Architecture as Pedagogy

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Winston Churchill One of the most significant influences upon an architect's ability to imagine and create new structures is the buildings within which they learn and experience. This proposal explores the potential of an architecture school building beyond a vessel for activities but can be utilized as an active educational tool. Through immersive Design/Build experiences, students define their own learning space by participating in real construction projects. Structured around a dynamic, three-phase narrative, this approach invites student-driven ideas, reflecting the principle that both education and architecture are ongoing, collaborative processes with no fixed endpoint.

The proposed school shifts from a static vessel to an interactive medium, enabling students to design and construct their own learning spaces, fostering creativity, ownership, and hands-on architectural experience.

More than a school, it invites student contributions and public engagement, emphasizing education as a social process, supported by shared communal spaces on Cockatoo Island.

Treating sustainability as the fundamental concept, a limited number of structures are constructed. Most of the adjustments are reconstruction, rearranging, and repurposing of the original spaces.

A view of the late-night workshop area with work-in-progress models of modular working units, 2018.

Using architectural models at different scales as learning and communication tools.