Frida Brismar Pålsson, We need environments for learning
Frida Brismar Pålsson is the founder of the consultancy and studio Paradis Produktion. She is devoted to the field of learning and architecture and has developed ways of understanding physical learning environments through the lenses of pedagogy, psychology and philosophy.
FILMED IN STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2018
EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future.
What is the future of learning environments? Today’s concept of talking about future learning environments is often that we know nothing about what professions we will need in the future. So let’s just be open and have anything.
I don’t agree!
Let’s not to even talk about what kind of professions we will need in the future. Let’s talk about what learning looks like!
Actually the process of learning, the cognition and perception of learning, hasn’t really changed since the beginning of mankind. We worked the same way. We need the same kind of relation, activities and setting for that.
The risk with saying that we don’t know anything about the future of learning environments, is that we open this question for anyone to put their hands on.
It’s really fundamental that the design and the layout of the learning environment, should come and should grow from teachers and professionals in learning. The psychologists and architects that are specialized in this field. Not from business and commercial forces.
What is really important is what happens in between If we look at schools today we have schools for knowledge.
If I put it like this. If we go into a school today and look at the classroom and the furnishing and the layouts. We can see that it’s designed for the first phase of learning. The phase where you are you’re presented to a new phenomenon.
It could be for example you’re going to learn how to bake a cake and you’re introduced to the recipe. It could be your you’re supposed to understand, a new concept like the concept of diaspora. Or the concept of a molecule.
Then you’re presented to that concept. It could be that you’re supposed to learn a dance. Like you were supposed to learn how to dance flamenco and then you were introduced or presented to the steps. Maybe you heard the music before but you never saw the steps.
We had this first phase and how do we design for that? In these three cases you would:
1. Read the recipe. 2. Hear or listen to the concept being presented. 3. Watch the steps in the dance.
Normally we sit and have the phenomenon presented to us by a teacher and that’s how classrooms look.
Then looking at the classroom again. We have the last phase of learning. We have the representation. When students are supposed to be examined. We want to monitor if they really learned, what we just presented to them.
We normally for practical reasons. We have written tests. Then again they sit and they use pen and paper. Just like when they took notes, when they were watching or hearing about the concept.
The design of the room and the layout of the furniture will be the same. The classroom is built up for this first and last phase.
What is actually interesting in schools, is what happens in between. Where are the spaces for the actual transformative and relational active process of learning. That’s what I’m interested in.
I would say that in order to create these conditions, We know a lot about these conditions. We have teachers who are experts in creating these conditions for students. In spite of the design of the classroom. In spite of the design of the school. Although, it should be in alignment with the design of the school.
So the conditions from my point of view. First we have to work with four different kinds of space.
1. Laboratory space We have to work with laboratory space. In a very wide sense of that word.
It could be a wet space for experiments. In cooking, in chemistry, in biology. We don’t even need to use the traditional subject names. Because we we only need the kind of material and tools for that kind of activity.
2. Interactive space Then we have the interactive space. Where we physically meet with each other. We need an open floor space Because it’s really important that today, when all kids are meeting each other, virtually on the internet. Then we also need to work with this meeting in reality. Using our bodies in interaction with each other.
3. Communicative space Then we have the the third space. Which is also very important. That is a communicative space. Where we meet. Kind of like around the dinner table. That’s because we need to foster and help the students engage in a tolerant conversation with each other.
We need them to engage in the really difficult activity of listening to others. In order to to build up a democratic society.
4. Reflective space Fourth we also need a space for the contemplative situation. Because if we don’t have the wandering about and the reflection of what we just learnt. Then it won’t stick!
We need these four spaces in the school. What we have today is more of a kind of archive of knowledge.
If we look in a broader sense at the society and at the city that the school is situated in. Then there are actually much better places for that. Like monumental libraries, museums and universities. Where we could go and find that a first phase of knowledge. We could go there with our teacher and be presented to something.
Can we afford it? Of course it’s a it’s a question of economical resources. It’s like the idea of building a bridge. The the reason why we build a bridge is because we need cars or people being transported over that bridge.
But then we say: Oh we don’t have the resources to build it wide enough, so we’ll make it really really narrow.
Then we built a bridge, but it doesn’t feel fulfill the goal that we had with a bridge in the first place.
That’s what I’m thinking of when we’re building these very low costs big scale schools. Without all the resources that we need for learning. Then we have a school that doesn’t even fulfill the goal we set up in the first place. So why do we build it?
Safety and encouragement We could talk a lot about the different environmental factors. How do we create rooms that give the sense of safety. But also the sense of encouragement.
Because we need to understand that safety is not about security. We need to allow children’s to take risks. In order to develop and learn. But we need to make the base really comfortable. Make the room feel like it’s built for for the children. In order for them to feel that ”Ok this is a place for me” This is a place where I can take risks, try new things, fail and do again and again.
Let’s think about the bridge. It can’t be too narrow in order to not fail the goals that we set up.
When we go into a project and building a new school. We really have to understand as architects, specialized in school buildings and if we have a reference group of teachers in the in the project, we need to allow them to really inform the builder and the project project managers. To understand the depth of this environment.
That it’s not just walls. It’s it’s all the things that are supposed to happen. That’s a really complex process. That’s why we need to understand it well before starting.
Learning is intrinsic to being Learning is intrinsic to being human. There are many utilitarian ideas of why we should have learning and what’s what’s the use of it?
I think that the most profound answer is that it’s it’s actually intrinsic to being.
If we don’t manifest learning. If we are manifesting archived knowledge. Or archiving knowledge.
Then we’re closing down that that very important human value.