Soundings for Architecture: An Educational Workshop for Adults and Young People

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments 14(2), 2004 Soundings for Architecture: An Educational Workshop for Adults and Young People1 Rosie Parnell School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England Citation: Rosie Parnell. (2004). “Soundings for Architecture: The Emergence of Playce—An Educational Workshop for Adults and Young People.” Children, Youth and Environments 14(2): 229-241. Comment on this Field Report Keywords: educational workshop, Alvar Aalto Academy, youth participation, participatory process, Finland, urban design.© 2004 Children, Youth and Environments Soundings for Architecture: An Educational Workshop for Adults and Young People 230 Introduction For the past five years, the Alvar Aalto Academy in Helsinki, Finland has been running a workshop called Soundings for Architecture.2 This event has focused on architectural education, bringing together a new group of people from around the world engaged in teaching and learning about architecture and the built environment. In 2003 and 2004 the Soundings workshops were dedicated to architectural education for children, again supported by the Alvar Aalto Academy, along with Jyväskylä City and the superb organizational skills and hospitality of the Alvar Aalto Museum. The 2003 workshops, Soundings 4, were facilitated by Anne Taylor, professor of architecture and planning at the University of New Mexico. The workshops followed the theme of “A Space between the Urban Environment and Nature: Working with Children.” Sixteen architects and professionals working in related fields from 12 different countries came together in Alvar Aalto’s home town in central Finland, Jyväskylä, to share practice and work with local children and young people.3 Building on the momentum of that event, Soundings 5 was held in August 2004, again in Jyväskylä. Once again, the group comprised 16 adult participants— including architects, educationalists and people working in the arts, museums and galleries—from 12 different countries. All of the participants were experienced in engaging young people in activities related to the built environment. Four participants from the previous year also worked as observers for the workshop, documenting the proceedings and providing guidance. This workshop is the focus of this paper. Soundings 5: Aims and Objectives From the point of view of the adult participants, this one-week event represented an opportunity to share and learn from the working practices of people from different countries, both through direct communication and through the practical experience of working together. The workshop was intended to facilitate an integrated project-based learning experience for the youth participants, guided by the theme “Designing for the Environment,” with a focus on urban environments and street furniture. Jyväskylä became our lab—a means of observing and building understanding about the urban environment. One class of nine boys and eight girls aged 14-15 years was nominated by the local school, Normaalikoulu, to take part in the workshops. This class was chosen for a variety of practical reasons including the fact that they followed an appropriate course in arts and crafts (which included this workshop) and also because they all studied English language. Four mixed-gender groups of four or five students teamed up with four adult members (one of whom spoke Finnish) to form the design teams. These teams were asked to design a piece of street furniture—a term which was immediately challenged and reinterpreted to mean any kind of “intervention,” that could improve the urban environment. Beyond this, the program was left very open. The emphasis was on education rather than participation: this was not framed as a design participation exercise.4 Detailed learning objectives which had Soundings for Architecture: An Educational Workshop for Adults and Young People 231 been agreed upon in advance with the young people’s teachers, addressing the following areas: the arts (city space and design), mathematics (scale), handicrafts (materials and model-making), and languages (vocabulary and spoken English language). However, by the end of the workshop, it was clear that these pedagogical aims had not been explicitly incorporated into the planning phase of the workshop. Meeting the Adults Prior to working with the young people, the adult group gathered in Helsinki, completing a tour of the city with a trip to Arkki.5 This exciting facility was founded in 1993 and was the first in Finland to specialize in...