Reabilitação de Escolas Secundárias

Abstract

This study took place during the "Programa Parque Escolar", a programme that aims to renovate three hundred secondary schools in Portugal. It seemed a great opportunity to study today's school building dynamics and how we can include them in pre-existing buildings. Some of the subjects brought up by this study are also valid for other types of architecture, which is an interesting point because building rehabilitation is becoming more important, especially when it comes to the historical city. We started by analysing today's learning practices and its relation with the physical space where it takes place. Afterwards, we studied and discussed three schools that were involved in the programme and draw the conclusions. Therefore, this study has three parts. The first part consists of the basic concepts to understand today's learning habits - the pupil's role and the importance of the space where the learning takes place; the concept of learning street; the multidisciplinary approach in learning; the role of the new technologies; the meaning of opening the school to the outside community and the relationship between learning and space. The second part is about designing school spaces - the new space requirements that the school is expected to meet; the starting point of the "Programa Parque Escolar"; the strategy designed for the new schools and what happens after the rehabilitation has been completed. The third part studies three schools built in different times and at a different phase of works. It was an advantage to do this study during the programme because it allowed us to understand its phases and opened a door for future investigations: what will be the overcome of this programme after a few years? How will the future results compare with the conclusions of this study?