InnoArch - Places and Spaces for Learning InnoArch, an InnoSchool co-project, is co-ordinated at Helsinki University of Technology Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design. InnoArch research team: Professor Aija Staffans (Responsible Director) Architect Helena Teräväinen, D.Sc. (Tech.) (Project Manager) Researcher Sirkku Huisko, M.Sc. InnoArch focuses on the potential of the built environment to support learning. The primary aim of the co-project is to deepen the understanding of the interrelationship between the physical environment and a successful learning process. The co-project creates environmental design principles, concepts and models, which support inquiry based learning and pupils' epistemic agency by means of architecture, urban planning and design; exploit interactive technological applications in designing and constructing physical and virtual spaces for learning; strengthen the role of the school as a part of a learning community that increases cultural understanding in the society; and promote shared understanding of our urban space. The secondary aim of InnoArch is to improve the interaction of pedagogical expertise and architecture in practical building processes. The results of the project affect three spatial dimensions: On an urban level, the project generates a description of a spatial network of learning in a community and produce an urban level planning concept where the different formal and informal educational units have an essential role in shaping the image of the place and supporting its residents as life-wide-learners. On a building design level, the project generates design principles and models for a Future School concept, a combination of a “joint space building complex” and a network of mobile high-tech learning modules, physically distributed but virtually connected. On a virtual level, the project produces an internet-based learning environment for geographical studies in a pilot school. The core idea is to use the locality as a real-time-learning environment, mapped by pupils using the internet and interactive GIS technology enriched by mobile positioning and MMS technology. In the first part of the project InnoArch focuses on a field study in several pilot schools and in the second part it concentrates on developing Future School concepts. The results of the project can be utilised in planning and designing schools and neighbourhoods.

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