“It’s 2063 and the population of Melbourne has risen to 10 million. Huge numbers of school-aged children live within the CBD, and have no access to rural and coastal Victoria. Owing to the proliferation of high rise apartments, the local government has started to utilise the roof top spaces of these buildings as schools. You have been given a brief to design a classroom that brings rural and coastal Victoria to the city. The school is committed to environmental awareness owing to water restrictions and a depletion of natural resources.”
After reading this design brief, I had many ideas bubbling up inside my head. Being the teacher that I am, I decided to organise my thoughts into subcategories.
Developed using Xmind
The learning space will be developed using materials that provide thermal mass such as polished concrete flooring and masonary walls. This will mean that the indoor area will stay cooler in Summer and warmer in winter, thus eliminating the need for unnecessary heating and cooling. To maintain a sustainable learning environment, the majority of the learning space will have been purpose built using recycled materials such as recycled woods and glass bottles. To allow the environment to be self-sustainable, there will be rainwater tanks, a chicken coop, a frog bog, solar panels and a Stephanie Alexandar / Bush food Veggie garden. In this veggie garden children will be able to learning about and make links to the Aboriginal heritage of the land on which their school is located. There will be a glass fence that surrounds the school to ensure the safety of the children is maintained. Further, the indoor learning areas are open plan, with many windows to allow for natural light to emanate through.
It is through the chicken coop, frog bog, compost and veggie garden that the children can make links to the rural aspects of Australia. Further, children will be able to make links to the coastal parts of Australia by enjoying the water feature and sandpit.
The school will have spaces where students can work independently either on the bean bags, in the individual learning rooms or in reading pods. Students will be able to learn through technology on the computers, iPads or on the interactive whiteboard. There is also a place for teachers to work together as a group in the teacher planning and resource room. Students can also work together in a collaborative manner on the tables that can seat eight to ten children and are all located in close proximity to one another.
Here is my design of the rooftop school.
The Forever-Learning Teacher 