projects and articles by members
Gateway to Architecture
Since graduating as a B.Sc. in architecture I have continued my studies to become an art teacher. In my diploma work I became interested in finding out about architectural education and how it is taught. In the 1990s, children were given long-term education at only a few schools, based on leisure activities. One of these schools for children is 'Arkki'. The Arkki written curriculum and extended documentation (portfolios, photos, clippings, etc.) made my study possible.
Keywords
The crux of my study was the fact that we need information about informative content in this subject. I found the basic concepts in the Arkki curriculum and also in the national architecture curriculum; these are space, time, place, form, scale, structure, light and acoustics. From the different themes I traced how the different concepts are processed in lessons. For each concept I found the lessons that describe the concept best. My study shows the conceptual and informative point of view for the teaching of architecture, but the learning itself takes place using play and experiment.
The Fantasy Gate
At the end of May 2004, I was organising some workshops for classes at Rauma Art Museum financed by the local cultural centre for children. The children were shown some samples of historically interesting gates, which inspired them to build their own fantasy gates. Old Rauma (the largest unified historic wooden town in the Nordic countries) also offers many examples of gates. Every child made one small gate to take home, from recycled materials. At the end of the workshop, one group of children aged 5 to 12 made a gate at a scale of one to one. After exchanging ideas about construction, the children built the gate from wood, wire and cardboard.
In this finished project and in my work at a children's art school, awareness of the basic concepts helps me to understand what to teach and how to approach architecture with children.
Consciousness of different aspects of familiar things make teaching, understanding and learning become reality.
