Devices for Abstraction: a legacy in motion!

Compiled by Team IAnD

Photography: Courtesy U67

Read Time: 2 mins

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Encouraging anti-authoritarian teaching, while looking at the broader perspective in-the-eye, the residential high school, Krabbesholm in Skive, Denmark, implements a wholesome learning methodology to get to the core of human existence…

With two-centuries-plus legacy in the art of holistic education, Krabbesholm højskole (translated High School), occupies a special niche between a high school and university, teaching subjects associated with art, architecture and design.

 

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The spirit of experimentation animates Krabbesholm’s interest in collaborating with artists, architects and designers from both Denmark and abroad, where new ideas often develop in concert with visiting artists and result in projects of great significance.

One such recent (May-June 2016) experiment that the students engaged in is intended to develop continuity with the unknown; so to say, creating something meaningful that would maintain harmony with the existing.

 

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To this effect, six teams were selected - 4 for building construction; 1 to draw up the master plan; and the last for the set-up of an exhibition. One week of conceptualization led them to embark on a journey to convey a fragment of a mathematical logic. Combining 4 plywood sheets of 10 sq. m .each with 4.5 x 12 x 240 cm structural elements, the aim was to cover, to filter, to floor and to overstep; thereby investigating the basic elements of the building as a primary approach to a future development of the Krabbesholm area.

 

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Each team developed a project in accordance with a more general master-plan, which used the grid as an abstract tool to interfere and trigger new unexpected relationships among the pre-existing elements of the campus.

 

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These fragmented devices of abstraction will serve as points of departures for the next semester students, who will inherit and use them for future plans. The workshop was organised by design thinkers and academicians, Fabio Gigone and Angela Gigliotti of U67 with the able assistance of teaching staff, Francesco Rambelli.

 

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Krabbesholm højskole as a social experiment in which social interaction is crucial to its students’ education says a lot for the current void in the narrow structures of the established educational system. This progressive approach underlines a practice, where subjects are never taught for their own sake, and the strictly professional is not viewed as ‘interesting’ in itself. Instead, the topics taught are wider in scope and take as their point of departure the individual and the fundamental issues of human existence.