Building to Learn: ECDAN Symposium, Haiti

Proceedings of the Haiti ECDAN symposium on school environments and learning, 2018, largely presentation slides. Its subject is what a school building does to a child's learning, taken through the multiple intelligences framework, and it is the only document in this set that treats architecture as pedagogy rather than as shelter.

Each intelligence is turned into a design instruction with a stated architectural device. For intrapersonal intelligence the reference image is a cave or niche offering a protective back and a stable atmosphere with appropriate light, and the note observes that such spaces are hard to find in standard classroom and school design, so they have to be created: marginal spaces where the architect controls form (more wall than opening), light (indirect and filtered) and wall colour (warm tones), favouring natural materials of wood, stone and terracotta. It also names the risk, that such a space becomes claustrophobic, and the fix, not carrying walls to the ceiling so the space stays open.

For naturalist intelligence the argument is that almost no infrastructure is needed, only the staging of what is already on the site: a hole in a wall or a stair around a tree is enough to prompt observation, and small vegetable gardens or mini-ponds inside the school grounds sustain curiosity at low cost. Parents and community are treated as part of the built environment too, with involvement beginning in the design and construction process itself. The examples are drawn from Anna Heringer's school in Bangladesh, Francis Kéré's school at Gando in Burkina Faso and a Tezuka Architects kindergarten in Japan.