Obviously, there is an underlying desire in people to do one thing over others. What about “laziness”? Is that a factor in anything? Could laziness be translated to lack of interest? And am I looking for a way to stimulate/create an interest inside an individual through architecture?
But if there is an institution which involves a three-fold approach to learning, and also allowed residential, and allowed much opportunity to try out the ideas one learned, how would it look?

Head, Heart and Hands.

So, can the space be categorized by Head (academic learning—classrooms), Heart (what? Art? Social interaction? Eurythmy or physical activities? Music?), Hands (well, where it is applied? Performance? Science laboratories and wood and ceramics and metalworking?) So it sounds like I am back to a third year project, to design a research center for an artist, a philosopher and a scientist. Who was the head? Scientist. Heart? Artist. Soul? Philosopher.

But everything is everything. I cannot apply some judgment to, for instance art, and say it is all heart, ‘cause it is not. But maybe there is a stronger correlation with one part than another? There is, also—as an aside to all this—the additional issue of elevating students. Hmmm. Well, if there is a stronger correlation in one place, that’s fine, but it cold also be used for something else. Then the form becomes meaningless. So, this place is about a three part learning process. Maybe each space needs to look at how it relates to this trifoldness. Grand and wordy, eh?[more...]

So, site plan, another problem. I cannot merely grid this. The grid: such a fallback. What other organizing systems are there that are as all-embracing? There are minor things, like site edges, the edge spaces defining a place, so the center of the site does not get eaten up, and the building acts as its own fence. The state on the North side of the lot allows that. Organic forms rely on some sort of complex proportion to relate the parts together. Bow about the human? What if I were a building’s size? Where would I sit on the site? Not really fundamentally related or looked at.

The problem also goes back to a fundamental approach. What is one looking for? What are the positive things? What is actively searched out? Educational, social developmental needs. Damn. Quite a thing to say, but, actually, what are they?

So we have two sets of three aspects that are extremely important. Not only… Head/heart/hands applies to educational. But this is, by definition, an educational institution. What about residential? And developmental?

Social requires some degree of adult control and guidance. I am absolutely not proposing removing adult guidance. That I see as fundamental to high school, still. Part of the progression of total dependence (fetus) to total independence (does this happen before death? We always have a reliance on other human beings. The world must be seen as a place of mutual support. Gosh, another subject.

So, we are back to the form issue. Also a siting one. Earlier in the book, I started calling this an adolescents’ community for coming of age. Sounds so new age, clichéd. I think it may need to be [more...]

looked at as a community center, though. How does this develop? A community center, on this little site in the middle of nowhere. How is this a community? What is at issue is maybe the conception that there needs to be a community center. How would the school feel about youth who do not go to school there using the place? If it is truly a community center, how would young people get there? The bus system is so infrequent (probably every hour from 7 am to 6 pm, or maybe less than that, considering it is a rural route). So that’s why there needs to be residence places for the students.

So they live there. What’s so different about that? Many would absolutely hate that. That does not necessarily make this a community center. Why am I trying to make a community center, anyway? From the understanding that a school needs to be one. Why? If it is not, then there is no involvement in young people by more than just the students’ parents. If that. But these students are a strange chunk of the population. They are from at least very privileged households, or places where the parents are really interested in their children’s growth both intellectually and emotionally. Emotional growth? All these catch phrases. Get to the root of them, I suppose?

So, what of form and placement issues? Just saw the structural forum thing. Very little talk about form finding. What pushes form-finding? Preconceptions often push things, which is something this project has tried desperately to avoid. Also, physical needs of a site or program. Then there is the issue of a meaning, and how it is approached. How does one get down and dig out the essential background for the meaning? A depth of understanding? But one must go beyond even understanding. There is a jump. We all look for it; Is it too late to make a jump? Do I know too much already? Huh?

Thinking more about the head, heart, hands thing. That is not fundamental to any design issues. I need to paste them up here.

So, how is education expressible? Looking to Kahn’s statement, of people under a tree, it looks like a fundamental human need to unlock the secrets of the world around, and of oneself. And to rely on the knowledge of wise people is to build on the past. But we must know the past to build on it. [more...]

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