Contemplating and gathering
Outdoor classroom
schooluniversitycampusparknature center
An outdoor space prepared for teaching, with shade, seating and a place from which to speak or show.
What it solves
It takes learning out into the breeze, light and nature. In the tropics it provides a cool classroom without air conditioning if it has good shade and rain protection.
Today
Place it near classrooms and restrooms, with shade from trees or a light roof, movable seats or steps and a floor that drains. Orient it away from street noise and plan where to store materials.
Common mistake
Putting a few benches in full sun without rain cover, which no one uses after the inauguration.
Tomorrow
An outdoor classroom can serve as a teaching space when it is hot indoors and as a cool refuge for the neighborhood after school. Next to a vegetable garden or a trail, it teaches science with what grows and lives around it.
Where it comes from
- 1Rabindranath Tagore’s school Santiniketan, India, 1901
Classes were held outdoors in the shade of trees, in direct contact with nature. - 2Forest schools Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany, 1904
A school for children in fragile health held classes in the forest and started a movement that spread across Europe and the United States. - 3Forest kindergarten Denmark, early 1950s
The kindergarten that spends almost the whole day in the forest was born.
Masters
- Jan Duiker and Bernard Bijvoet Open Air School, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1930
They added a south-facing outdoor classroom to each floor so children in fragile health could study with sun and air. It shows that a multi-story building can also have open-air classrooms.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Contemplating and gathering
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.