Open Architecture Network

Our project site is Tholopotamion village, located south of the main port in Chios Island (at Eastern Aegean sea, Greece). Our project is designing for the 5th grade classroom of the Tholopotamion elementary school, a classroom that has been added to the main school quite recently. Our team partners with the teacher of the 5th grade of the Tholopotamion elementary school for the current year. It is a pretty small village of 700 people approximately, found on the slope of the mountain Profitis Elias, with an altitude of 535 meters. The class of our choice has only 7 students, which is almost the case for the rest of the classes, as well.
A few words about the school: it has the typical greek inner brick construction and a roof made of red tiles, features that relate to the general image of the village. The classroom addition has been previously realized by means of the school director and his special care; however the current construction presents wrong orientation issues and prevention of natural light, construction failures that lead to moisture corrosion and unpleasant air flows, a malfunction that is typical for a greek ‘improvised’ school construction. Even if it somehow “works”, as young architects we believe that educational facilities need to be architecturally “thought” for numerous reasons: our design proposal aims to provide new qualities to the students’ experience of the inner classroom space, further expanding their own school interests and creativity.

Concept and goals
“Conventional 4+1 walls” is not the case for the new structure. Our concept proposes penetrating the traditional vertical and horizontal wall boundaries in “strips”, engaging in this way with the natural environment. Additionally, we focus in the integration of the school’s ‘traditional’ facilities with new technology resources and mechanics that could enhance the school experience of ‘tomorrow’. The team’s principal reflection is not only to forward innovative design qualities to the school resident but further provide an efficient architectural example to the common inhabitant of the Greek citizen that’s genuinely in need of new images and architectural paradigms. Our honest aspiration is that our design responds to contemporary educational demands and pushes forward architectural thought and motivation for the school foundation, both in knowledge gain as well as in practical application. Especially happening in a country like Greece where, unfortunately, education design and resources is not a leading concern. More analytically:

a. The “Horizontal axis-breaking” roof strips
The ‘roof strips’ concept is the one that helped us “unite” the front and the back part of the classroom yard, rendering it a place with architectural “incidents” and therefore a more interesting classroom entourage.

b. The “Vertical axis-breaking” zones - Classroom equipment architecture
(Movable/ fixed, inside/outdoor, furniture. Computer facilities)
The horizontal unfolding of the students furniture (particles) takes place on an initial given grid of 20x20 cm and organizes the classroom space in the basic “working” areas: from left to right, we first find the computer facilities space: the flat screen computers make use of the room’s height, unfolding on the vertical wall. The classroom could also be equipped with an interactive board (in combination with a computer and projector): touch screens that provide access to Windows and Macintosh applications (already provided in experimental programs throughout selected schools in Greece). New computer technology, in combination with traditional “chalk blackboards”, ensures a more attractive teaching procedure.
Following the computer facilities space, the “arts and crafts” benches extend creativity space in an innovative way, increasing students’ interest and skills in hand made work. These objects develop to the main students desks that occupy a central position in the classroom space. Furniture continuity is shortly “interrupted” by the main passageway of the class. Following the vertical passage ‘gap’, it continues to reach the east, open side of the classroom where break-time and play-time take place, supported by a more fragmented, incidental and playful design. We aspired that this new approach of the ‘eastern side’ challenges the original rigid wall boundary of the class and opens it up to the natural environment and attractive view of the outside.
Our Design Curriculum

Having “Curriki” was a great inspiration to our team since it provided the very basis for our own conceptual approach and design curriculum, adapted to the students of the 5th grade and our personal “needs”. We accomplished a frequent communication with the students through their teacher, which happens to be related to one of the team members and, thus, was an endless source of valuable information. One of the members of our team visited the school in person so as to have an impression first-hand and trace down important features and dimensions.
In close cooperation with their teacher, we created a series of lessons-sessions where the children were initially provided with some general architectural knowledge (architect’s role, building materials being used, construction methods etc). They sat in with their teacher for several days, studied the material we suggested, made some important observations on the information given and their experience of the current classroom and eventually dedicated time to work on expressing their own ideas, as well as craft work.

More analytically, the lessons were organized in 5 general sessions with the students, taking place during the regular school hours. Surprisingly, there were also “pleasant” interventions-suggestions for additional discussion topics and ways of presentation by the school ‘team’, which was welcomed by the architects:

1. Introducing Architecture
Acquaintance of students with simple architecture terminology. Explanation of the role of the architect. What is design? Architectural terminology (scale, units, etc). Is their current classroom “designed”, architecturally studied? What are the reasons? Some “free” discussion on designing the school classroom “of tomorrow”. The students’ opinions.
The second part of the session included “field work” in the courtyard, where the students had to locate their classroom in the topographic site, provided “in sketch” by the architects. (documentation of fieldwork is provided by the architects).

2. ‘Simple’ building materials acquaintance
The teacher presents a construction detail of the wall section in “sketch”. Class discussion follows on the material use. Explanation of what construction failure is. (Documentation of original design shown is provided by the architects).

3. Think of your favorite classroom
The teacher presented the questions below in an ‘open’ discussion:
“Think of your favorite place for studying. What place is comfortable and inspiring? Is it grandpa’s village house? Is it a favorite room at home? The kitchen? Is it outside in the courtyard? Is it “underneath the stars”? On the contrary, what is a difficult place for you to learn?”
In the end of the open discussion, the teacher archives the answers in a text list, including positive and negative qualities. The list is eventually given back to the architects for feedback. (documentation of the list is provided by the architects).
At the same time, the students were also presented pictures of contemporary school architecture examples and a short discussion followed with the teacher.

4. Draw your favorite classroom
The students are asked to draw their ‘favorite classroom. It was clear that the pictures shown in the previous session was an inspiration to them! Based on their drawings, the architects acquire a pretty good impression of what a child, at this age, looks for in his classroom space. Issues of intimacy, privacy, team-gathering, even color aesth