The proposal, Schools in the Sky, by Filipe Magalhaes, Ana Luisa Soares, and André Vergueiro for the ‘Rooftops, Why Not?’ competition asks the question, ‘What if suddenly the education would become the highest, most visible value of a society?’ The American education system is sustained by the private sector. As a result, many colleges and schools have become, over time, ghettos for rich people, leaving a huge part of the students out of options. Assuming the will to fix, or at least to discuss, a biased system, it is proposed to offer public schools in places that are usually closed to society. More images and architects’ description after the break.
For this competition, New York was chosen as a study case for an experiment. Known as USA’s ‘educational capital’, it seemed pertinent the provocation:What if one day all the skyscrapers would have a school on the top?’ making the school system the most visible aspect of the city.
Using the yellow color from the school buses and new yorker cabs, and choosing very simple and abstract volumes pierced occasionally by simple geometries, the boxes would work as a game for children. Visually and politically, the school would be the highest value.