Assignments at ARKKI, the architectural school for children and young people
• Day care age children
• Kindergarten
• Classes 1-3
• Classes 4-9
• High School
• Adults
• All ages
This is a compilation of various ways of approaching the wonderful world of architecture. These ‘tasks’ or ‘treats’ offer several different perspectives on architecture; they have been used for more than a decade to introduce children and young people to architecture at ARKKI.
Architecture combines science, art and technology and is effectively a kind of applied art, intended to create a living environment which, in the words of Vitruvius, exhibits ‘firmness, commodity and delight’.
In itself, architecture is a complex package, made up of the sum of the parts formed by various factors. When studying architecture, it can be approached from the conceptual or the concrete angle, through the details or through the whole, from inside or outside, from above or below, at small scale or large, through the materials, inventions of building technology or from the historical and cultural viewpoint, or even from the perspective of theory and philosophy.
On the other hand, experiencing architecture is a very personal thing. In experiencing space, the sense of vision is important but other senses also have a fundamental effect on the genesis of the spatial experience. Architecture is experienced by all the senses as one moves through the space. With movement, time also becomes an essential part of architecture. Time links buildings to the continuum of history.
As well as time, architecture is tied in with place, with the natural environment, the built environment and the cultural environment. Architecture expresses cultural and social viewpoints in a concrete, 3-dimensional way. Architecture interacts with the intellectual and the social environment.
It is an interesting fact that issues and objects look different depending on the viewpoint. Thus architecture always looks different depending on the angle from which it is viewed!
Pihla Meskanen, architect SAFA, September 15, 2005