KEC

The drawing exercise is closely linked to the narrative of Krabstadt Education Center (KEC). We developed it for a 2-hour workshop with a group of 18 students. We started the class with an introduction to our own collaboration and some of its actual activities. It was important for us to invite the participants to reflect on their own experiences with learning spaces but to also embed the exercise within the fictional KEC universe: the school’s ideas, its building and learning facilities, its staff and students.

1: Think about your own education spaces:
What rooms did you know well and which less well? What do you remember?
What do you forget?
How did you move through the different spaces? Which parts of the school did you not see, or didn’t have access to, or weren’t aware of previously, and who had access to those places? What role did power and hierarchy play? What were the written and unwritten rules of the school building?

2: Write and/or sketch the spaces you remember from your own education where you had a positive or productive learning experience. It can be the building as a whole or a specific detail inside. (15-18 mins)
Describe the space, its physical attributes, location, etc.
Describe the activity that took place in the space. Describe the context.

3: Divide into groups of three and share in the group what you have written/sketched. Try to collectively identify what are similar/dissimilar aspects of what makes a good/productive learning environment and find com- mon ground. (18 mins)

4: Come back together into one big group. Present to everyone a summary of what was discussed and the experience of doing the exercise/reflection. Listen to each other.

5: Select one of the KEC spaces listed below and take over/define that space with elements from the first two exercises. (20 mins)

No-Gravity Room
Worry Room
Stuck Cafeteria, for break-centered learning
The Dean’s Office, near the pool since she is half-seal, half-human
Admin Floor of Dead-End Corridors

6: Reconvene in the big group and put up/share the results. (15 mins)

The workshop was led by KEC. It was part of Field School Berlin: Educational Architecture: Questions for Learning Spaces organized by Maximiliane Baumgartner, Karina Nimmerfall (both University of Cologne), and Anja Steidinger (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg) on June 1, 2022 at feldfünf, Berlin.