Archi-Tectonics

Archi-Tectonics developed this new school concept as a prototype for Copernicus International School (CIS*) for students grades K-12, with its first iteration and headquarters to be located in Long Island City/ New York. The first school of 10,000sf is situated at the edge of a semi-industrial neighborhood, only a block away from the legendary MoMA offshoot PS1. The building finds itself at the forefront of recent high-end residential and cultural development, and will serve as an important fixture within the community.

Childhood education has traditionally focused on conveying a set of fixed fundamentals to provide children with the tools and knowledge to function effectively in an adult economy. This rigid model of learning has long been questioned by progressive educators, and today been (largely) replaced with teaching philosophies focusing on a more personalized approach, putting the individual at the center of their learning, and emphasizing teamwork, project based learning and social skills. We believe that the classroom of the future needs to provide environments that foster and encourage the development of skills that can be universally applied to multiple tasks and adapted in time. Open and flexible enough to adapt to multiple modes of use, often within a single lesson, as well as adaptable to changes of tools and technologies, the architectural environment should be an “object lesson”, a didactic tool in itself.

Our proposed school is divided into multiple, distinct spatial environments: (1) open and flexible studio classrooms, with multiple adaptable desk and seating options, display walls and interactive displays, (2) a “commons”: multi-functional landscape for group activities fostering social interaction or role play, as well as islands for individual retreat (3) a modular “soft wall” of varying dimensions and scales, containing storage, library, displays and docking stations. This wall is the zone of maximum intensity and flux, a constantly changing interactive boundary, and (4) populating these environments with modular and adaptable furniture systems, allowing for flexible and open-ended arrangements, inviting cross-fertilization and creative recombination.

We conceived of the project initially as a set of non-site specific spatial strategies and components that could be adapted to various locations and scales. Based on the progressive educational philosophy of CIS*, we developed modular, adaptable environments and objects that would encourage playful and creative learning, while accommodating a wide range of personal learning styles and preferences. We understood the architectural environment as an “object lesson”, a didactic tool in itself. In this new learning environment “knowledge” is no longer conveyed as set of fixed and finite fundamentals, but as an emergent phenomenon - the competence to synthesize and adapt information, and consequently spaces, to various tasks and realms.

Credits

Year: Concept Design 2016

Location: Long Island City

Client: Copernicus International School

Project Type: School Prototype

Size: 10,000 sf (900 m2)

Renders: Archi-Tectonics