„INI HARAPAN KAMI!“*
Classroom Design to be „This is Our Hope!“ Design
SCHOOL
Our partner is a primary school Sekolah Dasar Negeri 064962, was built in 1977, located in urban area, southern Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. The school that consists of 6 grades (grade 1 – 6) with students vary from 6 – 13 years old. Every grade has only one classroom consist of 19 – 35 students. There are 187 students and 11 teachers (including headmaster) whom some of them perform some administrative tasks. Long time ago, the school is just the same with other schools. It operated well and smooth until the coming of private developer a few last year. The developer pervailed the land around the school to build luxurious houses and a modern gigantic shopping center.
Now, status of the land ownership where the school stand is not clear and disputed between government and the developer. The developer intends to demolish the school as soon as possible and they come to put the teachers and students under pressure. While the school staff must be there to defense the school as instructed by their supervisor. There are many uncertainities and insecureness. Besides, there is no more attention from government. It has not been supported with building maintenance fund for 10 years. The school building area is about 408,2 m2 while the land area is about 700 m2. There is only one room to share for the headmaster and teachers, 6 classrooms, broken toilet, storage, and narrow yard to play in. There are any other buildings nor rooms. The roof has become rusty that they leaks when it rains. The wall is dewy and mossy. Thus the classrooms are very not healthy. In addition, there are some more problems to mention. It seems that the school is there, but not there! Teacher and students have been in the middle of the dispute for long! They are become victim!
DESIGN
To start with, the project design of the classrooms is a project designed by the teachers and students in grade 5. We, as a partner and the architect team, have only one idea, no idea! So, we just give the chance to the teachers and students to design it by themselves.
Ideas contributed by the teachers and students are often spontaneous and break the common things. All of us sat together to discuss and define the problems the school had. Having identified the problems, we analized and tried to find the best solution that fitted everyone, not a solution that win and win. By doing this, we tried to capture, classify, and draw it to our plan design. The design is aimed to be understandable in an architecture competition.
Then, we realize that the design of the classrooms produced by the process is not the main achievement here. The design is only a “side effect” of the discussion among architects. What is amazing to tell here is the rising of hope and fighting spirit from the teachers and students to keep their school and to use this design as their new media for external. The sparkling in their eyes at this moment,… are those that we could not find when we met them for the first time. Indeed, designing the classrooms together has changed to be designing a new hope for them!
HOPE
Expectancy all the teachers and students only hope for one simple thing. They just want to teach and study in their same school with peace and full of certainty. For them, the school building is not just a building. It has become part of their lives and symbolized their better life in the future! Of course, it will be more exciting if their classrooms can be healthier, more beautiful, and functioned well.
MISCELLANEOUS
For the interest of further explanation of the event: Material used for the classroom is bricks, bamboo, woods, roof and other supporting materials. All of them are local material that can easily be obtained around the location. The development method applied is simple technology that has been part of their culture in the society from long time ago.
* Ini HARAPAN Kami! from Bahasa Indonesia: means, This is Our Hope!
