C3 Magazine Learning within Location and Place - Heidi Saarinen

My contribution to C3 Magazine No 412 Spring 2021 

Learning within Location and Place _ Heidi Saarinen

The environment we grow up in, is likely to color our early lives and personalities. This essay looks at examples of environmentally designed spaces for learning. The word ‘institution’ no longer fits well with the way that contemporary educational spaces are designed. The word sounds sterile, contaminated and restrictive. Instead, the spaces designed for education today, are more than schools or indeed ‘educational institutions’. They function, for many, as a home away from home, sometimes even as a respite from the norm, becoming a community in itself.
School activities challenge and enhance understanding of the outside world, through viewpoints (mental and visual) and encourage vistas out into the landscape beyond, that important connection, of community, of place. […]