adaptable and flexible,

combining architectonic diversity and functional versatility. Schools will no longer

consist of successive classrooms with connecting corridors; instead, the central space

will be an open learning hall, information and resource

centre, library-mediatheque, a market place of events.

……….”(4) (figs.27-30)

Fig.27 Ground floor plan of Aurinkolahti School in Vuosaari, Finland, 1998-2001. Architects: Raimo Teranne & Leena Yli-

Lonttinen (note: the school examples from Finland bear as a common feature.s: the open area around them connecting to the

surrounding municipalities and their community facilities, the multi-functional space-central locus of reference, of meetings and

different activities (outside athletic events which take place in the second large area of group activities), around which develop class

clusters with transparent partitions, around common halls and workshops for technical skills, woodwork, music, cooking, etc.) Fig.28 The central multi-functional space at Aurinkolahti School in Vuosaari, Finland

Fig.29 The central multi-functional space at Herttoniemenranta School, Helsinki, Finland, 2000-2001. Architect: Olli Pekka Jokela

Fig.30 The central multi-functional space at Torpparinmaki School, Finland,1999. Architects: Seppo Hakl

(4) see Reino Tapaninen.’A School or barracks for our children’, in Arkitehti #4, 2001, p.25.

The traditional school is tending to distance itself from the still powerfull influence of

the teacher-centered dissemination and dry memorization of notions, the dominant

discipline of the isolated class, the linear arrangement of classrooms usually along a

dull circulation corridor. In other words it tends towards the quest for and application of

an attitude wherein each individual student may, in the context of the school community

and collectivity, choose, manage and extend further the object of knowledge, beyond

and outside the main body of established, yet intelligent teaching, far from the

institutional conception of the school qua stereotype, seeking after new models which

clearly expand the recorded typology of school spatial organization and, by extension,

of school architecture.(fig.31) (Note: As this article was being printed, an excellent reference to the latter point

circulated recently, under the editing skill and expertise of Mark Dudek, by the title:’School and Kindergartens; a Design Manual”,

published by Birkhauser Verlag AG, 2007)

Fig.31 Typological diagrams of school layout organization (source: Bradford

Perkins - see bibliographic references) However, while the persistence of the established

system continues to enjoy momentum, the demand

for the “greening” of the school is neither recent,

nor an invention of the modernizing spirit of a

particular society. Just as with every effort for

radical change, the new school is, even though only

in part, an experiment towards educational and

social transformation, as well as the field of school

design to respond to with its own imput.

The ‘prehistory’ of the ‘open school’ might be

adduced in several important examples, even

through the pedagogical and architectural heritage

of the recent past. The multi-functional importance

of interstitial spaces, the spaces for assembly and

the multiple and/or alternative uses in the core of

the school, the open front of the school to the

surrounding community, the multi-dimensional

aspects of space in the ‘classroom’ with its various

possibilities for organization, etc., have been issues

that were dealt with, as already broadly mentioned,

by many architects of the past with creative intelligence and sensitivity, either as a

result of their programmatic commitments, or through their perspicacious enrichment.

However, if one desires to seek a comprehensive and audacious interpretation thereof,

one should perhaps select a specific period in time in the course of the development of

the notion of the ‘opening’, or of the ‘greening of the school’ and its implementation, in

the case of an example from the USA. This refers to the period from 1965 to 1975, a

time when one could perceive a conviviality of opposing and often conflicting views

ranging from extreme conservatism to the more radical grass-roots movements. That

decade, as one could fairly easily maintain, was an extremely contentious and creative

time, with pioneering visions which expanded and had a substantial impact on the

school system itself. On another side, the dawn of electronic information and electronic

design can be located at that same time. Around 1965 the first computer centers in

universities and research facilities began to be used regularly. As far as the school

system itself was concerned, that was the time when the ‘greening of the high school’

was also proposed, under the guise in which it was initially developed at a Symposium

which saw position statements and proposals coming from 35 school specialists, all of

which dealt substantively with the open school seen in contrast to the existing, which

was the object of scathing criticism.(5)

In formulating the claim for another type of school, the Head of the Education Board of

the City of New York had said at the time:

“We ought to acknowledge that the function of the school has changed and with it the

needs of the built environment. We no longer need classrooms … Individuals can now

be organized around the sources of information and around the means whereby they

look for their peers in their search and management of knowledge. Therefore, we are

looking for different types of space: spaces for small groups, friendly spaces that

nurture and encourage social interaction; spaces for multiple uses and large

assemblies. We need information centers, multimedia centers, spaces for storage and

retrieval, processing and presentation of information; we need broad surfaces, flat,

vertical and three dimensional settings for the exhibition of handicraft, works of art or

other things that it is important to put on display …. we need shops and workshops for

the invention and construction of works of art and science … such spaces, varied in

shape and without predetermined dimensions, are also found under particularly

favorable configurations, in buildings that had been made originally for very different

purposes. Those buildings offer spaces that serve as challenges for new intelligent uses

and solutions that in time can generate new ideas for learning ..’.

New models of school programs, curricula and building installations were presented at

the Symposium, along with indicative means and practices that would allow for their

realization. How the school agendas and their respective environment could ‘open up’

and become more accessible to the individual and spread outwards whilst retaining the

nature of school community? How the school could be humanized? How its negative

productivity might be reversed? These were some of the substantial issues addressed to

during the Symposium, suggesting a breakthrough in the reform of modern education. (figs.32)

Fig.32 Avant-guarde application of the new educational philosophy: the Educational complex or

Human Resources Center at Pontiac, Michigan, USA. 1970 (it is characteristically stated in the

internet that: “..the HRC is an educational institution designed to help develop talents and human potential from early childhood through

adulthood … education is made to serve a broader role than it has in the past…”)

Ground floor plan: 1,2.Kindergarden 6. Arts&crafts workshops 7. Cafeteria, 8. Open learning spaces 9. Multi-media center 13. Music room

14.Gymnasium.

Fig.33 Edward Sorel’s sketch, indicative of the compulsory school system in the 1960’s in the U.S.A. (source: EFL.The Greening of the

High School, p.26

(5) For instance the school was associated with an “unloved and troubled institution”, “the most absurd part of an educational system

pervaded by absurdity”, “a sleeping giant unmoved by the issues swirling around it”, etc. (see Educational Facilities Laboratories: The

Greening of the High School, N.Y. 1973)

Key concepts that were discussed and assessed concerned:

- the uniqueness of the individual,

- the doctrine of the compulsory school and of the ‘captive’ audience of students

(fig.33),

- the school without ‘walls’

- the circadian rhythms of students relative to their established daily program,

- the school as a public place,

- alternative learning options,

- students’ natural posture (q.v. attentiveness and fatigue, ergonomic design for

posture, equipment, etc.)

Today, thirty years and more years later, similar quests after the identity, quality and the

form of the open school constitute a recognized field for interdisciplinary research and

collaboration, social dialogue and applications in several countries. Those endeavors are

of course having an impact on the architectural design of the new school, given that the

implementation of the concept of ‘openness’ is interwoven –perhaps inherent- in the

creative exploration and process associated with the former.

In recent Finnish schools for instance, along with the evolution of modern pedagogical

practice, actual and metaphorical barriers have been removed. Many of the new schools

are freely situated in locations that allow them to function and to breathe towards their

interior and towards their exterior, with networks of pedestrian paths, bicycle routes that

surround them, often set side by side with the municipal library, or the health and

wellness center, the parish center, the sports field, the market place. The school is itself

an inalienable, open and active part of a multifunctional and self-assessed community

where the activities of education, culture and social interaction are all interlinked

without exclusive privileges and occasionally without distinct boundaries (figs.34-38).

Fig.34 Torpparinmaki School, Finland, 1999. Plans

Fig.35 Torpparinmaki School, Finland, 1999. External entrance view

Fig.36 Soininen School, Finland, 1994-96. Ground floor plan. Architects: Kaira-Lahdelma-Mahlamaki

Fig.37 Soininen School, Finland, 1994-96. External view.

Fig.38 School complex at Pukinmaki, Finland. General view

In another recent example from the USA, the competition for ‘Small Schools’ in

Chicago (2003) sought to humanize the school by creating smaller scale entities with

marked features of ‘communality’ that could be assisted by the services of sustainable

multifunctional centers open also to the community at large (figs.39,40).

In Europe too, many countries have pursued

similar orientations to redefine the spatial

characteristics of educational contexts. In several

cases the unified central area for multiple uses

does not only serve exclusively the concept of

providing a ‘social forum’ but constitutes too an

open and flexible landscape for individual and

group teaching-educational-social activities. (figs.41-43,44 a-d) (6,7) Figs.39,40 Architectural entries at the competition for the New Community Schools in Chicago, U.S.A. 2002

- Top: Perspective diagram. Architects: Marble Fairbanks

- Bottom: part of Ground floor Plan. Architects: Lubrano Ciavarra

(source: Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. Robert V. Sharp ed. 2002 – see bibliographic references and

www.bpichicago.org)

Fig.41 Isometric plan of Glastonbury Thorn First School at Milton Keynes, England. 1993. Buckinghamshire County Architects (observe central space for general education # and open classes in recesses … similar approach as

with that of Heinavaara School in Finland)

See also: http://www.futurelab.org.uk

Figs.42,43 Plan and view of Heinavaara School, Finland. 1999. Architects: Cuningham Group Architects – Bruce Jilk (Minnesota, USA)

(example of a School with open learning landscape … see similar approach as with Glastonbury Thorn First School at Milton Keynes …

each student has his/her own work space … work spaces are organized in groups of 10 to thus form a learning “pod” … each group of 10

pods forms a larger ”house” unit consisting of 100 pupils and about 3 teachers … the furniture setting is flexible permitting work in small

or big groups, in rows or semi-circles … at the center of the facility is located the “forum”, a large space which can be used for eating, for

exhibitions, as a place for meetings, as amphitheatre… the School indulges also in extra mural activities, in communal services and

functions)

See. DesignShare:Designing for the Future of Learning.http://www.designshare.com in reference to a Conference of The American

Institute of Architects/Committee on Architecture for Education, Amsterdam 2000.

Fig.44 a-d Plans and elevations of St.Catherine’s British Embassy School in Athens. Indicated in yellow are areas of social

gathering (the “social forum”). Architects: K. Xanthopoulos and M. Milissi in collaboration with Archiplus-Stamatiou and G.

Stathopoulos (Selected project in invited architectural competition, 2008)

(6) A typical example of the typological implications of the open work and meeting place may be drawn from the extensive work of

architect Herman Hertzberger (see: Domino Schools, Bombardon School, Secondary Interm.Vocat. School at Hoorn, Montessori

College Oost, etc.).

(7) See also two recent research projects on the new school: ‘Classrooms of he Future; Innovative Designs for Schools’ and

‘Teaching Environments for the Future-TEF’, of the British Department of Education and Skills.

In summary, what could be some of the salient quality features that render a school an

open and human space at the disposal of the ‘little’ human being?

- scale (providing the sense of identity, answering to needs-questions such as:

where do I belong, where can I retreat to, where can I find myself among

friends, where can I work on my own or with others, in informal and

spontaneous groupings that serve various types of activity),

- personal space (space that belongs both to students and to teachers, and also to

members of he community at large, where they can assemble, work, store and

retrieve information and tools for their work in progress),

- spatial diversity-versatility (dimensions and shapes so that individuals can

interact in pairs, foursomes or groups of ten, or twenty or one hundred, with the

necessary visual and auditory independence that suits such a purpose),

- spatial organization-taxonomy (which is not necessarily the same thing as the

stereotype of typological repetitiveness),

- space manipulability (space that is amenable to transformation so as to serve

alternating functions, that make students feel they own it, that it is a space that

they can possess and appropriate as required),

- access to information and tools (this capability should be easily and

spontaneously available upon request),

- spatial-environmental interaction (users of the school should be able to leave

behind them the traces of their presence and their participation in it, i.e displays,

exhibits, happenings, etc.),

- alternative postures for work performance (standing, sitting on the floor, etc.)

- the sense for the ‘coming of age’ – ageing and gradual refurbishment-

restoration of equipment with the natural wear and tear it sustains,

- the implementation of terms of sustainability and energy conservation,

- the promotion and transparency of the work skills and aesthetics (the

experience of work and activity in general, must be offered to the eyes-to the

senses- of ‘players’ and passers-by, without this disturbing or affecting it)

(figs.45,46).

Figs.45,46 Transparency of the school “work” (pictures from Aurinkolahti School, Vuosaari, Finland)

Ultimately, an ‘open school’ is not just its physical structure, or solely its architecture.

Open schools are not merely one more ‘new fangled’ notion of our un-quiet age. They

have to do with the entire plexus of the institutions of a society, of a state; its policies –

especially its decentralized policies and the role of local government- its culture and

civilization, the way of life (re.genre de vie) of the communities that constitute it. It is

related too to the critical maturity of individuals, groups and institutions, their

educational aspirations, their will and the moral stance they adopt. In other words, the

‘open school’ reflects the attitude, perspective and practice of a democratic society. But,

both the necessary ‘institutional ruptures’ as well as the relevant ‘architectural

dismantlings’ are therefore necessarily in step with the values and pace of each

particular society. And the future of the school needs relevant steps. This future is

invented; it is willed and it is also designed; it does not merely mimic the past nor is it

repeating exactly what went before.

Herein lays the challenge for Architecture.

Rémi who exists in the soul of us all is dreaming as he listens to the sound of the open sea; the sea that

sets free … (fig.47)

Fig.47 “dreaming poetics” of the little Rémi (by French photographer ´Edouard.Boubat)

Selected Bibliographic References

Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (www.bpichicago.org), Robert V. Sharp (ed.)

Architecture for Education; New School Designs from the Cicago Competition.

Tien Wah Press, Singapore. 2002

Department of Education and Skills/School of the Future Steering Group

Schools for the Future; Designs for Learning Communities. Buiding Bulletin 95

H.M.S.O., Norwich. 2002

&

Classrooms of the Future. 2004

(www.teachernet.gov.uk/classroom_of_the_future)

Alfred Roth

The New Schoolhouse (revised edition)

Fr. Praeger, N.Y./Washington. 1966

The American Institute of Architects/AIA

Educational Facilities

The Images Publishing Group. N.Y. 2002

Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies

A Right to be Children; Designing for the Education of the Under-fives

1976

!"#"$/"%&'%()(&*+ ,-./&/01/0

2304µ560 7803590:35&/0;6(9% *%& <600</&*=>

?@4-%, 2001

Centre Georges Pompidou

La ville et l’enfant

Paris. 1977

J.&S. Sauvy

The Child’s Discovery of Space

Pelican (?). 1972

ABµ4/6B> C56µ%-+>

2& /0980& /B> (-D.B>. 7803&*+> 8D60> *%& 5*<%9'5;.B. Gutenberg, ?@4-% 2002

ABµ4/6B> C56µ%-+>

ED60> *%& '&%'&*%.95> %()(4>. F <%&'%()(&*4 <0&+/B/% /0; 8D60;

Gutenberg, ?@4-% 2001

G;6&%*4 H.0;*%3I

HI.5&> ./B .803&*4 %68&/5*/0-&*4¨%<+ /B- <%&'0*5-/6&*4 35&/0;6(&*+/B/% ./B µ5/%µ0-/=6-% <60.=((&.B

#*'. "%6%/B6B/4>. $5..%30-9*B 1998 (?)

G;6&%*4 H.0;*%3I (5<&µ.)

?68&/5*/0-&*4, <%&'9 *%& %()(4

#*'. "%6%/B6B/4>. $5..%30-9*B, 2000.

ETH & Paedagogische Hochschule Zurich, et al.

School Buildings; The State of Affairs. The Swiss contribution in an International Context

#*'.Birkauser, Publishers for Architecture, 2004

Mark Dudek

Architecture of Schools; the New Learning Environments

Architectural Press. 2000/2002(reprint)

Mark Dudek (ed.)

Schools and Kindergartens; a Design Manual. Birkhauser, Berlin 2007

Bradford Perkins/Perkins Eastman Architects PC

Building Type Basics for Elementary and Secondary Schools

Stephen A. Kliment (ed.)

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2001

J013% "%<%-&*03I0;

26(I-).B *%& '&%µ+6K).B /0; 8D60; ./0 -B<&%()(590

#*'. G%./%-&D/B 1994

Robert V. Sharp (ed.)

BPI-Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (www.bpichicago.org) (publ.)

Architecture for Education; New School Designs from the Chicago Competition

D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, New York. 2002

Ruth Weinstock

The Greening of the high school

A report on a conference co-sponsored by Educational Facilities Laboratories/EFL and Institute for Development of

Educational Activities,Inc./IDEA

EFL, Inc. New York. 1973

Richard Yelland

OECD/PEB (Programme on Educational Building) (www.oecd.org/els/education/facilities)

“Designs for Learning”; The PEB compendium of exemplary educational facilities (pdf)

Edinburgh, UK.12-11-2002

White House Millenium Council & American Institute of Architects

“Designing Schools for the 21st Century; National Symposium to offer ideas and models for new learning environments.”

Washington D.C. US Dept. of Education.1998

Kenneth Bayes

Living Architecture (Rudolf Steiner’s ideas in practice)

Anthroposophic Press & Floris Books (publ.)

Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire UK. 1994

George Mesmin (µ5/%K6.". "5-/53&*+>)

H0 <%&'9, B %68&/5*/0-&*4 *%& 0 8D60>

#*'. L-4µB, ?@4-% 1978

26(%-&.µ+> 7803&*D- G/&69)-/27G – A/.B 7.#.#. – Hµ4µ% M65;-%>

G/&6&030(&*I "60(6Iµµ%/% "60.803&*4>, ABµ0/&*4> *%& L=.B> #*<%9'5;.B>

("60'&%(6%K=>)

27G, ?@4-% 1984

?68&/5*/0-&*I <56&0'&*I (<56&06&.µ=-B 5<&30(4):

?68&/5*/0-&*I $=µ%/% 13/1979. “#*<%9'5;.B *%& .803&*I */46&%”

Arkkitehti -The Finnish Architectural Review #4/2001. “Schools”

Detail #43 Serie 2003. “3 Schulbau”

Arkkitehti -The Finnish Architectural Review #1/2004. “Schools”

The article was published in the Intern. Review of Architecture A2L#7 of May 2007 (pp.48-59). The

original text was in greek and a major part of it was translated into english by Alexander Zaphiriou

Note: Figures 1,28,29,30,35,37,38,44,45 and 46 are from the writer’s photographic archive