open air schools
Columbia GSAPP Adv V | Fall 2020
Studio Critic: Nahyun Hwang
The mapping studies typologies of open air schools, which came to be in response to the tuberculosis epidemic in the late 19th century. The school designs, primarily in Europe, ranged from completely open classrooms in the forest, to half-open campus typologies in the countryside, to open balconies, terraces, and roofs in the city. Though their designs were effective in revealing new typologies of education, and regarding air as an active, design material and element, it also touched upon the inequity of air access, only a certain demographic of kids attended these schools.
Looking at the accompanying collages, the first explores a new open air school typology and looks at its potential in urban spaces. And second offers a criticism of park as pure leisure space, and that even in the supposed “open”, there is a tension and blurred boundary between personal air and shared air.
