School Centre in La Palma
The architecture of schools has evolved throughout history, as have teaching content and the framework of student-teacher relationships. Technical advances and cultural trends have influenced classroom design, but it is pedagogical developments that have been the real driving force behind the most profound transformations in the configuration of school spaces. In Spain, it was the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution of Education) that introduced spaces for play and physical exercise into educational architecture. The new principles of the first modern movement, fueled by the pedagogies of Las Nuevas Escuelas (The New Schools), were brilliantly incorporated into the buildings of the Instituto Escuela (School Institute), which laid the foundations for the necessary relationship between classrooms and sunlight, air, and nature.
In 1970, after decades of regression, the Villar Palasí law promoted the modernization of the dictatorship's education system by providing schools with specialized facilities for the new subjects in the curriculum, an ambitious model that was scaled back just one year later. This 1971 school model, with minor improvements and some concessions, is the programmatic basis for most of the school architecture produced in Spain today. Despite numerous educational reforms, their impact on school architecture has been very limited.
Current teaching, as has always been the case throughout history, needs to incorporate new spaces into its architecture that can naturally adapt to different learning scenarios. Without reinventing school architecture, careful design can, through small changes, multiply the places where students, educators, and families can meet.
Based on strict compliance with the specifications set out in the tender documents, the project explores the expansion of the school ecosystem. La Laguna School is equipped with all the necessary facilities, classrooms, and services, but also incorporates, with very little use of floor space, a small family of free spaces, or “free spaces” as they are known internationally. “Free spaces” is a concept coined by Sara Evans in 1960 that is becoming increasingly relevant in the field of education because it proposes unregulated spaces that give rise to less hierarchical and more creative relationships. These are places where students and teachers can easily enjoy informal conversations, study together, plan collective activities, or discuss social or political issues. In line with this concept, the project, thanks to its compact but porous design, is structured like a necklace of diverse spaces, closed, open, and covered, of varying scales and features, making the building a versatile and rich place.
