Page 64 - LearningSCAPES 2021

SESSIONABSTRACTS continued... Jason Mellard, Corgan
Saturday, October 16, 2021 - 11:15 am – 12:15 pm
The Equity Project: Can a School in 2070 Fix Inequality and Truly Be Inclusive to All?
1 LU / HSW
Schools today are at the center of every community. They are dealing with many more issues then just education, athletics and fine arts. They are a reflection of our society and as such are dealing with many other issues like:
• Racial and Social Justice
• Economic Disparity
• Disabilities Inclusion
• Food Insecurity
• Obesity and Mental Health
• Security (built and digital)
• Extreme weather events
• Immigration
• Homelessness
• And many others
In this session our intent is to open an honest dialogue on how all of these issues (and others) can be addressed now and how can we design a school then in 50 years will respond and try to solve these issues. By identifying those issues, we can start to create a new school prototype and by aiming to resolve these issues we can even start to implement those responses today. Our schools in 2070 will probably be a hybrid teaching model (at school and at home), thus the requirement for classrooms might go down but we believe that there will be many other needs of equity and inclusions that will necessitate the physical space to provide:
• Food Distribution and Child Nutrition
• Community Gathering Hubs
• Early Childhood Centers
• Counseling and Health Clinics
• Media Centers for all
• Social Safe Places
• Temporary Housing Centers
• Extreme Weather Shelters
• And many more
So please join us for a lively and interactive open discussion on how to address all of these issues to help shape our future schools so that they can be an active part of trying to be a more just and inclusive society.
Learning Objectives:
• Identify current and future equity and inclusive issues and discuss how we can address them in the built environment.
• Explore how do we need to modify or create in our schools specific areas that close that respond to the equity and inclusive
issues.
• Develop strategies on how to being to close those gaps with innovative and “out-of-the-box” design solutions.