Scuole in transizione. Esperienze e progetti di nuovi spazi educativi e di comunità

Schools take into account numerous challenges associated with the theme of educational and ecological transition and are confronted with a vast and often obsolete heritage in which school buildings present safety and maintenance conditions that require urgent interventions. In recent years, a number of important initiatives have been launched to accelerate the process of architectural regeneration of the country's schools with the investment of substantial economic resources aimed at upgrading buildings and the interior and exterior spaces of schools. The need for a different school also emerges from new pedagogical methods that go beyond the traditional concept of the classroom and lead to an overall rethinking of school spaces, in which integration, complementarity and flexibility are some of the main features of places for teaching and community even during extracurricular hours. Some virtuous examples of transformation can be found in the well-known European projects Open Schools in the Network in Italy, Cours d'écoles OASIS in Paris, and Cours de récréation in Brussels, which form the background of current experiments on which to reflect and verify expectations. These considerations gave rise to the Summer Workshop "ELOGATION OF FRUGALITY. Sensory gardens at school," which addressed social, pedagogical and ethical issues in which the school reveals its role as a service, a garrison, a space of proximity where equality, integration, exchange, individual and collective growth of young citizens are practiced. While the objective of the Workshop included the design of new innovative spaces for en plein-air teaching with a strong symbolic value; the subsequent construction of these spaces intended for a pergola atelier and five sensory gardens aims to reveal the militant role of the University in the new political agenda of the City of Palermo.