It’s been more than a year since I presented my M.Arch thesis project and I thought I’d share it with you (if you're interested!). If you watch and appreciate
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (which was cancelled, go figure) like I do, then you’re likely terrified by the lack of knowledge we have about what’s in our food. My proposed Land School would incorporate growing and cultivating food into the school curriculum, as well as building and maintaining its built environment, a Minnesota farmstead.
.............................................................................
While we learn through doing, rarely are we educated through physical engagement with our learning material. What if we were? What would the school environment that fosters participatory learning be like?
.............................................................................
The Land School seeks to create an environment that celebrates active, participatory learning and proposes a child-driven curriculum in which the school’s community assists in the preservation, sustainability and craft of its built environment.
One attains dwelling only by means of building [Inorder to dwell the human has to develop a relation-ship as a builder or steward of his/her environment]...This word “bauen,” which says that man is insofar ashe dwells, this word “bauen,” however, also means atthe same time to cherish and to protect, to preserveand take care for, specifically to till the soil, to cultivate the vine. Such building only takes care, it tendsthe growth that ripens into its fruit of its own accord.(Martin Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking, pg. 325)
The site of the school is an abandoned farmstead in Whitewater Township in southeast Minnesota. On site there exists a barn, three sheds, much reusable materials such as timber boards and bricks, and immediate access to the Trout Valley Creek, bluffs populated with dense woods, and surrounding crop land.
The site and curriculum of the Land School will grow in three phases, starting with the rehabilitation and reactivation of the existing buildings on site.
During the school’s first three years, i.e. phase one of its building process, the school will operate as a summer design-build workshop. The architect will play a large role in this initial investment into the safety and adaptability of the farm structures, while too fostering a broader outlook as to the school’s future with a master site plan illustrating the Land School after the completion of all three phases. This forward looking plan will be a reflection of the negotiation between preservation, sustainability and craft; the lessons found in the study of the existing farm, its history, buildings, and their configuration, will help to shape the Land School.
![]()
Once the existing structures on site have become operational, new building will begin, allowing for the scope of the school’s curriculum to widen. In phase two, the architect is primarily serving the school’s students, providing them with informational material about how to build new, as well as guides to landscaping, energy production, etc. During phase two, while the dialogue between architect and students is its greatest, there is a definitive hand-off of design decisions and responsibilities from the architect to the students.
![]()
For rural farming communities, like Whitewater Township, during the 18th and 19th centuries, “barn raisings” were a collective effort. The barn was, and continues to be, the vital heart of the farm; used for storage of hay as well as horses and livestock, the structure was built even before the farmhouse and could be raised in a single weekend using local timber, limestone and the man power from neighboring farmers. This community of farmers aligned to ensure the success of all, through ensuring every farmer had a barn. Shared knowledge as well as accountability ensured the success of every barn raising.
![]() |
{mixed media: pencil, underlay, sewing & collage}
![]()
![]() |
Likewise, at the Land School, through building their own school structures and in the school’s final phase, growing their own produce and energy, students learn not only the lessons of geometry, biology, etc., they learn a social ethic derived from being part of a community based in shared knowledge. Because our economy is no longer agriculturally driven, the social behavior learned from living in a farming community is being taught to an increasingly smaller generation of future farmers. Yet, the social behavior learned in a barn raising community is valuable to all children, whether from rural communities or not. Thus, the embedded lessons taught at the Land School from its existing structures, led by its barn, reach farther than a classroom, for they include the lesson of how to participate and thrive in a community.
![]() |
| {learning tools} |
The third phase, years seven through ten, is devoted to landscape production. By this point, the Land School’s campus is almost complete, its structures are built. The architect is a part of a team of consultants for the school and not an active part of the daily life of the Land School.
![]() |
| {common garden} |
A greater goal of the Land School is to create a sustainable community that is able to produce its own food and condition its spaces responsibly. The Land School has a wealth of resources to draw from on-site to live sustainably: fresh water, optimal growing conditions, lumber, sun and wind. Not only could the Land School generate enough food and energy to sustain its needs, it could generate income as a market place for organic, locally grown food. Any profit made by the Land School would be credited to the collective ambitions of its student body. A profit would ensure the Land School’s continued life.
![]()
Children may enter the Land School curriculum at any point in the school’s phasing, because the lessons of being an active learner in the school community are consistent, whether a child participates in building or land production. While during the first phase the Land School needs older students to help in the adaptation of the farm structures, the Land School is a school community for children of all ages. From phase two on, the Land School will operate as a year-round, K-12 learning community. At the conclusion of its phasing plan, the Land School, ideally, is self-sustaining; the school has the space and the resources to both teach and provide for its students.
Over its first ten years, the Land School has successfully created a community in which the continued sharing of knowledge has allowed new generations of students to participate in the school community and contribute to its longevity.
![]() |
| {student commons, steel structure within barn foundation, wrapped in reclaimed barnwood screen} |
Students live at the Land School. While they may stay for varying durations of time, a month, semester or a full academic year, students are able to work on project-based tasks, big or small. Students engage directly with nature and working the land. Students, more so, help promote the Land School’s alternative curriculum.
If the Land School’s educational curriculum is accepted, the Land School may serve as an academic template for future Land Schools that may be like the Land School, in a rural, farm setting, or entirely new, in an urban framework. As a guide for teaching active learning, the Land School may lead to new schools that promote alternative learning strategies and have their own entirely new communities.
.............................................................................
The Land School’s mission is to provide a community which celebrates self-directed, incidental learning through nature to children of all ages. These children cultivate curiosity and love of knowledge from creative and stimulating intellectual, artistic and developmental experiences derived from local culture built upon craft and working the land.
.............................................................................
The Land School’s mission may serve to generate a network of new active learning school communities. When learning is allowed a new context, building-type and curriculum, attentive to the land and daily activities of children, the governing philosophies of our public and private school systems may become more tolerant of alternative education strategies.
