What can a classroom be?
CUP Teaching Artist Michael Cataldi worked with students at the Academy of Urban Planning (AUP) in Brooklyn to re-imagine the classroom as a mobile, nomadic space, capable of sustaining their class activities indoors or out. On the way, they looked into the nature of temporary places, adaptive re-use, and the fundamental requirements of a learning space.
Over five days in the spring semester of 2006, the students constructed components of a classroom that could be assembled, disassembled, and re-assembled to “house” the students anywhere they wanted to go. The furniture was made entirely of salvaged materials, manipulated with basic tools, and attached with simple mechanical connections.
Rules governing the creation of the Nomadic Classroom (made to be warped, bent, or broken):
1. Nothing may be used as it was intended.
2. Everything must be collapsible and/or capable of being carried.
3. Must assemble or disassemble in 10 minutes or less.
After five days of construction, the classroom held its first round of classes, taught by AUP’s Andrew Drozd, on metaphor, simile, and the basics of being a mammal.
