from: Matt
Taylor
date: Thu Apr 1, 2004 10:12:06 AM US/Central
to: Durnan Vincent
cc: Diane Seloff
subject: Some Ideas
Imaging a room!
A place for
students, teachers and parent, together and
individually, in different
venues.
A place like no other in the school.
It can be almost
totally open. Good light, warm, rich materials,
natural woods - simple
geometry.
The basic “box” of the existing
room (the original school architecture)
reads strong
and clear. This is the “resting” position.
Everything put away - an invitation.
But, there
are secretes here - and a little mystery!
It seems this
room is like a transformer and objects can
come out from wall
cabinets, the
floor and ceiling.
They pull-out,
pop-up, fold down and transform the place
for many uses.
It is an intimate
theater in the round for art and
dialog. It is a large
family room with students on the
floor reading and in quite conversation.
It is a collaborative
workspace with big walls to write
on
and to display ideas. It is a study
hall with
tables,
books
- a place to do personal work. It
is an gallery for the display of art and
crafts.
It is
a reception hall for a small but
important
gathering.
It
is a media center for someone’s
latest creation to show.
This place
is friendly, open, accessible, and it has
rules. It has been made
beautiful, even
a little exotic. It is special.
It is special because it can be set
up - in
sections
and in whole - to cater intimately
to the uses
to which
it is put. It is special because
the users can do this - and, in
doing so
can learn
how to steward
and employ an environment - a commons.
The
rules, therefore, are simple - they are
the
rules of
stewardship. They are the rules
of economy/ecology. This place pays
back equal to how it
is treated.
How this is
done - this creating of an armature/transformer
- is not important
here. It is done with
imagination, lights, screens,
some technology;
it is a theater,
a workspace, a resting place
and it uses the methods of
all these.
It is
in the
integration that the mystery
lurks. This place has great
utility. And, it it an experiment
- a place to
learn about place-making.
The ideal kind
of place for a school. This is not a utility
place - the
world is full
of these.
It has utility but is has
more because it is, above all, a
place
of art.
It done carefully
and managed carefully so
that this art can be
both learned and employed.
An expression of the best
that is
human. A little
place in a busy
world; rare in that it is
devoted to this kind of expression.
Above all it
is fun. |
