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Psychogeographic Learning

Part 1 Project 2010
Jenn Jammaers
University of Plymouth | UK
For many, and more specifically the elder members of the community, the Ridgeway footpath which runs east to west of the school campus offers a walk through memory lane. Removing such memoir would imply obliterating the outlet of remembrance for past generation students which utilize the thoroughfare. Whilst one must always look into the future, it becomes important to commemorate the past as it embodies what each individual becomes, the source of their identity.

Commonly a school's own identity relies on its denominator of being a library of knowledge, a place for information to be passed on from tutor to pupil, but more than that it is also a place where experiences are created, where knowledge is acquired through first-hand learning; by doing and not just reading or listening. A place where students will be able to trace their knowledge back to the source where they acquired it. Debatably, it is here where an individual's psycho-geographical map emerges.

From the begining the project seeks to redefine the spatial threshold and psychological ownership of Ridgeway Secondary School and Sixth Form. The spatial arrangements explain the psychoanalytical conceptions that a space can have upon the student. By immitating the suburban-scape of a main street running through the core of the structure and juxtaposing another so as to impose a junction, the building stops being a building per se and becomes its own semi-self-sufficiet space.

It is here, within and around the new structure that the pupils appropiate the negative spaces and convert them into positive spaces where socializing takes place, where they can take what is normally a transcient space and re-intepret it to fit their purpose. It identifies with the students so that the process of learning becomes a positive transient experience which becomes part of the student's psychogeographic livelyhood within Plympton and beyond the borders of threshold. Furthermore it re-establishes the school as an intrinsic aspect to the community ...it restores Ridgeway's Identity.





Tutor(s)
2010
Ridgeway Secondary School + Sixth Form - School as an Artifact for the Proliferation of Knowledge and Experience of Future Generations.
Site Analysis - Identifying the subjective, objective, and emotional implications.
Proposed Learning Strategy - Integration of a new curriculum which follows a knowledge dissemination model through the different stages of the students structural and hidden agenda.
Design Process - A study underlining the progress of the design, through sketch models, and population diagrams and other reprographic models and sketches.
Site Layout - Shows how the master plan incorporates Social and Geographical context.
Ground Floor Plan - Demonstrates the newly re-defined threshold between inside and outside.
First + Second Floor Plans - Reprographically deliniate occupational spaces.
Spational Occupation and Strategy Implementation - The top time-line depicts a typical school day or a student utilizing the virtual curriculum and dinamic learning spaces whilst the longitudinal section below demonstrates the internal spaces from a gener
The Archetypal Classroom - The core idea of the school is for the classroom to be a space defined by students and not necessarily walls, where knowledge can take places whether inside or outside, where this can disseminate outwards onto the community and
The Biology Wall - As the school utilizes every area as a 'classroom' the vertical structures which support the canopy provide an alternative 'green' classroom.
An External Learning Space - Perspective of the internal avenue.
Establishing Public vs Private - In order to maintain an understandable yet open layout, all publicly accessible areas are entered through the footpath.
Front and Rear Elevations - Threshold is redefined through the materiaity and the canopy covering the 'inner avenues' of open learning space.
Re-establishing Identity - The new school re-establishes the thoroughfare as a bridging and transcient space between the community and the school.
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