Building the Classroom

i2a istituto internazionale di architettura of Vico Morcote, in its guise of a “house of architecture”, is promoting an operation of rapprochement and awareness towards the world of architecture, also appealing to children of all ages. It is a guide for the discovery of the built environment which should enable the understanding of the meaning of architecture for people in their everyday lives and the progression of a sense of respect and responsibility towards the landscape. A series of laboratories took place during the summer of 2011 and encountered a success such as to be re-organised for children between the ages of 5 and 14 in the months of June, July and August 2012 under the title Building cabins and models (applications before Friday 15 June by phone at 0041 91 996 13 87 or via e-mail at [email protected]). This year, i2a has also collaborated with the parents’ committee, elementary and nursery schools of Massagno (Lugano) on the project Building the classroom that will be shown Wednesday 13 June 2012 on the occasion of the end-of-year party.

The parents’ committee, represented by Cinzia Isotta, and Fabrizio Quadranti, the schools’ director invited i2a istituto internazionale di architettura and the architect Silvia Ducart, head of i2a’s didactic laboratories, to get the 153 children of the nursery school and 211 children of the elementary school of Massagno involved in a group project spanning from April to June. The initiative was also received with enthusiasm by the local authorities.

The children of Massagno experience everyday the reality of a construction site, due to the school undergoing an extension project designed by the architects Durisch+Nolli and Sandra Giraudi. This means a new dimension made of spaces, noises, fluxes that the children perceive and observe every time they go to school. Thus, in collaboration with the parents’ committee and the schools’ management, the idea was born to bring the children closer to the world of the construction site, the materials and craftsmen by building a classroom made of cardboard boxes. Site visits were organised in April 2012 accompanied by the architects Durisch+Nolli and Sandra Giraudi and under the supervision of the building firm Giovanni Quadri. The project’s designers introduced the children to the discovery of the school’s transformation via new spaces, to the adventure that is construction.

The teachers then suggested to the children to experiment their own creativity with cardboard boxes: the youngest built and glued together drawings and pieces of coloured paper, the older ones turned the boxes into mini classrooms and mini worlds with recycled materials and windows and doors to peek inside.

Wednesday 13 June 2012 from 4.30 to 7pm the “children-craftsmen” with their box-bricks will build a full-scale classroom erected on the esplanade in front of the elementary school’s entrance (Centro Nosedo, Massagno, Switzerland) or in the gymnasium in the event of bad weather. The classroom can be seen and visited until Friday 15 June.


Picture: i2a istituto internazionale di architettura