Architecture for kids podcast with Jorge Raedo Director Osa Menor

I want to participate in this podcast to spread architecture education for children thanks to the network that Antonio Capelao weaves from the UK .  We learn together.

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Bye.

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of Architecture for Kids podcast. I'm your host, António Cablão. I'm a trained architect, an architectural educator and founding director of award-winning Architecture for Kids CIC. In this podcast, I'm going to talk to practitioners and creatives that share the same passion as I do, to inspire and to engage children and young people to shape their built environment and the creative industries. The podcast is brought to you in collaboration with the Built Environment Trust, the Thornton Education Trust, and the Wells School of Architecture, Cardiff University. My guest today is Jorge Rayedo. Jorge is from Zaragoza, Spain, and he lives in Bogota, Colombia, since 2015. He is the founder of Orsa Menor, a research and practice in art and architecture education for children and young people. He has collaborated with kindergartens, colleges, universities, museums, theatres, City Councils on several continents. Some of his educational projects are Anidar, Architecture and Childhood in Argentina, Ludantia, First International Biennial of Architecture Education for Children and Young People in Spain, Rakanetan Kaupunki in Finland, AMAG, Magazine of Architecture for Children in Spain, What is Architecture in Spain, Jorge, thank you for talking to me today and I'm looking forward to our conversation. What were your favourite subjects at school and And what were you good at at school?

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

My favorite subjects in the school were art and history. No new subjects, but the methods, yes. More I would like to work groups doing projects. Not so much time sit down in a chair. Most of the time almost sleeping. That's the thing I would change. How did

SPEAKER_00: 2:02

your career path develop and what support or not did you get?

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

I started to work with children, teacher of arts and architecture education for children in 2008 by chance. Because I was working in theater and I wanted to do a project, a theater play for children. I didn't find the money to do that. I started to do some videos for free in YouTube. They were very successful. And people started to, at Biennales or museums, started to demand or to ask me to do a workshop for children. I changed my life in theater to be a teacher of architecture and art for children. I enjoyed it more. It was not a plan. Maybe I've seen the fate, you know, the

SPEAKER_00: 2:39

destiny. When you were studying, what do you want to become?

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

I had not a clear a dream about what I wanted to be I started to study architecture I wanted to be an architect in Barcelona and I studied three years in Barcelona and also one year in Rome being Erasmus with a scholarship but I changed I lost my motivation not in architecture but just in studying that in the university and then I studied theatre why? I don't know I saw in my mind like the stage was my place so I studied to be playwright and stage director and I worked 10 years in professional Catalan theatre and I enjoyed it very much and I learned a lot but at some point it was also not so amazing because yes to work in theatre is fine people is excellent but sometimes the projects are very commercial and I started to say yeah I want to do something for kids maybe it's more useful I want to be useful in the society or for the society and that's why I wanted to do that project for kids but they didn't find the money and I arrived to work with children with the videos and architecture education for It's like the wind put me here or there. Organic, yes, is a positive way to understand that. Yeah, organic.

SPEAKER_00: 3:49

You are now in Colombia and Bogota. You've done quite a lot of things in Spain. One of them, Lodantia International Biennale for Children. And you've worked in different parts of Europe as well with different organizations, like, for instance, in Finland. So tell us a little bit about this tragedy. How did that evolve?

SPEAKER_01: 4:07

From 2008 to 2011, I worked in Barcelona, my headquarters. was in now Ivanov. It's a cultural center we made with a team of projects for kids, architectural education for kids. But the economical crisis was very big in Barcelona and Spain and always culture and education are weak when the economical crisis arrives. In Finland, small associations were interested in my projects in Barcelona and they invited me to be one year in Helsinki doing a new opera with children, students of a primary school. I left Barcelona and I went to Helsinki and at the end I was in Finland for years and we made four operas one per year and that's those four years in Finland were very important for me because Finland is excellent with education for children and also with arts education for children because the schools are fantastic but also they have a lot of activities for children in museums there are schools of art for children in all the cities in Finland so there are a lot of artists teaching arts to children in a country there are a lot of people doing that the level is higher because a lot of people are thinking about that and I learned a lot doing that and working in schools with teachers. And I came to Colombia because personal things. I married with a Colombian architect, Fabiola Uribe, and she also works with children. And that's my life in Colombia since 2015. And from that moment, I have done projects in Colombia, but also the biggest projects have born in Spain. For example, La Antia, the first piano of architectural education for children. My collaboration with the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, with Santiago Astro, we created this NTT is Escuela en Arquitectura Educativa. It's a school of architecture or something like that to think, to promote projects about the quality of space for education. I have done several projects here and also collaborations with Argentina with a platform of a magazine, Arca, which is a magazine of architecture. And with Arca, we have created Anidar. It's like nesting. We have made some projects in Buenos Aires, but later we made about 126 conversations online with professionals about about architecture or art education for children with 126 or more guests from several countries. I have a lot of projects in my mind or projects. I can do plans, so yes. But at the end, a lot of things in life, the wind comes. At the end, you cannot do that. You can do other things. There are a lot of factors. One is money, but it's not the only one. It's the will, the will of people, the will of the society for art education for children, architecture education for children. A lot of factors that make possible

SPEAKER_00: 6:44

the project. You've been working with children and young people for quite some time now, and have you noticed a change in the way we are working? And also, what would be interesting to know from you, because you've worked in a range of countries as well as continents, what have you found as common threads or the differences? Give us your opinion and your experience on this landscape.

SPEAKER_01: 7:06

Yes, I'm very lucky because I've worked with children from several countries, also in China. That was a fantastic trip to Shanghai. But usually kids are quite similar everywhere. If they are healthy kids, because if they have problems of food or other things, but if they have food, family, they are quite similar. The difference is the society. We are born like white canvas and it depends in what society we are growing up. The drawing and the forms and the covers and the canvas are different. And at the end, we became, nobody is born like English or British or Spanish or Chinese, but you grow up and you became British or from this city. And also in case the objective usually of the education is to promote, to provoke, or to paint these kids as members of that society. That's a big difference. It's the adults, not the kids. But more or less everywhere, families want the best for their kids. Society wants the best for their people, more or less. Yes, and I think from you go to China and some people say, yes, that's not a democracy. Yes, okay, that's maybe I prefer a democracy. But it's not that. A lot of people working to be happy and to enjoy life in that system. There are a lot of differences, but the main things are equal. To live in peace, more or less, and to enjoy life. And art is very important for that.

SPEAKER_00: 8:22

And do you want to talk a little bit about some of these projects that you were involved with, like, for instance, the opera in Finland, or any kind of workshops you're doing there in Bogota at the moment, or the past? Just give us an example or a flavor of what they're like.

SPEAKER_01: 8:36

They are very different. There's a project in Finland doing the four operas, in particular, project because I was eight months inside the school working with a group of kids and with the teachers. It's my favorite kind of project to work in schools with the kids and the teachers together, do something together, art together. In that case was theater, opera, but it can be architecture or anything, or a film. Everybody, we have to create something, opera, and we have a lot of problems in our way and we have to resolve those problems together because we have to present something to an audience. In that trajectory, the kids learn a lot of things about art as a language in that case theater but theater means also it's words it's music it's movement dance it's space theater is mainly bodies in a stage in the space and they learn this art as a language but also to work together this human conflict we have to resolve them together this is my favorite project but to work in schools usually is quite complicated because you need school open schools with teachers open teachers that they want different projects and somebody have to pay that the other projects Well, yes, I have done a lot of short workshops in museums or schools, but short. Maybe one hour or ten hours, but not. Because I think to learn art or architecture, yeah, kids need time. Of course, if you do a workshop of one hour or one hour long, they learn something. But if they work one year, better. That's what I love about the arts, schools of art for children in Finland, because kids can learn arts several years following. Now, well, another kind of project is like this, Conversaciones Sanitarias, a nesting conversation with professionals to know what the other professionals around the world are doing to connect with them, to create a network, to learn together, because you are, Antonio, are a neuron and I am another. And when we talk, there is a kind of synopsis. And Ville Ludantia, the first biennial of architecture education for children, that was the main objective, to promote and to do visible those projects and professionals working around the world about architecture education for children in several ways, because some people teach architecture as language, others do like participatory participatory projects to transform streets or squares or a school. Others are thinking about how to design better schools. Others are designing games, didactical materials for schools from design or architecture. A lot of professionals are doing different things in the same field of architecture, education and children. Ludantia wanted to join them and promote Visible for the World. And also, at Ludantia, we made an international competition of projects made by kids, helped by adults, but made by kids to transforming spaces, mainly school yards, but also other things. We received about 100 projects. But my favorite project is to work with kids. But now I am also enjoying very much to work with teachers. But I've done this project to know and to join professionals around the world, as you are doing with this wonderful podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 11:31

Tell me about this work you're doing with the teachers. Are you creating some kind of framework with them that can be rolled out and used at different levels to do with architecture? Or what is this work?

SPEAKER_01: 11:42

Well, it depends. First, we have to decide what the teachers have to learn or want to learn. Is it to introduce architecture as a subject or art? Or is it for how to use the educational space in a better way, for example? I know that in Spain some people have done several workshops for teachers in that way. Some teachers are working in the interior school. We don't know if the building is old or new, but of course the teacher and educational team, they have a pedagogical project. And pedagogical objectives in this school are different to the This part of the pedagogical project, I usually say it's like a hand. And the spaces, furniture, and other didactic material is like the glove. If we have a clear hand, it's easier to design a glove. If not, maybe the glove is good for that hand or not. This is a practical good thing now for teachers. We have chairs, we have tables, we have some kind of window with a light, a quality of the light. Why am I working in this way with the kids? What kind of educational projects do I want to do? That's the main question that the teachers, they want to ask themselves. If they have cleared that, they will know how to put the tables, the chairs, how to move the group around the school, why the kids have to be sit down like it's a torture to be seven hours sit down. Why that is just this kind of worship is the more usual with teachers. Also in Colombia, we have done some, for example, for early childhood from three and three to six years old, the teachers are usually very, very interested to use better the spaces and objects. And now I'm doing PhD with the Faculty of Education of Girona, and I'm creating a project how to introduce architecture in schools of Bogota, primary schools in Bogota, how to introduce architecture education as artistic language. That's my point of view for architecture. But in this process, now in this month, I'm working with the teachers. I show them what I'm thinking. Well, I think that we have to teach these things to the kids. The teachers say, well, is it good for us, for the kids, or maybe you should do it another way, or I think so my students, it's better to do it more contextual approach, no so abstract approach. At the end, in the next year, I will work with their students after talking with it. Is there another way to involve the teachers? Because I think it's impossible to work inside a school without the teacher. Of course it's possible,

SPEAKER_00: 13:58

but it's not good. Also because there's a knowledge there that you are missing out if you don't tap into it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 14:04

First, because they are teachers and they know more about education and pedagogical things. And they know their students, they know their problems, they know their families, and I'm an artist or an architect, I know more about processes of creation, like something like that, no? How to create something, how to create art, how to leave lost in the way. An artist is more or less, I know what the steps, but usually I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm not worried. And teachers, usually they don't know how to do that, because they need to know what are they doing. If we work together, it's good for everybody, it's funny.

SPEAKER_00: 14:39

That's very interesting what you just said, because that goes on to the next question, which is if you have an opinion about the current educational system, either perhaps we could focus on where you are in Bogotá to do with your PhD, that would be quite interesting, or Spain. What do you think is working? What do you think needs to change? And how can we develop things?

SPEAKER_01: 14:57

This question related to what I was explaining before about children are more or less equal in every way, but the difference is the society and their educational system is different and the curriculum is different. And for example, in Colombia, there is not national curriculum. It's a bit strange. In There are a lot of educational problems, educational system, but it's difficult to talk. In Europe, there are different styles of curriculum. In Anglo-Saxon countries, usually there is not, I've seen, a national curriculum. Hey, I'm not sure. No, we have. We have. Ah, you have. For example, the German style is very, what is the northern name in English? In German way, kids, when they are 12 years old, the system decides if they have to be professional or academic or technical. But I like very much the Finnish curriculum system because Because they try to be the same curriculum for everybody until 70 years old, I think. And it's very flexible because, of course, the curriculum and educational system is a shadow of the life of the society. If a society's main objective is to create an equal, everybody have the same opportunities, the curriculum is for that. I think it's a good way. All the opportunities for everybody became the best of themselves. But why? To become the best possible country. We give them all the possibilities to be a girl or a boy, to be the best artist or scientific or doctor, it is good for the country. In Spain, a lot of people just talk, oh yeah, possibilities for everybody. We have to be equal, but it's not so real. We have done a very good work in the last decades, but we have the main problem in Spain with the curriculum is that every four or eight years, the government changed the curriculum and educational law. It depends if the right wing or left wing, that's impossible. There is not a consensus. It should be like, okay, education, This is the way. It doesn't matter if it's right or left. It's because it's a way for everybody to be a good country for everybody. And in Spain, we were like, now, right, we change the law. Now, left, we change the law. It's impossible. And in Colombia, there is other problems mainly with there are not schools or teachers in several parts of the country. And a city like Bogotá or Medellín, but I know better Bogotá, has done a very good work building schools in the last 30 years. Very excellent buildings with some problems. They are too big. But now, almost all the kids have a place in a school. Now, Bogota have to improve the quality. That's a different thing. And that's very interesting because if the school is the hardware, the teachers, the pedagogical project is the software. And sometimes the hardware is better or newer or than the software. That's why it's important in this kind of work with teachers to teach or to explain them the possibilities of this good hardware with schools designed to work doing projects, to mixing groups, mixing teachers with good workshops, spaces, In your

SPEAKER_00: 17:43

opinion, what is the impact that this work that you're doing, especially with children and young people, will have on the kids, will have on the built environment, as well as to the educators? Because we never talk about the impact on the educators, but there's actually an impact.

SPEAKER_01: 18:00

The impact of educators, teachers, on adults, on kids, it's very, very important. It's the main thing. The quality of these adult educators is essential. Because the adult, for example me, when I work with children, what I can teach, what I know. I know a few things, maybe some technical things about art, architecture. But the main thing that I teach is what I do as a person. It has no sense to do a project, to be more democratic society. Kids, you have to be good citizens. If I'm not a good citizen as teacher, I cannot teach about sustainability and green city. If I am a citizen, I don't respect that. I cannot teach to be a equal society with respect between women and men. If I don't respect women, that's the main thing. It's more important than if I'm teaching architecture as a language. That's the key. In Finland, teachers are first excellent professionals, and what they teach is the responsibility of each citizen in the country. They know they are kids who are growing up, and you have responsibilities in this country now as a kid, and in the future as an adult. It doesn't matter if you are a doctor, a lawyer, or a policeman. And that's the main thing. And also we teachers of architecture and art, it's also because just to teach architecture, it's very important to know architecture and art. What for? If you don't know what. What do you think

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

is the impact of the built environment?

SPEAKER_01: 19:24

Yes, a big impact. A big impact. If the kids learn, when they're a kid and youngsters, they learn about the importance of the city, urbanism, architecture, sustainability. Well, they have that in mind and in their heart and they will put more attention. Because to teach architecture or... environment. It's very different for maybe you do work with children. You teach some things and I teach other things. For me, architecture is a lot of art and I try to teach an art for the expression of the space. But maybe you or another excellent professional are teaching this, what it means, how to build a city, how to build a public space, how to be a sustainable city. There are different approaches and all are good. And of course, it has a big impact. Now it's very important, this vision and to work about this because the climate change will provoke big disasters in cities and it's good for this kid to learn how to think about that, how to study the problems and how to resolve them because it will be a very big problem and only together we or they will have to resolve it. Maybe in 20, 30 years we will be back to old and they will have to resolve all the problems that we have created and so the impact is

SPEAKER_00: 20:37

necessary. What you mentioned is in terms of the impact on the kid earlier, so It was quite interesting when you picked up on the Finnish example and you talked about that kids are taught to be citizens more than anything else. The respect for the environment and respecting what it is that they do, what they choose to do. I think that in itself would be a huge impact on the built environment as well. Was there a question I should have asked you that I haven't asked you? And what is that question?

SPEAKER_01: 21:05

A question that I should have asked you. You have made important questions. What means architecture? That's very important because this is an important question that everybody working with kids trying to teach architecture to children have to answer because I think, well, architecture, it's an art. And now doing my PhD, I'm looking for the main thing as an art. It's space, maybe the perspective. But for other people, maybe it's technology or it's public space or law or politics. And I think it's very important, politics, but I think it's better to teach architecture as an artistic language. But why this is architecture and this is painting? And this is a sculpture. They are different. But why? If I have clear this, I can teach something. Maybe it will be easier for the kids to understand and to develop. That's the main thing. Because sometimes people teach architecture in a general way, mixing things. Maybe they learn something in the university, but it's not clear what they are teaching. I think sometimes too many things. To be clear, what? Art, sustainability, politics, participatory processes. Can you learn architecture without a participatory process? Yes. know to build a model is to learn architecture or it's necessary to work with your colleagues and friends or neighbourhood to understand the problems old people in your neighbourhood and to try to resolve those problems with the children how they need to resolve the problems of old people is it possible to learn architecture with your citizens around you what is architecture

SPEAKER_00: 22:31

for you thank you very much thank you very much to my guests today to all the listeners and please subscribe to architecture for kids podcast and leave your rating and a review. Recommend us to your friends and family. And to find out more about it, visit our websites. And follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, CEP And please join me again next week for another episode of Architecture for Kids podcast brought to you in collaboration with the Build Environment Trust, the Thornton Education Trust and the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University.