mobile classroom
Rohan Rathod and Steve Ko, 3rd year architecture studio
Carnegie Mellon 2012
The idea for the mobile classroom arose from the conventional classroom’s lack of exposure to the myriad conditions that nature has to offer. When outdoor programs do occur, the experience is hindered by the confined range of distance that a class can cover under limited time. The result is a repetitive encounter with a singular type of an environment. The mobile classroom is a solution to the monotonous mode of learning by becoming an active participant on a journey. Attached to a cable pulley system, the mobility of the classroom not only reduces travel time across large distances, but primarily acts as a mediator between the inside and outside by expanding the learning to its surroundings. Children are able to engage with the outdoors not as a “field trip”, but as sequential educational experiences of varying opportunities. The journey begins at a school Hub from where the classroom makes stops at pylons designed to engage the moving vessel to the contextual environment in which they sit. Equipped with storage, collapsible desks, personal chairs and a toilet, the classroom travels across the landscape of changing environmental conditions. From above the thickets of the trees to the depths of rock formations, and from open meadows to banks of rivers, the learning in the classroom becomes a dynamic and diverse communion with nature.
Carnegie Mellon 2012
The idea for the mobile classroom arose from the conventional classroom’s lack of exposure to the myriad conditions that nature has to offer. When outdoor programs do occur, the experience is hindered by the confined range of distance that a class can cover under limited time. The result is a repetitive encounter with a singular type of an environment. The mobile classroom is a solution to the monotonous mode of learning by becoming an active participant on a journey. Attached to a cable pulley system, the mobility of the classroom not only reduces travel time across large distances, but primarily acts as a mediator between the inside and outside by expanding the learning to its surroundings. Children are able to engage with the outdoors not as a “field trip”, but as sequential educational experiences of varying opportunities. The journey begins at a school Hub from where the classroom makes stops at pylons designed to engage the moving vessel to the contextual environment in which they sit. Equipped with storage, collapsible desks, personal chairs and a toilet, the classroom travels across the landscape of changing environmental conditions. From above the thickets of the trees to the depths of rock formations, and from open meadows to banks of rivers, the learning in the classroom becomes a dynamic and diverse communion with nature.