Twelfth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Converging trends conspire to make learning and working more and more abstract and sedentary, to the detriment of our collective health, and to the detriment of learning itself. Gamification, Distance Learning, Computer Assisted Learning, Virtualization: all of these terms point to an increasingly common paradigm: a student in a chair facing a computer screen, absorbed in a virtual world, cognition and sensation and emotion activated, but the body static and inert, for 8.2 hours per day, for 12 years of primary and secondary school, and who knows how many years beyond. Action has become a “workout” or a “game”, efficiently cleaved from any socially meaningful accomplishment. It focuses students on themselves and offers only self-improvement or bragging rights. A win. Is this destiny, or to put it more bluntly, is this the destiny we want? This study explores some current trends and manifestations of school in the United States and proposes an evolution toward a more fulsome integration of meaningful action. It explores how the constructed environment of school can be re-imagined to get this done, and in doing so, how an array of additional benefits accrue. Building on the spatial typologies developed in the book “school” (Ludovicus, Boston, 2018), this discussion projects us into a future where the school environment meaningfully integrates action, along with cognition, sensation and emotion, into student life. As such it offers models for rethinking other public and private institutions, and even human settlement itself.