Classroom,
a teenage view

Adinda van Geystelen, artistic director of Z33, opens the symposium with an opening speech.

Joaquim Moreno and Maria Emanuel Albergaria discuss the themes that are explored in Classroom, a teenage view.

Maarten Van Den Driessche gives an introduction to the symposium.

During his talk, Erik Wieërs draws attention to the importance of the government in future school construction.

The participants visit the Classroom exhibition in Z33.

Maarten Van Den Driessche introduces the themes of the afternoon session.

 In her talk, Lisa focusses on how teachers through their mundane practices of teaching, adapted to but also (re)shaped the new educational architecture of the open-plan schools and the pedagogical visions they materialized.

GO! Talent, formerly the Royal Technical Atheneum in Dendermonde, is a secondary school offering courses in the healthcare, commercial and industrial sectors. The school accommodates 1,050 students over an area of 5,954 m2 on the edge of Dendermonde's historic center. The design by B-architects and OMGEVING is conceived as a community campus that not only meets the contemporary needs of the school but also the spatial organization of the local educational landscape. The urban planning and architectural analysis of the site revealed the cultural importance of the existing 1920s Aria building. Its magnificent architecture and timeless layout define the spatial organization of the campus and the character of Begijnhoflaan. A new school building on the western side of the site, is a three-story structure with mainly the industrial departments and sports facilities carefully brought together in a compact volume. The circulation zones, conceived as semi-outdoor spaces, wrap around the building at each level and act as mediators between the indoor and outdoor environments, while also dampening climate conditions and noise levels both inside and outside. All three buildings are connected by a continuum of public and semi-public spaces. Three central plazas simultaneously connect and isolate the buildings, creating a common space for play and meeting.

Baupiloten BDA is a different kind architecture firm founded by Susanne Hofmann in 2001. They aim to understand precisely the specific needs and preferences of the people who utilize their architectural designs. In order to achieve this, Baupiloten BDA has developed a systematic and methodical approach to actively involve users in the design process. Their primary focus is on empowering people to actively shape their living, learning and working environments. Baupiloten BDA firmly believes that exceptional and sustainable architecture can only be achieved when it aligns with the desires of the people who use it.

How have educational concepts evolved throughout history, and how have these evolutions impacted the concept of the architectural environment where educational activities occur?

Drawing from the research developed for the exhibition, this book presents a set of contemporary architectural projects in order to address the challenges of the classroom from a teenage point of view. The examples, from all around the world, are set in dialogue with five post-war twentieth century schools that are presented as seeds of pedagogical discourses. The architecture is framed by a conversation between the curator for the project, Joaquim Moreno, and historian of education, Catherine Burke, and a short anthology of texts that present prospective ambitions for learning environments.

Adinda Van Geystelen, Artistic Director of Z33, welcomes the participants to the second day of the symposium.

Susanne Pietsch talks about European vocational education and the architecture needed for it.

The Klein Seminarie is a school in Hoogstraten that was established in 1835. The building consists of various parts that, together, form an urban whole. It is a school in the city with ambitions to incorporate the city into the school environment. In the search for a designer, the school board was convinced that the need for a renewed entrance had to be realized through a new construction project. During the competition phase, it became clear to us that the school campus struggled with a historically grown excess of built space. The historical and generous entrance of the school had fallen into disuse over the decades. This analysis proved to be a real eye-opener for the board members and led to a different perception of the available space. In a collaboration between the designer and the client, gradual shaping is taking place to maximize the use of all available space within the Klein Seminarie for both school and extracurricular activities. This means that we need to think beyond the (current) needs of the school. In practice, this is not always self-evident. An empathetic design process is necessary.

Tim Vekemans, along with his firm RE-ST, served as the project's architect.

This presentation will focus on experiences carried out in existing secondary schools. New pedagogy models imply new school spaces. How to constructively adapt existing and precarious schools into new reference models for school communities?

How are existing structures transformed from within? What are the challenges in renovating and revitalizing existing building stock?

The Egied van Broeckhoven School is a new Dutch-speaking school that will offer a renewed secondary education in the multicultural neighborhood around the West Station in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, focusing on the domains of STEM and Society and Welfare. The new infrastructure allows a wide range of classrooms and outdoor spaces that can be put to wide use, through which the project wants to be the link between the learning landscape and the nearby environment and society. The school will be located in the buildings of the former Vandenheuvel brewery, literally nestling itself into the existing urban fabric. The program was formed with a rich selection of stakeholders both from the educational providers as from the different governmental levels involved.

The former Takeda offices are refurbished and extended to house a new secondary school, complete with a sports hall and cafeteria. The office block occupies the center of the plot. A first movement involves the careful location of a new, longitudinal volume along one neighbouring wall, from the street to the very back of the plot. The sports hall adjoins the street and can be used in the evenings. The cafeteria is located at the heart of the school. The entrance of the school is located where the two volumes meet. An office building is organized around its elevators. However, for a school, open, generous staircases are fundamental. This is the place where this collective vertical circulation is possible. In its time, the prefab concrete facades of the Takeda builing provided a straightforward, constructively conscious architecture. Today, the extension echoes this approach by the use of massive isolating masonry and adapted detailing.

After the last school visit, the bus will first make a stop at Brussels central train station before continuing the journey back to Z33.