"The Ideation phase transforms your research into meaningful and actionable insights that will become the foundation of your design."
The course explains how to carry out design research and build prototypes for innovative solutions to social challenges).
Monday 25th of June to Sunday 1st of July:
Good morning Monday!
On Monday morning, I met the teachers before class started and came in to each class to introduce myself to the children. I explained that I wasn't a teacher (They have met Anja before) but an architect, and described shortly what is the job of an architect. Only a few students in the classes knew about it, or dared speaking up. I then spent a part of the morning in class 4, same grade as I had in Nairobi's school.
I then met with most of the school teachers to clarify the school calendar and validate the construction timeline. New strategies and additional elements were included. This revised construction timeline was sent together with the plot analysis to the Funding organisation to complete the application.
Teacher´s Workshop 1: Identifying design principles, programmatic elements and qualities of spaces.
Proceedings:
1- Introduction. Facilitator and participants. Reminder of the context and program. Presentation of the workshop's activities and goals.
2- Each participant writes on sticky notes what they consider should be included in the new school and during its construction, like for example "Collection of rain water", "cheap construction", etc.
Having noticed in the two classes that I attended that the teachers use to awaken their students with interludes of physical movements and stretches, it was easy for me to mention that we should do the same before next phase of the workshop. Everybody joined in the most natural way.
3- Each participant presents and explains its ideas and sticks them on the portable black board used for the occasion. When an idea have already be mentioned, the participant sticks it near near its colleagues paper, thus creating clusters of similar ideas.
Since nobody was willing to start presenting their ideas, and it was one of the teacher´s birthday that day, I came up with the idea to start with the participants born in January, then February etc. It gave a playful tone to the activity.
4- One voluntarily appointed participant summarises the main clusters of ideas and writes them down for everybody to see. The facilitator documents the outcomes by writing down the summarised points and taking pictures.
Outcomes: see picture of the blackboard.
Some interesting findings: Several elements were new to me, or put in a new light. For example the importance to build a house for the watchman from the very beginning of the construction work, as someone needs to be on site to avoid the building material to be stolen. I also noticed that the type of building materials never got mentioned, but only the fact that it should be locally available, which excludes surely the extensive use of concrete or concrete blocks, which is unfortunately often seen as a sign of prestige and durability in LMICs (Low and Middle Income Countries)
Teacher´s Workshop 2: Side by side, layout and relations
Proceedings:
1- Reminder of the summary of the last workshop's findings and focus on one of the points: "Landscape and space between buildings".
2- Division in two groups of approximately 6 people. Each group is given a set of pieces of paper representing the different rooms previously mentioned in the program (classrooms 1 to 8, kitchen, watchman´s house etc), and some spare blank papers and a pen for additional rooms or elements that might come up.
3- Each team draws on the ground to represent the plot or piece of land and arrange the different rooms on it. Several rooms can be grouped under one building. The group thinks about the relationships between the buildings and let each group member voice their opinion. If there are several options or opinions, it is possible to take a picture before changing for next option.
4- Each group explains its idea to the other group and clarify its choices before answering questions.
5- Conclusions: The participants identify the elements that are common to the two propositions.
Outcomes: Elements common to the two propositions:
-Watchman's house by the gate.
-Office reception near the gate and visible from it. -Short distance between the kitchen and the office.
-Kitchen and hall together
-Placement of the classrooms: Arranged around an open courtyard. Lowest classes closest to the outhouse toilets, located on the backside.
-a "eurythmic hall" at the beginning of the classes.
-Garden and farm beside each other and separated from the rest.
Many other interesting principles were mentioned, like for example the relationship between the kitchen, the animal sheds and the farm/garden, using waste from kitchen to feed the animals and waste from animals to fertilise the garden.
Design and modelling
Thursday was dedicated to designing and modelling the kindergarten classes according to all the new inputs that I have been gathering since my arrival to Kenya.
"Old habits die hard" and I learnt it the hard way: After barely more than an hour sketching on the architecture software ArchiCad, using a network license, my whole Internet data package ran out and the file closed without saving... It is then that I remembered that low-tech representation techniques is a strength in project´s early phases and particularly in this context of participative design. I retrieved my ruler, protractor, white cardboard and masking tape from the bottom of my backpack and started sketching and modelling the kindergarten classrooms in scale 1:100.
Interlude: Weekend trip to lake Victoria
See you next week!