Architecture As Pedagogy

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Aesthetic education

At the last Arch Moscow, the Archimatics pavilion was dedicated to the concept of aesthetic education. On this issue, the company has something to say: the school in the Obolon district will be the fourth private school in Kiev, designed by the bureau. The previous three - Gymnasium A +, Pechersk International School and the Academy of Modern Education - won dozens of architectural awards and set the vector for the development of private education in Ukraine. At first, the architects had to convince the client that something more could be created than just bright and spacious classrooms, now the bar rises higher with each new project.

According to the concept of aesthetic education, architecture inevitably becomes a part of the program: until the end of our lives we remember the walls, corridors, the courtyard of our native school - this influence should be taken into account and made positive. One of the founders of the bureau, Alexander Popov, explains that the school environment, firstly, should be convenient and understandable not only for the children who study there, but for the entire administration - otherwise portraits of great writers, rugs and shelves will argue with what they have in mind architects. And secondly, the space should be filled with images. In this sense, Archimatica is critical of the "gold standard" of the Scandinavian schools, which have become popular over the past twenty years, of their restraint and neutrality. “If you put a child in a white cube and tell him that this is a school, the space will not teach anything and will be alien, moreover, a potentially creative person will turn into a vandal, because he wants to paint and customize such a space,” says Alexander Popov.

The space saturated with images not only offers a choice - to retire or socialize, relax or work, look out the window overlooking the garden or the sports field, but also gently teach proportions, taste, archetypal forms, as well as the ability to appreciate and respect other people's creativity. In such an environment, based on dialogue with the child and his needs, there is a better chance of raising a person who will improve the social, engineering or architectural system in the future.

“International Obolon School” © Архиматика

Friendship with neighbors

So, a new school according to the project of Archimatika will be built in

Obolon district, which in 1970-80s acquired a modernist structure with mega-microdistricts tending to hexagonal contours, and in the 2000s was built up with high-rise residential complexes overlooking the Dnieper. Due to the wide and long strip of the pedestrian embankment, Obolon has become a popular vacation spot for Kiev residents.

The site for the school is located in a "public" quarter between the embankment and Heroes of Stalingrad Avenue, one of the three main streets of the district, echoing the bend of the Dnieper. The closest neighbors are the Academy of Arts and the Institute of Archeology and Hydrology, both buildings are good examples of Soviet late modernism.

Having immersed themselves in the context, the architects abandoned the reception of opposition and decided to create a building consonant with the surroundings as a tribute to Soviet urban planning. The task turned out to be not that simple - according to the author's metaphor, the team “needed tracing paper rolls” in order to plunge into the atmosphere of the thaw past and find an equally bright image of a school looking into the future. At this stage, the total volumes, the parabolic arch of the entrance, the configuration of the windows and the open spaces under the buildings were found.

The customer, however, was not ready for the rethought Soviet modernism, relying on the Scandinavian model. Then the architects added details - wood, colorful porcelain stoneware under the windows, the green "curtain" of the theater, mosaics. The proposed game, in which the northern whiteness and minimalism of Alvaro Aalto meets warm Mediterranean themes, while entering into a meaningful dialogue with the neighboring Soviet architecture, was to the liking of all participants in the project.

School town

The future educational complex will include a kindergarten and two independent schools, French and German, each with its own administration and program. They will be united by a common courtyard and a building, which will house a dining room, a library, a sports block and a theater. This model is beneficial to the customer - it is easier to launch two relatively small schools as a business project, while each has a full-fledged public space, and the construction site can be divided into several stages.

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1/4 “International Obolon School” © Archimatika
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2/4 “International Obolon School” © Archimatika
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3/4 “International Obolon School” © Archimatika
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4/4 “International Obolon School” © Archimatika

All buildings are different from each other, which turns the school into a small town with its streets, squares and a variety of spatial and aesthetic impressions. Between the moderately austere white educational blocks with window tapes, rounded corners and arches, there is a green theater screen wall and a glass wave, behind which the central staircase is visible. The composition is closed by a kindergarten, which keeps a little apart, but speaks about its function, also without resorting to the help of bright colors and Lego bricks. Terracotta-colored plaster resembles clay, variegated mosaics are at the same time a Mediterranean patio and monumental panels of socialist realism. Color, material and modest decor soften the building's brutalist core so much that it feels warm, hand-sculpted. It does not evoke any associations with units of society and future comrades, on the contrary, it radiates a feeling of comfort and security, summer carelessness.

Courtyard art

The kindergarten mosaic, by the way, is part of the plan to return the works of art to schools and kindergartens. Together with the Soviet ideology, mosaics, panels, busts and sculptures that adorned many public buildings have gone from our everyday life. Archimatika, with the assistance of a customer who believes that money should be invested in art, since it animates and fills space with meaning for decades, is trying to make up for this loss. On the central square of the school, for example, there will be a work by the Ukrainian artist Aleksey Burdiy: a forest of giant "pencils" that also resemble a colonnade and suggest a scenario for the game. There will be more art objects in the future.

In addition to the central square, “streets”, passages and nooks will be formed between the school buildings. The technique successfully tested in the Gymnasium A + with the creation of additional space under the building in Obolon was repeated and increased, since a comfortable and cozy place in the shade is popular. Open classrooms form arches, another archetypal element.

Expansion of Archimatika will also extend beyond the school territory: the company plans to improve the area of the school, overlooking Heroes of Stalingrad Avenue. Alexander Popov calls this an "urban provocation", which may lead to b about more transformations.

Energy efficiency and a new formation

The school of the future cannot but be environmentally friendly: heat air and ground source pumps will be placed on a flat roof, street lamps will be powered by solar panels, ventilation with recuperation will be supplemented with a natural ventilation system that will help maintain a healthy climate inside the school even when it is empty in summer.

Alexander Popov says that such decisions would be impossible to implement in a regular school - the public education system in Ukraine does not have sufficient funding and is rather based on the enthusiasm of teachers, in addition, the tendering system generates indifference to the quality of materials and the choice of contractors. At the same time, when designing even a commercial school, it is impossible to fully rely on foreign experience: Archimatics, consistently implementing the concept of aesthetic education, is creating a new tradition before our very eyes.