SWEDISH DESIGNERS ROSAN BOSCH DESIGNS THE VITTRA TELEFONPLAN SCHOOL, A "SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS"

Vittra Telefonplan School is a school designed without walls by Swedish designer Rosan Bosch

Sweden loves its experimental education, but here’s a venture that’s far-fetched even by Swedish standards: It’s a school without walls.

That’s right. Vittra Telefonplan, in Stockholm, was designed according to the principles of the Swedish Free School Organization Vittra, an educational consortium that doesn’t believe in classrooms or classes. So instead of endless rows of desks, it’s got neon-green “sitting islands” and whimsical picnic tables, where students and teachers gather. Instead of study hall, it has “Lunch Club,” a smattering of cafeteria-style tables on a checkerboard floor for working or eating (or both). And instead of an auditorium, it has a faceted blue amphitheatre that rises up in the middle of the school like a giant floating iceberg. The place resembles a mini amusement park, only with laptops (yes, each student gets his or her own laptop).

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Sounds great for the kids, but yikes, I feel sorry for their teachers. There aren’t any walls for them to order naughty little boys to face.

Designer Rosan Bosch points out that Vittra Telefonplan isn’t totally wall-free.She tells Co.Design 

“There are both smaller and larger closed rooms for different purposes, such as the sound-isolated Dance Hall for dancing, singing, and exercising, the sound isolated Multimedia Lab for working with film, sound, and music, as well as administrative areas and group rooms.”

 There are also assorted interior decorations and fixtures that cleverly double as partitions, like the “conversation furniture,” a towering study nook that’s tall enough to pass for a wall.

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That was the trick of designing a “school without walls”: It had to be open enough to accommodate the free-wheeling aspects of Vittra’s approach to education (no set classes!). But it also had to include some spatial divisions that could promote different ways of learning--another key part of the Vittra method--such as group work, concentration work, show-and-tell, and so on.

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When planning the school, Bosch reached out to both teachers and students. “From the children we learned that there were different types of design that didn’t appeal to them,” she says. To wit: Because they work primarily on laptops not blackboards, they like seating arrangements that let them steal a peek at each other’s screens. Bosch says,  

“We therefore created special furniture that gave them more flexible ways of working side by side and together with their laptops.  For example: spread out on rugspots, sitting side by side on a sitting island or in the organic conversation furniture.”

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Now, the big question: Does any of this actually help kids get a better education? It’s impossible to know for sure. But as Bosch tells it,

“The differentiated spaces allow the children to learn on their own terms, creating different types of learning scenarios. In that way, the design lets the school unfold its potential.”

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COMMENTARY:  I don't know of any young children (or parents) that would not fall in love with the Vittra Telefonplan School. It's a wonderous environment for education and social development. Rosan Bosch is an incredible designer and this school interior design concept demonstrates how far ahead they are.  I love the open school interior design, the furniture, props, private and social gathering areas and limited walls. I wished that U.S. schools could adopt this type of school interior design for the children.  Learning becomes fun again.  The children can form groups and create enduring friendships and relationships without the constrictions of a traditional classroom. The school also uses the latest technology such as Apple laptops.  I am sure iPads will be next.  The next wave of Apple evangelists, no doubt.

Courtesy of an article dated January 24, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design 

Comments

[Tommy]

Marlon, Thank you for your comments about the School without Walls. This is the way schools should be designed for the children of today and tomorrow. Hope you will visit my blog regularly. Tommy

[marlon]

I love the open school interior design, the furniture, props, private and social gathering areas and limited walls.