Sitting in a school? Well, whoever designed it used scale, proportion, angles, ratios and a range of other mathematical concepts to design it and ensure it stands up. The Architects in Residence (AiR) initiative, developed between the RIBA Trust and Arts Inform, has recently run a primary and secondary school pilot to explore how mathematics can be taught through focusing on the built environment.
Tower Bridge Primary School project © Andy Hamer
Run since 2000, the AiR programme encourages architects and teachers to work together in practitioner partnerships in both primary and secondary schools. So far there have been seven Programmes, 61 Practitioner Partnerships and over 2000 students participating.
Supported by CABE, the AiR programme uses web-based teacher resources, available at www.architecture.com/educationandcareers. These provide a step-by-step guide to setting up a school-based architecture and built environment project, including a four-stage framework for carrying out the projects, assessment of student work and project evaluation, together with reference material from previous exemplar projects. These practitioner partnerships are recognized as CPD for both architects and teachers and the programme is shortly to benefit further from the appointment of an AiR Outreach Co-ordinator, based at the RIBA to help architects, teachers and others to try out the programme.
A key idea for Architects in Residence is that the resource material is not confined to a particular curriculum area, but can be used in whatever subject area a teacher wishes. So far the programme has been used in teaching Design and Technology, Art and now Mathematics, at both primary and secondary level.
Tower Bridge Primary School project © Andy Hamer
The Maths Through Architecture pilots, which culminated in an exhibition at the RIBA as part of the recent London Festival of Architecture, involved pupils from Tower Bridge Primary School and from Chelsea Academy, working with their teachers and two architecture practices, Allies and Morrison and Hawkins\Brown, to develop plans to make London a more ‘Welcoming City’: the theme of the London Festival of Architecture 2010.
Tower Bridge Primary students worked with Pauline Stockmans from Allies and Morrison Architects over two weeks to research, plan and construct a ‘Welcoming Temporary Meeting Place’ for Potters Fields Park in Southwark, in the course of which they learned about scale, ratio, the golden ratio, working to a brief, model making and working in teams. Working in teams of up to five students in ten sessions of two hours each, they used rods made from tightly rolled sheets of newspaper, together with cable-ties to connect them, to make a full scale structure at Potters Fields Park. The design of the structure was chosen by the students and architect. As a further structural challenge, they even produced a chair strong enough to sit in made from just newspaper and cable-ties.
Similarly, over six Friday afternoons, in sessions each lasting two hours, students from Chelsea Academy worked with Josephine Glyn from Hawkins\Brown to construct a series of models of a ‘Welcoming Entrance Space to their New School’. Again, in the course of this they explored scale and ratio, as well as more complex mathematics, such as calculus, geometry, the Fibonacci sequence and parabolas. The results included a building with the shape of an upside-down triangle resting on its point yet balanced with remarkably light buttresses, and a reverse-parabaloid building reminiscent of the ground-breaking architecture of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.
The practices then helped the schools to develop presentations and an exhibition of their work which was shown at the RIBA and judged by a panel of maths specialists and architects, with awards being given out by the RIBA President, Ruth Reed. Work was assessed on four criteria: Originality; Relevance to locality/function; Quality/beauty of presentation of Mathematics through Architecture; and How well the learning process, Mathematics through Architecture, was demonstrated.
Over the summer the effectiveness of the project is being evaluated, and the intention in the autumn and spring is to encourage and help further Architects in Residents practitioner partnerships in teaching both maths and other curriculum subjects through architecture.
Teaching resources
Learn more about CPD opportunities for teachers and architects in the AiR programme.
Sign up for free Engaging Places CPD workshops in London or Wolverhampton.
