Where We Learn

Abstract

Education is the future or said differently, there is no future without learning. But as we don't know the future, education must adapt to every moment of contempo­rary life, respond and propose something new: a vision of the future. Hence in the proposition for education, two opposites meet. While the exact outcome of the future is uncertain, our vision and understanding of the present are brought to the fore within ideological and architec­tural structures that propose certainty. Adapting how we learn is the only way to learn something genuinely new. In 2022, we know that our current situation is not promising. As a population, we face unprecedented planetary, political and social challenges that require immediate action. To harvest our time's technological and creative potential, we need to leave the straight-jacketed and strict paradigms once associated with a fruitful education behind and allow space for experimentation, inclusivity and expression. Expressing the hunger of multiple generations to change the world for the better, the spaces in which we learn are rapidly adapting to become radic yet fluid containers for the production and the sharing of knowledge, exactly how and where it is needed the most. This book explores 43 projects at the forefront of this movement, picking up the four fundamental notions we have identified to drive the new spaces in which we learn. Accordingly, the book is organised into four chapters - Designing with Agility, lnnovtion, Community and Nature. Naturally, many of these projects respond to more than one driver. Reading the key takeaways of each chapter clarifies why that is a success and how they can be integrated when approaching a project with an edu­cation scope. The most important feature of the projects presented here is their diversity, arguing powerfully that there is no single way but a cacophony of possibilities and needs that include learning for multiple ages; learning in urban and rural settings; learning in solitude and commu­nity and learning in ways and spaces that have not been seen before. What effect will these spaces have on our future and that of generations to come? We don't know with cer­tainty, but we know that a different future is possible.We know that change can be learned. We hope that readers will be inspired by the courage of the architects included in this volume and find practical references to take and expand upon in their own spaces and communities.