I'm still not sure exactly which direction I want to pursue. Both
approaches to the design, the utopia and the redesign, would be a very
interesting challenge. Right now, I'd have to say that the redesign sounds a
little more feasible, plus it gives me an opportunity, possibly, to address
some of the urban conditions surrounding an existing school. The interesting
approach would be to look at and analyze an inner city elementary school or
even one that is just in poor condition and look at renovating and adding to
it. In the redesign, I'd be applying many of the ideas from some research I
have done on Vygotsky and ZPD, cooperative learning, distributed cognition,
etc. and translating them into the built space.
--Stephen Van Hoose