SDN Mekarjaya 31
Mekarjaya 31 Public Elementary School
Depok, West Java, Indonesia
1. The Story
For the pas few years, the occurrence rate of demolishing a particular neighborhood in order to gain more space for highways has been increasing in Indonesia. These phenomena specifically happened in cities with high density like Depok. Due to the fact that this is a government’s plan to enhance living quality, the application unfortunately is not as the plan suggests. There are numbers of negative impacts regarding to its realization, one of which happened to SDN Mekarjaya 31.
SDN Mekarjaya 31 is a public elementary school located within a housing district. Being in such neighborhood, this school already has some technical problems to deal with. For instance, some parts of the building are closely surrounded with high walls whose distance from the classes’ walls are less than a meter. In other parts of the building without borders, the children can literally touch the houses’ walls through their class windows. This condition causes the school problems like lack of daylight, privacy intrusion, etc. Aside to its previous problems, the news of school demolishing generates a new and bigger devastation. Since the school is informed of such act 2 years ago, there has been no repercussion from government for the 2010 highway plan, therefore school damages has been taken for granted. This disregardance leads to its current class condition: numerous cracks on walls and ceilings, broken windows, dead plants and trees, disfunctional items such as lamps, chairs, and doors, and not to mention the poor air quality within the class.
These conditions in highly intolerable for children, and we are compelled to propose the slightest solution to this particular matter. Since the relocation site is still unknown, we are using the school’s original location for reference.
2. The Dream
Since SDN Mekarjaya 31 is a public school, to propose a new classroom means to level with government standards for elementary school. We tried to push these boundaries in order to set forth a greater arrangement in creating children’s learning environment as well as to introduce a new prototype of a modular classroom design within the government’s budget for Indonesian public school in general.
On May 8th, 2009 we held a workshop for the students and teachers. We gathered students from 1st to 6th grade and had them form groups according to their grade. The workshop began with a dialogue to encourage the students in giving their asessments in regards to their classes. Their appraisals vary from “we need to fix damages in class” to “we want more interesting activity but we don’t have a proper space to do it”. Afterwards, we ask them to imagine their dream class and then to generate their thoughts into drawings and 3D models using garbage. Theoritically, they haven’t put much concern in classroom design as long as it conveys the minimum requirements but they do exposed their hope of a more interactive learning environment. As for the teachers, their main problem regarding classroom is technical. They expressed that the lack of media to accentuate children’s works is very minimum and to apply more active learning methods often fails because there’s no place comfortable enough to provide such activities.
The bigger picture..
Each modul contains two-storey classrooms with outer structure. This form intend to create a dynamic modification of the class box. Vertically, the extraction of the class box greatly contributes in air maintenance. The exposed ceiling is not entirely adjunct with the walls, instead it gives more space to support air circulation and daylight. Horizontally, the outer structure gives the benefits to border the outdoor area of the class and the shifting of the class alignment allows each module to have its own indoor/outdoor area. This classrooms arrangement is covered with a continuous roof shape with opening above the outdoor area of the class. These openings produce an energizing athmosphere as well as being a alternative medium for climbing plants.
The separator..
The classroom modul combines 2 class with a middle separator which also function as the class’ storage. The separator exists to comply with the need of communal activities. Using the principle of rolling door, it can be rolled aside to the class’ walls creating a larger space for children to do conjunct activities without having to go outside.
The window slash door..
Commonly, classes in public school is equipped with stiff windows to gain more daylight. We tried to integrate the intention of daylight, air and students circulation. The windows slash doors initiate a vague connectivity with the backyard to afford activities which require direct connection to outdoor area such as learning about nature or even just to play outside. Other than giving the firsthand outdoor/indoor relation, this feature also bestow the need of class enlargement for certain activities.
The “no cheating” wall..
There’s a unique criticism from students pertaining the wall which borders the class and the seating area outside. The previous wall has windows which frequently mistreated by some mothers as a media to sneak answers to their children inside the class on exams. Oddly facinating, this is one of the utmost demand of the other children and to say that this is a ludicrous matter is an understatement. Therefore, we came up with the solution to eradicate the windows on this wall replacing it with a plain wall covered with board serving as their hall of fame. Underneath, there are spaces for storage which in the other side performs as seats.
