This project examines spaces that govern when, where, and for whom learning happens. Too often schools concentrate educational resources and construct instructional environments that by extension define non-instructional environments. These delineations imply that only knowledge gained within their bounds is valuable and further a toxic culture of sequestered, commodified instruction.
If instead we recognize that learning is an ongoing mindset, that neighbors and relatives are teachers and students, and that the most potent lessons are in unprescribed experiences, our educational architecture will bridge the bounded classroom and the unbounded city.
The Open Parkside School proposes instruction spaces that overlap with community resource spaces and city agencies. In plan and section, complimentary or co-dependent programs intertwine within the school 'walls'. The structure then becomes a gradient, bridge, or launch-pad from local community to remote city programs leveraging rather than severing the paths between the Parkside nieghborhood and the city of Philadelphia.
Spring 2018