The “Warraphat Learning Sphere” project, is located at Warraphat School in Hat Yai, Thailand. The overall area is about 700 sqm. The area is grouped into different learning environments or “spheres” to maximize the learning experience for students, teachers, and community, or “learners”.
From the reading of “Campfires in Cyberspace: Primordial Metaphors for Learning in the 21st Century” by Dr. David Thornburg, we design five initial learning spheres, which are: Reading Sphere, Digital Sphere, Lab Sphere, Art Sphere, and Social Sphere. These spheres helped us expanded the three archetypal of learning spaces as defined by Dr. Thornburg into nine spatial analogies for our design concept of the learning environment, which are:
1. Cave (private space to concentrate on learning and reflection)
2. Campfire (a group learning community)
3. Watering Hole (an informal gathering space for passive and active learning)
4. Mountaintop (a formal learning space where a learner learns to listen)
5. Forest (learning by observation in nature)
6. Lab (space opens for students to iterate learning experience by developing a hypothesis, explore and test out different ideas, experiment, and learn from a mistake)
7. Gallery (an area to display and learn from achievements)
8. Meeting Point (an informal and temporary space for brief gathering)
9. Behind the Curtain (a preparation and storage area that help materialize learning environments).
One of our objectives is to create an adaptive learning environment for users in learning how to learn, and utilizing architecture for didactic learning; essentially using architectural design as a catalyst for pedagogical change.