Mary and David Medd’s schools. The dissolution of the classroom: architecture for education

Abstract

Today’s architect is entrusted with giving spatial form to the new ideas on education. From the discussion between philosophy and pedagogy, we learn that it is impossible to develop methodologies without the content intended to be taught. Pedagogy should result of the research that teachers develop on their own teaching. That leads us to specific didactics, rules and methods which serve to learn a certain subject, thus to specific qualified spaces. Since the Modern Movement, design of schools has moved away from the additive configuration of flexible classrooms towards an addition of dissimilar places that students can use for different purposes, depending on the discipline they are learning. The best example of this approach is the work of Mary and David Medd, in post-war England, which serves as a case study. In their built-in variety we find no classrooms, but a single learning unit formed by spaces qualified for different uses.