Make_Shift City

Space as the
Third Educator
Susanne Hofmann, founder and driving
force of the Baupiloten, elucidates her
motivation and methods with regard to
transforming the play and learning areas
of German schools and kindergartens
with the help of her architecture students.
What has been the driving force behind the work of the
Baupiloten?
While teaching at different universities, I observed that
the students either designed fantastic projects without
having an idea about how these could be actually built, or
immersed themselves in structural details and forgot to
think about the architecture or develop an architectural
concept. By founding Baupiloten, I resolved to connect
these two worlds, in an innovative, experimental, and socially
committed manner.
You have concentrated mainly on kindergartens and
schools. What led you to question and rethink the ludic
architecture of these establishments?
We work primarily in these particular fields because the
synergy between education and architecture offers us
ample room to experiment. It is less about questioning
the architecture as such, but about asking ourselves how
we can enable the users – i.e., the students, educators or
teachers, and other school members – to participate in
shaping their built environment.
How did you, as architect and initiator of a process,
enter into this field? What financial resources do you
have at your disposal?
Every project has different budgets, challenges, and opportunities
for participation. In the educational field, there is
often a conflict of interest between what the client and the
user has in mind. The school or the kindergarten (i.e. the
user) is above all interested in the interplay of educational
science and architecture, whilst the client (the municipality
or local authority) is often primarily concerned with
pure functionality. The budget is allocated according to
the client’s priorities, determined either by whether they
are primarily interested in the built outcome or in the process
and in the integration of the users. Participation is
becoming ever more attractive for the client, as it leads to a
greater sense of user satisfaction with regard to the institution,
and this results in a greater sustainability.
What is missing in these establishments for playing and
learning through play?
Most of the schools we work with were built in imperial
times. The architecture reflected this social era and no
longer met the requirements of contemporary education
with its timetable – especially with regard to full-time
schooling. Above all, the children lacked places to meet
and communicate outside of their classrooms, or more
solitary retreats to read a book, for example. Like Loris
Malaguzzi who founded the Reggio educational theory
and understood space as being the third educator (the
first and second educators being schoolmates and teachers
respectively), I think it is important that children feel
comfortable in the space that surrounds them, and that
the architectural and atmospheric qualities of the spaces
stimulate their imagination. As such, architecture can
become a catalyst for education.
How do you incorporate the ideas and wishes of the
‘users’ – the children – and how do you make it possible
for them to shape their space?
We have developed very different processes for the various
user groups, according to their age and composition.
Workshops take place outside the context of the school
and provide conceptual and artistic stimuli. Here, children
and adults alike can communicate their dreams and needs
playfully. Collages of found images, painted pictures,
models, as well as the outcomes of targeted experimental
games, interviews, jointly compiled stories, films and their
spatial projections, are all relevant tools. The Baupiloten
also develop suggestive models that the children can empathise
with and experience tangibly. This sets a dialectical
process in motion, whereby all those involved can express
themselves and identify sensory stimuli that are important
to them with regard to their surroundings. What is crucial
are the feedback processes.
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