The learning landscape tool box
It was important to us to not let all the answers and desires we collected from the children end up in a book, so we decided we needed to create so- mething we could give back to the Peter-Petersen-Schule. Something they could actually use in a future planning process or just for fun as a game. The matrix of our results became our tool with which we tried to tell the outcomes of the workshops but we soon realised that it was too ‘flat’ to convey all the different atmospheres, feeling and fantasies the children had created and talked about.
As soon as we started making small tridimensional models we realised it is a medium that the children were very excited about, so why not use it in participation. Models make it easier to visualise space and how things are connected. Most people are not trained to read drawings but even young children can comprehend a spacial model. The other advantage of models is that you can keep it abstract enough to make sure that the fantasy of the participants can flow freely. At the same time a model makes it easy to imagine how the created atmospheres and spaces could be translated into rooms and buildings which also teaches the participants about the archi- tectural design process. So we created the Learning Landscape Toolbox.
The toolbox is a game designed to involve the community in the pro- cess of designing a learning landscape. The decision not to use the term “school” is not accidental. During the design of this game we decided to distance ourselves as much as possible from the paradigms imposed by the school directive both from a conceptual and from a constructive point of view. Not because we are against these paradigms, but rather to leave the participants the freedom to express their desires without being too influenced by preconceptions about school buildings. The toolbox is designed to be a key part in the early stages of the design process, not only Phase 0. We hope that it can be used by the architects, planners, users and other potential actors as a tool to develop the learning landscape du- ring the initial design phases. With the game each participant can clearly express their wishes and hopes for the new building.