From the editor
Our education spaces have experienced enormous disruption in the past decade, from changing student behaviour, technology and teaching methods to, more recently, empty classrooms while students (and parents) homeschooled during the pandemic. The environments in which our young people learn have a great impact on the type of individuals and thinkers they become.
At Ravenswood Senior Learning Centre, BVN has designed a “home” for the senior students, where they can feel a personal connection to their school. It’s a place for the students to make a cup of tea, chat with their peers and study after hours. As part of evolving teaching philosophies at the school, the centre was designed to be flexible enough to accommodate traditional stand-and-deliver models as well as recent – and future – styles of teaching. Since the centre opened, the students spend longer at school, studying individually and together in the various “huts” and quiet areas on offer and enjoying the freedom and feeling of ownership they have of the space.
Similarly, at Kennedy Nolan’s Monash University Building 28, a variety of formal and informal teaching spaces, student lounges and pods allows these tertiary students to use the space however they see fit, and to feel safe and supported in doing so. These education projects are exemplars because they acknowledge that students learn in individual ways. A flexible space allows all students to learn in the way that serves them best – from the quiet introverts to the gregarious extroverts.
Of course, students eventually enter the workforce, and it’s worth pondering what type of workplace people will want post-COVID and how this might change the way designers create these spaces. Rachel McCarthy, studio director at Bates Smart, has penned an essay on this issue that includes data from Bates Smart’s own surveys into the impact of remote working
I hope you enjoy the issue.
– Cassie Hansen, Editor, Artichoke
Also inside this issue:
• Bauhaus Now exhibition by Speculative Architecture
• Profile on Elliot Bastianon, a Canberra-based designer and artist
• Yoko Dining by George Livissianis
• Liminal by The Stella Collective
• Wink Wink by Ha Arch
• Headcase Hair by Snoop Studio
• Phoenix Central Park by John Wardle Architects and Durbach Block Jaggers
