Koel Smith Mr. Vetter Eng 3840J The School House Picture the classroom of the future.

What do you see? How big is it? Is it a room at all? How might the learning environment transform? Holographic teachers? Inter-active student desks? Who knows, but imagine not having to pay a cent for a world-class education. This is the vision of Sal Khan. He believes learning should be free and everyone is entitled to a great education. Being involved in the Interior Architecture program, I find fascination in the design and genre transformation from traditional schooling to the classroom of the future. The goal of the architect is not to convince by the use of writing but rather convince by the use of visual information given via project proposal. As time progresses so does society. Most aspects within a society are affected by this change and are forced to transform and or develop. One obvious example is technology. With this technology, Khan has created an online library of various subjects for people to access free of charge. This technology is being used in classrooms all over the world with much success. Khan is academically tearing down walls with hopes of a more efficient educational system. Transforming external and internal spaces is where architects come into play. Manifesting these ideas into actual buildings takes time and vision. Instead of writing to someone and

asking if a design is worthy, the architect creates a floor plan of which he shows to the client to accept approval. This process is often long and tedious, which is how it relates to the writing process. I can sit in the studio re-arranging the kitchen of a floor plan, just like a writer gets stuck on a passage and cannot find the right words to use. In many ways the process of developing a final project is often similar to writing a paper, with many shitty drafts. Knowing the material and other relevant genres helps guide the writer or architect through the problem to final product. Khan started by posting a video on youtube to help his 7th grade cousin and immediately got feedback. The word quickly spread, until one day Khan heard Bill Gates mentioned using the videos for his kids. Khan quit his job and started working full time on his non-profit organization. Khan has created an online library of over 3000 free videos explaining various subjects from basic math to advanced calculus, astronomy, physics, biology, history, and medicine. Khan then started using his technology in schools with great results. Khans idea is less lecturing more interacting. Khan uses a technique called flipping the classroom, where kids do the homework at school and the schoolwork at home. The kids watch videos the night before and come to class the next day with questions on the material. This method requires no textbooks and not nearly as much lecturing. Watching the videos gives the kids a chance to work at their own pace and rewind the material if moving too fast. Some critics of this method say it takes the necessary social interaction out of the equation, but Khan disagrees. This method allows the teacher to figure out who is struggling via electronics, and help that student grasp the material. This strategy takes the assuming out of the teaching position. Too often I feel kids do not speak up

for one reason or another, this method helps the kids gain assistance in ways not traditionally offered. Khans method is a great way for teachers to gain controlled chaos of a class by having the kids work on up to 20 different things at once. This chaos is controlled electronically, and the kids can be monitored and tracked for progress and selected if falling behind. Being apart of the Interior Architecture program has brought interest to Khans idea for several reasons. Realizing Khans potential for growth in the educational field, I also see equivalent growth in the design aspect of education. The space has unlimited potential. A new trend in Architecture is sustainable and eco designs. This is a whole genre in itself. There are buildings (skyscrapers) that emit cleaner air than the air surrounding the building (healthy kids). Green roof technology, which is basically a garden on the roof. This potentially could be used to grow food for a school. Systems that filter rainwater, which can be used to wash hands and flush toilets (potentially drink). A solar powered computer classroom is not too far fetched of an idea. Now imagine the inside of this school. That space is exciting to think about and any architect would enjoy creating it. Innovation is the birth of genre. Creating new ideas blazes the trail for the genres that follow. Designing the interior and exterior of future schools is a genre not being explored to its fullest. With the sprouting of new ideas comes potential for new design. In the Architectural world, potential projects are presented by computer or hand models. These projects need to be visually attractive to gain the attention of clients. Building a portfolio of past projects and buildings will

demonstrate quality of work and give client idea of overall past designs. Architects work often with people so having good presentation skills is key to making your project come to life. Writing documents is not necessarily a large part of Architecture; instead artists focus on the development of space and how to make it function smoother. It fascinates me how educational design has changed little over time and how it might change with the advancement of technology. Form follows function. One of the first things I was taught in the Interior Architecture program. Most everywhere I go I see good examples of how form does NOT follow function. For instance, the ONLY pull out kitchen drawer in my apartment does not pull out because the handle for the stove is interfering. This may just be the problem of a college student, but this is also poor spatial planning. The form does not follow the function. Spatial planning is something that is done in every interior space we encounter (although it may not feel like it). The reason why form should follow function is because we encounter various buildings in our daily life. Whether these buildings are agricultural, commercial, residential, educational, government, industrial, military, or religious, they all serve an important purpose. All the activities inside these buildings are vastly different which means the buildings MUST be designed accordingly, on the outside as well as the inside. In other words, I find that too many buildings, especially educational buildings, are not designed with form and function in mind. In my opinion people learn in very different ways. Pinpointing and understanding what paths to learning are most effective is the mission and goal of

Sal Khan. I am a very visual learner, and do not do well with oral instructions. Having teachers understand this in my younger years may have helped me grasp concepts quicker. Sal Khan does not intend on creating an entirely new concept of education but rather compliment traditional teachings with his methods. Why keep education the same if the culture around it is transforming. Humans, being creatures of habit tend to follow in the footsteps of those before them. We work with what we are given, and occasionally expand off what is already there. In the case of Khan, I would like to envision future buildings fully devoted to the access of free knowledge. It doesnt make much sense to me why schooling is so expensive and even if we acquire the thousands of dollars worth of information we pay for. Making education free would eliminate college debt and allow the individual to focus on his or her interests rather than paying back loans. Its clear that as time changes so does society and the institutions within it. Look back at the one room schoolhouse in early America. How much have we developed since then? We may have re-written some textbooks but the layout of the classroom is relatively similar. I may be able to argue that modern schools are just blown up versions of the one room schoolhouse. These schools seem to have forgotten that teaching and education is dynamic and not stagnant, just like genres. It appears to me that the physical space within schools has become stuck and cannot evolve in a healthy manner. This is where project proposals are important. The proposals are what they sound like. The goal is to persuade someone that your idea is more convincing than the conventional way. These proposals are a great way to

show your client in a visual manner, the design you are proposing. This tactic is a good way to express materials and ideas for projects, so the client can imagine the project in a way to evoke their senses. These proposals help display projects visually and help present new spaces that the client may not be able to imagine in words. The roll of genre in Architecture is always changing. Whether the goal is to make a giant pyramid in the middle of the desert, or to make a functional classroom in America, the goal is simple, to create a space which caters to its function. Through this analysis I realized that Architects take words and translate them into readable, tangible, documents that offer assistance as a visual guide to those who cannot imagine in words. Innovation is always lurking around the corner, and is waiting for someone with the right ideas to make something out of nothing.