Profile

Email

ID8234@alunos.uminho.pt

Science ID

3510-0F1A-2C61

Ciênciavitae

n/a

ORCID

Lab2PT Group

SpaceR - Space and Representation

Scientific Area

Architecture

Supervision

Francisco Manuel Gomes Costa Ferreira

Project Title

Architecture and Education: Contemporary perspectives and transformations of the school space of the 1st cycle of basic education in Portugal

Abstract

Schools are spaces that play a very important role in the lives of their users. This space is of particular importance because it is where the great expectations of the future are found and this space has not always received the necessary attention from actors in the world of architecture. The architect is fundamental in the role of creating these school spaces. It is therefore important that its creation is based on a theoretical study of space and its implications and representations in the field of education. If (in contemporary times) all children access school, without any distinction of gender or class, this concept of diversity must also be reflected in the theoretical concept inherent to the building itself. If each person's home, throughout our growth, represents a place of reference, schools, which we inhabit throughout our lives, also occupy a place of great importance. From the outset, in a quantitative dimension, if we measured the time we spent there, we would be able to identify this space as primordial and structuring in our daily experiences. If, to this evidence, we add Bañon's formulation about the concept that “dwelling means, strictly, doing the same thing repeatedly in the same place”1, then we can consider that, in summary of our journey, this will be the most inhabited by each person. For this reason and because habits, despite their persistence, also evolve, they deserve and require permanent reflection. Taking as a premise this ideal of a space of habits and revisiting the evolution of school buildings in the 1st cycle of basic education – formerly a primary school –, we can observe a growing concern in providing schools with conditions of domesticity, that is, to guarantee, intentionally, an improvement in comfort and spatial quality. An example of this is the National Program for the Requalification of the 1st Cycle of Basic Education and Pre-School Education Network (hereinafter referred to as the Program) through which the 1 Bañon, 2004: 65 2 central power foresees “in close work with local authorities the recovery or construction of educational establishments”2. Nowadays, a growing concern has been devoted to school space on the part of all agents who in some way interfere in its planning, design and use. It is in this context that the disciplinary field of architecture and, in particular, architect-authors are called upon to incorporate a sense of social and public responsibility that implies the positive inevitability of meeting pedagogical aims and of dialoguing with educational agents, in order to create spaces capable of playing the role of third teacher.

Keywords

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FCT Reference

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Organic Unit

School of Architecture, Art and Design of University of Minho