Abstract:

The “teaching places” today require a rethinking in relation to the “teaching time”: the entire school day becomes an opportunity for teaching and learning beyond the moment of the teacher's frontal lecture. It is necessary to pass from the practice of a "transmitted lesson" to an idea of a "lived experience".

The paper present a didactical experience realized between the Molino Vecchio Primary School in Gorgonzola (Milan) and a research group of Politecnico di Milano University.

Starting from the workshop activities, proposed within the project "Redesign your school" (Triennale Milan, in anticipation of the XXI International Exhibition in 2016 dedicated to the theme Design After Design, deemed that the training world itself must be the subject of a particular and renewed effort of project reflection), it was possible to rediscover places and spaces of the school, that will be investigated and re-interpreted by children starting from "exploratory reading tools”.

The research is articulated to different phases:
- to identify educational models implemented in different Italian historical periods and to study the configuration of architectural spaces;
- starting from an "analysis grid", to investigate some educational and experiential moments which play a central role of "class life";
- starting from the observations that emerged from the "analysis grid", encourage the research of creative ideas of the children aimed at the transformation of the space of the school starting from readings, stories and pictures…
- metadesign elaboration of critical situations and potential elements, presentation of virtual solutions with also scale models.

The principal project actions that have been taken are:
- DESCRIBE (with text) and COMPLETE (with graphical representation) descriptions of school settings
- (TRAS)FORM spaces, by identifying critical issues and potential [the classroom that I would]
- RE-CREATE imaginary spaces as responses to "narrative suggestions" [the magical wardrobe]
- IMAGE: by author “shutter click”, seize "the magic of / in educational spaces"
- FORM: construction of furnishings able to LIVE the spaces of learning in and out of the classroom ("magic cupboards" invent spontaneous theater spaces, open air studio, artistic corridors ...).

Keywords:

Knowledge project, historical architecture, multidisciplinar approach.