Influence of Built environment in Social Creativity Development

FH Kärnten, Spittal a/d Drau Master Architektur

Stadt und Regionalsoziologie

INFLUENCE OF BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN SOCIAL CREATIVITY DEVELOPMENT

Nataša Radakovic|Bojan Kecman|Jelena Blagojevic|Jelena Stanojević

Table of content

Introduction

4

Theoretical framework

6

Creativity

6

Social creativity

7

Learning regions

8

Exploring models

9

Having

9

Doing

9

Being

10

Knowing

10

Background of chosen topic

12

Macro location

12

Micro location

13

Ithuba Wild Coast Community College

14

Methodology

16

Group dynamics

17

Daily routine

18

Group vs. individual

20

Spatial analysis

22

Workshops

28

Dancing Workshop

28

Drawing Workshop

32

LIterature

INTRODUCTION

WHAT? The main purpose of the school project, regardless the context is to provide good learning environment. Creativity and learning are directly related with each other through education.

Besides the development of creativity trough the learning process, new pedagogic concepts suggest creative approaches in learning process itself. Creative activity in learning processes grows out of the relationship between an individual learner and her co-learners as well as the world that surrounds the learning activities.

Thereby a phenomenon that is about to be investigated is how working and living environment together with cultural background take part in forming social creativity.

Human creativity arises from activities that take place in a context in which interaction (distributed over space, time, and with other people) is important contributors to the process.

Influence of built environment in social creativity development

The main premise is that learning arises from social context and mutual interaction of the pupils that finally contribute in forming collective knowledge.

„Creativity does not happen inside people` heads, but in the interaction between a person`s thoughts and a socio-cultural context.”

(Engeström) Definition of social creativity is saying: “Social Creativity, while creativity is ultimately individual, groups of people and even whole societies may require an overall strategy and method to manage creativity. Social Creativity protects the integrity of the individual creator and at the same time manages a group creative process to achieve common ends.”

Topic should be investigated through general introduction, introduction of location and school project, definitions of others terms related to chosen topic, theories about social creativity and methods of collecting data.

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WHY? Chosen topic is directly related with design process. Although the main idea is building within the context, project itself becomes the part of the context and influence its further development. During design process certain predictions are made while defining different ambient and architectural concepts of the space that are supposed to serve existing and predicted user’s needs. After the project is realized it’s possible to investigate how users actually interact with building and how it influences learning process.

The creative mindset is an attitude to the world characterized by curiosity, questions, and a desire to play, make and share, which children possess in their early years, but which is often lost in the cultures of schools and workplaces.

Across cultures and backgrounds, children are born with a natural urge to be playful, to take risks, and to create their own worlds. Different cultures begin to recognize that creativity should be one of the most important priorities

for a society, and architects as creators of environment for creativity should have understanding of how to support it.

in the learning process is one of the things that should be observed as well as sense of individual and group.

There are two main places of learning which do foster creative, risk-taking, collaborative activities: kindergarten and school. The notion of the ‘lifelong school’ offers the possibility of a space where everyone can tinker, experiment, and play. Whilst doing so, they learn about collaboration, and the creative process. In order to develop creative thinkers, children need stimulating environments.

Also it should be investigated: what stimulates creativity, differences and similarities between working environment and living environment, how they cope with problems and challenges, how flexible are they in embracing new ideas, how they learned before and what are those people doing now (difference between generation’s, parents-pupils).

Perception of the space and its usage is also related with user’s background and culture, and relationship between these two should also be investigated.

The goal is to rethink architecture space and investigate its consequences by identifying general and individual the factors that have the most influence on learning process.

Knowledge sharing and participation of pupils

For the future projects and research would be good to predict consequences of such process.

One of the segments of research should be identification of general (universal) and individual (cultural) factors that influence creativity.

THEORETICAL FREMEWORK

Creativity From Human Motivation, 3rd ed., by Robert E. Franken: • Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. (page 396) • Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative: 1. need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation 2. need to communicate ideas and values 3. need to solve problems (page 396) • In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives.

• In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new Influence of built environment in social creativity development

possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown. (page 39) From Creativity - Beyond the Myth of Genius,

by Robert W. Weisberg.

• Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one...What counts is whether the novelty he or she produces is accepted for inclusion in the domain.» (page 28) • Characteristics of the creative personality: (pages 73-58) 1. Creative individuals have a great deal of energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest.

2. Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time.

3. Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.

4. Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy ant one end, and rooted sense of reality at the other.

5. Creative people seem to harbor opposite tendencies on the continuum between extroversion and introversion.

6. Creative individuals are also remarkable humble and proud at the same time.

7. Creative individuals to a certain extent escape rigid gender role stereotyping and have a tendency toward androgyny.

8. Generally, creative people are thought to be rebellious and independent.

9. Most creative persons are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.

10. The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering pain yet also a great deal of enjoyment 6

Social Creativity Social Creativity is based on the assumption that the power of the individual mind is fundamentally limited.

(John-Steiner, 2000; Salomon,1993) Although creative individuals are often thought of as working in isolation, much human creativity arises from activities that take place in a social context in which interaction with other people and the artifacts that embody collective knowledge are important contributors to the process.

From Beyond Binary Choices:Integrating Individual and Social Creativity, Gerhard Fischer Human interaction is not only needed but central to social creativity; however, people participate in such collaborative inquiry and creation as individuals, and individuals need the reflection time. Without such individual reflection, it is difficult to think about contributions to social inquiry or creativity.

Learning regions The concept of learning regions and cities does not find only one and straightforward definition and it is still the target of intensive research. It could be argued that it embodies the territorial or local application of the knowledge economy and its evolution. It is production and distribution of knowledge and information, rather than the production and distribution of things.

Instead of infrastructures, as the circulation of information is deemed as crucial for reciprocal interactions among the actors and for mutual learning.

Growth is not driven by capital or knowledge accumulation but rather by innovation.

Innovations are understood as new creations which have economic significance by virtue of their adoption within an organization.

Very few schools teach students to create knowledge; instead, students are taught that knowledge is static and complete, and they become experts at consuming knowledge rather than producing knowledge� (Sawyer, 2006).

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Exploring models The models through we can explore social - environment model that influence on the creativity can be divide on: having, doing, being and knowing. This model applies to the general (macro) level of a culture creativity, as well as to individual (micro) experience.

Having It is about the resources which a culture presents individual including artifacts, materials, tools, media, and environments. In the research on the location it was clear that influence of the western civilization is strong but yet this region have mostly rural character.

On some of the places there are parts with strong, solid structure with public and semi - public character (hotels, casino, shopping malls). Those places are reserved for wealthier class, while the residents of nearby villages goes there to work.

Rural zone houses are made mostly on the same way, from same material used the same building technique, the house is made like shelter and each family provide that shelter on

these or that way. The things which take you on bigger scale in social hierarchy is not HAVING the THINGS in these community is actually how and what are you doing.

Doing It is about the activities, relationships and practices which bring a social culture to life.

The interesting point in the research that was noticed is the open minded and free approach in communication of the children. The first thing that they are doing is analyzing stranger face and questioning them by they look.

One big thing that previewed at the children is that they don’t have fear and they are not scared of doing mistakes. They do the things on the way how they think it should look and that are interesting for them. Competitive spirit forced them to push them in they play and to impose the strongest opinion. Between them and they game there is no winners or losers they have healthy competitive attitude on the end everything ends up with laugh or teachers loud voice to calm down the fire of the play.

Being Being can be perceived trough the identities of individuals and groups, and their shared traditions, habits and states of mind. Therefore identity of each person is defined by his position within the group as well as his characteristics as an individua.

Every child has the potential to flourish, to be inventive, to make great new things.

Creative mindset develops from exploration — not just of ideas but of physical things and environments or rather, as is often the case, exploration of ideas through the exploration and use of materials. And we need space to play, to experiment, to be disorderly, the space for creative improvisation, freedom, challenge, the union of passion and talent, and fun.

In these culture the being different is something that make you not positive or negative. In rural part of the area it is strongly conspicuous presence of the community code. It is more how you are doing the tings and how much things you know. If you are good fisherman or capable farmer who is capable to take care

Influence of built environment in social creativity development

of his family you will have the respect of all community. It take influence on the way how you are going to achieve the final goals.

Knowing Knowing is about the culture’s ways of making sense of things. It is the knowledge, experiences and meanings that undergird a social - culture the ‘canon’ of recognized creations that form its basis as well as the here-and-now consciousness and conversations that sustain a culture.

The different context in which children get the knowledge also play a role in shaping they perception that evoke they creativity.

Developing a strong sense of individuality while learning to become a member of a group is ever present in school. Children must retain their individuality, yet they must give it up by putting the welfare and interest of the group before their own. At school, they learn to share and to cooperate, see others’ viewpoints, and work together for the common welfare.

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BACKGROUND OF THE CHOOSEN TOPIC

Macro location The area of the Kwazulu – Natal is placed on the coast of the Indian Ocean. It is one of the poorest area in South African Republic.

The biggest town in this area is Durban, with the biggest level of the urban and structure development. Beside that the other smaller towns are placed near the coast, while, the inside of the land is populated with the rural settlement. „Ithuba School Wild Coast “ placed in rural area of a village near the edges of the river Mzamba on the Wild Coast. The “Wild Coast” is an alternative name for the coastal Pondoland, a natural region on the South African shores.

Even if it has important role in South African History, Pondoland is far from any urban center or metropolitan area. Big difference between cities and village is visible in social, cultural and political system. The country has parliamentary organization but implementation of that is not feasible totally. In the case of the countryside, like the area of the Wild Coast, most of the

Influence of built environment in social creativity development

political decisions are made by tribal elders, and in a city like the neighboring town of Port Edward is represented by a mayor.

On the cost there are the structures of people with wealthier social and economic status.

Scattered around the city and near the river beds are located the simple built structures that make up the rural entity. Attractive natural sites are occupied by complexes for entertainment and relaxation, reserved for wealthy visitors.

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Micro location Within the community in which the school is built, there are unwritten rules and codes that really affect the lives of individuals. Those are tribe rules, keeping the group together one as compact comunity. The individual is special in that sense if he/she is strong enough and have the power to impose its position as a leader position.

The first and fundamental unit of this society is the family. Most families live in a common family house built on to they own land. If the family expands, for example son wants to become independent and start his own family, he is building his own house near the family home, in the family backyard.

Built structures are scattered and not linked to the main roads, because the road network is not developed and expressed. The seat of the local assembly is a local shop and bar.

They represent the place where local people can meet, talk and spend time together.

The construction of the school complex, change the structure of the local urban places of the village. It is the place for playing, learning and having a fun but built basically for children, the meeting spot for young part of the community.

What is specific in the Ituba school is difference between the home, a general context in which the children are borne and live, and the absolutely new environment of the structure, organization and spatial logic. In school they are getting the knowledge that are going to serve for life in the future but they are also getting experience of the being in different environment. It push their limits and improve they imagination of learning, observing and meeting with the different systems, materials and way of how things function.

Ithuba Wild Coast Community College „Ithuba” primary school complex is planned by Markus Dobmeier. The idea is to have separate classroom units, for each 7 grades of the primary school. Beside primary school classroom units master plan predicts the preschool classroom, object for common toilets and separate object of a kitchen. The master plan also proposes big sport field, playground and common square in between the classroom units.

The disposition and dimensions of the elements in the classroom is defined by design team, the rules that were supposed to be followed were strictly defined borders of the plot/ building, a height – to be one store building, roof inclination, and the facade color.

Since 2010, when construction site was open, until today six objects were built by different European faculties of architecture. Projects done by FH München and the Technical University of Graz include: the preschool class and the buildings for the classroom for the first, second and third grade and kitchen with toilets.

Last realized project is schap!MZAMBA classroom- fourth grade building that was build in the spring 2014. The school unit program proposes for each grade a building with the classroom, open courtyard, the teachers’ room and the storage room. The disposition and Influence of built environment in social creativity development

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METODOLOGY

Most of the investigation data is collected by the observation, Go-Along technique and interviews. Aditional data is collected though few workshops done within 6 weeks spent on the site.

Interview questions: 1.Daily routine in the school?

2.What are the biggest challanges during the normal school day?

3.What is the difference between Ithuba Community College and the other schools you›ve been teaching in?

4.What do you consider important/unique for Ithuba Community College?

Considering the time table of the construction day all the interviews were done together for the groups. Some of the questions were answered partly but most of the answers were get within go-along technique during the conversation.

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Group Dynamics Regardless, the age more less every class has similar dynamics as well as daily routine.

Although a lot of students come from nearby villages there are a lot of differences in their social, family and financial situation.

First thing that should be considered is the size of the class. Each class in Ithuba Wild Coast Community College has 30 pupils and two teachers (which is almost %50 less than the normal African standard).

There are no public schools for children with special needs so they are integrated in the same class, and quite often have difficulties to follow the lessons.Other problem is that the English skills of some pupils are not so good and yet they are supposed to follow the lectures in English and to learn the language at the same time. Some of the students come from very complex family situations, where they have been mistreated or violently treated so qute often they are very aggressive to other kids and unresponsive to authority, which is quite easily transferred to all the group.

Thereby dynamic of the group from the teaching point is very complex, an possibility to work in smaller groups is very important in this case.

In this big group ad heterogene group, both children and teacher are faced with attention problem. Teacher not beeing able to commit special attention for one of the group and pupil not being able to follow the lectures. Thereby by working in the smaller group is often reqired and in ideal case groups should be able to work together and help each other in collaboration with teacher.

Its important to stress that African standards differ a lot from European and facilities that might be considered as mandatory in Europe are quite often neglected or causing one of the major problems in Africa teaching system. In conditions like these size of the class, acoustic, lightening etc. has even more important role than regular.

Daily Routine Bescides few groups of children from the village itself most of them are driven to school by the school taxi. “… the children all starts with school at eight o´clock.And then children will start with the pray and a Bible reading, I like to read the stories rather than just a Bible … than we go into new lecture and after new lecture we have a break with the children all are given a meal, which is very, very important because for some of them it´s the basic meal they eating at the day. Then can also go to toilet during brake… outside during the break each group is given their own balls and the leader of the day, cause we have a boy leed and a girl leed, they are incharged of the balls and they have to return the balls , which develops a self-confidence … and responsibility. After the break we have lectures here, and then at half past twelve we finish and we have sport” Prof. Chamber interview , March 2014

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Group vs. Individual During the 6 weeks spent on the construction site, our group was more-less infiltrated in daily dynamic of the school, and we had a chance to meet in person lot of students and their temper and dynamic as individuals and as a group. Although they are mostly very open and eager to communicate, each group had an initiator who would start a “trend” that is immidiatelly followed by the others, weather is the case of taking photo with a camera, borrowing the measuring tape or climbing on the back. Although some of these initiators were happened to be by case, in most of the situations was that might makes it right principle. Still some members of the group “fight” their way to get noticed trough the individuality and personal skils like dancing painting, or the gestures such as paper notes and the. Hereby competitiveness in the group is very conspicuous.

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Spatial Analysis When it comes to physical structure three main factors to investigate were -marking the interaction zones -reaction on the changes in the space and ways of overcoming the boundaries -understanding children’s perception of the space During the design process lot of predictions were made according to the space usage and the perception of the space. Special attention was made in terms of different ambient and zones for learning, sitting, playing. Regardless all the detailed planning, from the children perspective all the school is one big playground and exploring pavilion.

Minding that fact marking the interaction spaces it’s very easy to notice two types of spaces: -conventional playground zones -improvised playground zones identified by children Influence of built environment in social creativity development

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It is also important to notice that besides football pitch that is always very crowded, improvised playground zones were much more active than the conventional.

Although school unit program only predicts open space as an additional zone within the classroom, these zones were rarely used actively by the children, if we don’t consider group meetings in the courtyard for the pray.

Most vivid places and zones were the edges of the plot as the main points of interaction between the classes (walls, passages, denivelation levels, as well as the zones with any kind of dynamic or the barrier character, such as line of the pillars or ventilation stones, walls to climb. This goes along with very active, competitive, and curious temper of the children very eager to explore.

Due to lack of the conventional playground in their surrounding children developed very imaginative ways to improvise with all available places that they could convert into playing zone.

Exploring and finding the new ways to perceive and use the space of school objects that are in general different then their daily surrounding at home, is higher priority than playing in “conventional� playgrounds. Same situation is with finding the bariers or changes in the space, to whom they approach with great curiousity and excitement.

Second characteristic of the interaction zone could be analysed according to the time the pupils spend there. Here we can notice that more narrow and closed zones are much more active than widely opened spaces. Other important factor for this is also interaction between the classes, so the entering zones are also meeting spots, with very dynamic character. Corridors between the buildings have more transition character, but yet there are very active and crowded also.

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WORKSHOPS

Dance workshop Dance workshop was done in collaboration with one of the volonteers, Nikola Krumpholz, professional dancer.

During the one of the previous projects wooden platform was made as part of the workshop. It’s usage was not very active, probably because of its location on the wide opened field that is not supported by physical structure.

During the workshop kids were interested to participate, but they were more excited to show their own dancing knowledge rather than accepting new. After the workshop usage of the platform remained the same as before, yet the pupils show the interest in accepting new ideas of the space usage.

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Drawing workshops Main goal was to see how they perceive the physical space and what are the things they consider important. Initial idea was to use reflexive photography technique but due to lack of the unprofessional camera and very competitive and naughty temper of the students it was not possible to do it, so we went for more simple way of getting information directly from students.

In the first case children were shown possibility to draw on the earth with a simple “tools”.

After group curiosity in what is going on only few of them were interested to explore new ways of drawing technique.

Second task was to make a paper drawing of The place I like to be at. Advantage of this technique was that trough the drawing children could filter the objects and focus only on the things they consider most important for them. The problem was that some of the drawings were very close to abstraction, so they couldn’t be understood very well, also a lot of children made a drawing of the places Influence of built environment in social creativity development

to be at, such as helicopter. Considering the fact that their environment is not much build, it’s understandable that a lot of them made a drawings of the nature, and themselves as the very active part of it(riding horse, fishing).

It’s also very interesting that the group of the students that decided to make the drawing of their home presented it in a very different ways and styles: from very detailed to quite abstract way.

what they already know about the buildings that surround them, and some of them are completely neglecting actual object, drawing their imaginary places that sometimes go to complete abstraction.

Besides the given topic all the classes made goodbye cards drawing the the new building.

Same as with first topic, here is also huge variety of different approaches realistic to abstract. Yet, unlike first task that was given as a homework, second task was done at school so the copping of the motives and details is more present. With some drawings is quite obvious who is sitting next to whom. It’s also interesting that perception of the space varies from group to group. While the ones go to very specific details an even right proportions, some of them is combining what they see and .

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LITERATURE

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Participant Observation, Qualitative research methods: a Data collector›s field guide David Gauntlett & Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Cultures of creativity, Nurturing creative mindsets across cultures, Report Hasina B. Ebrahim, The role of play in fostering a creative culture: A South African perspective S. Schulze, The usefulness of reflexive photography for qualitative research: a case study in higher education, Department of Further Teacher Education, University of South Africa Mark a. Runco, Fostering creativity across cultures, Report John Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis Christophe Mouchiroud & Franck Zenasni, Individual differences in the development of social creativity Kerry Freedman, Rethinking creativity, Article Christian Hermansen, Social creativity, Scarcity + creativity in the built environment, working paper 2009 ,A Study prepared for the European Commission, The impact of culture on creativity