Location

Amsterdam

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Client

Creative industries fund NL

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Period

2015-current

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Team

Marco Broekman, Anna Sosin, Chloé Charreton, Jeroen Castricum

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Assignment

Research by design on the flexibility of ROC/MBO education buildings and their surroundings

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Collaboration

Dingeman Deijs Architects

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Advisory board

ROC Amsterdam, ROCTOP, BOA Advies, Amsterdam Economic Board, Nedtrain, HvA

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Status

Finished

Research through design ‘FLEX TEST ROC’ takes the existing ecosystem of vocational education in Amsterdam as the starting point for the design of a new housing strategy in which education becomes a more integral part of the city. The aim of the research is to more strongly interweave education, businesses, and society and to make the places where they congregate more public. This creates a custom-shaped and flexible learning/working ecosystem that can respond quickly to the fast dynamics of the economy, society, and vocational education. Vocational education institutions lend themselves to this type of experiments particularly well, because the students have to apply the knowledge they acquire here in practice relatively quickly. Considering the cohesion not only spatially but also organizationally and financially creates insights in local economy, in employment opportunities, and in potential collaborations between local parties.

 

The representation of this new ecosystem aims to launch a debate about the best possible spatial strategy for vocational education. The starting point is that with the new type of hybrid learning environment, vocational education has a chance to become one of the dynamic anchors of the urban economy, where agile professionals are indispensable and applied knowledge circulates much better.

 

For the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2016 a model was made in collaboration with 60 students of the “vocational college for woodworking, furniture and interior design” (HMC), who worked out 9 prototypes at 25 locations into an interior design. The model was also exhibited at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and presented to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science Jet Bussemaker. In February 2017 the project will be finished with a publication and symposium.