Architecture for Humanity: Classroom

In the Spring of 2009, Architecture for Humanity and its sister organization, The Open Architecture Network, hosted an international design competition asking students and design professionals to work together to design the classroom of the future. Barrett Studio partnered with high school students from the Watershed School in Boulder, Colorado to design a portable classroom that would embody the school’s experiential learning curriculum.

The resulting design, dubbed the TriBox Transforming Classroom, is a portable learning space that functions in varied environments, exposing students to different climates, locations, and methods of learning in a remote learning location. The collaborative design process began with Watershed’s semester curriculum of “The American West.” Students and designers worked in 5 different groups that each studied a western site: forest, desert, mountain, plains, and edge. The TriBox Transforming Classroom evolved out of this process as a solution that provided a re-usable and re-locatable classroom that could further the concept of hands-on learning. The process of assembling the classroom once on-site is an integral part of the student’s learning experience.

The TriBox Transforming Classroom is constructed through a series of hinging and unfurling moves of 8 individual triangular volumes, TriBoxes, that reorganize to become a complete classroom for 20 students and one teacher. TriBoxes are pre-manufactured SIPS components assembled in a factory and hinged together in groups of four. Each TriBox has 1) a hinging triangular SIPs floor panel that folds down to create the larger floor box for the overall internal space, and 2) a hypotenuse leg that is removable and becomes a roof panel for the overall structure. The six SIPs panels that become the roof span from eave to ridge in length and are supported by tension cable collar ties. The roof panels form a simple gable roof form that includes photovoltaic panels, powering the building with battery backup storage. The entire structure rests on a series of lightweight foundation piers composed of steel plates, tube steel and buried concrete piers with steel pins.

When the TriBox Transforming Classroom arrives at a site, the TriBoxes can be manually removed from the trailer bed using a system of steel poles that insert into the shipping strap system. Groups of five students grab each end of the two steel poles and walk the TriBoxes to their specific location onsite. The TriBoxes then unfurl and open to empty their contents (held in storage during transport). The foundations are placed in pre-dug holes and pinned into place, and the TriBoxes are set on top of the foundations. Once the TriBoxes have formed the overall classroom volume, the floor panels drop into place and the roof panels are installed above. This process is reversed to deconstruct the building and move it to its next site. At the end of deconstruction, the TriBox Transforming Classroom leaves a “positive trace” through native trees that will be planted in the remnants of the foundation holes.

We envision the transforming classroom as a powerful tool to reintroduce learning in nature to our schools’ curricula.