The main idea behind this project came from the different experiences the students had in their education system. The common point for all them was the discontentment and sometimes even disappointment, stress and anxiety felt from the studying environments.

​

Our work started here. After listening to this “bitter realities”, we came up with the idea for taking action. The process wasn’t easy because we needed a plan that would be implementable in different places.

At the beginning of the workshop we have written down all of the words that we associate with the perfect “school” system. We also tried not to use words like “school”, “students”, “professors” or “classes”, instead we use “platform”, “participants”, “experts”, “sessions” when creating a new approach to education.

 

The idea of a Backyard came. A territory connected to the back of an institution, providing meaningful interactions between interested participants, sparking skill and knowledge sharing, and sparking new valuable experiences. Backyard is a frame for further development, and exchange of ideas, skills and experiences. Something that would be accessible to anyone, and anyone could participate in it, in an impactful and valuable way.

 

Engaging multi-generational, multidisciplinary participants, can bring together old and new knowledge, be it amateur or academic, professional or personal, focusing on the process as much as on the outcomes.

 

The Backyard Platform connects interested individuals of any field. After they make a “participant profile”, they can explore the conver-sessions, a list of theoretical talks concentrated around a certain topic. They can explore acti-sessions, a list of practical workshops, that produce a physical thing, or a physical experience. They can also give impressions of other participants, or browse the archive of former conver-sessions and acti-sessions.

 

Thus, the best coming idea was the one of the shared experiences. Instead of changing our institutions or system, we thought of a different approach, plug in or independent way of learning.

By our plug in system we propose a platform which will allow students to listen the society, work on society’s problems, and form a multi-disciplinary community which will make the process more than architectural education. With conver-sessions and acti-sessions our platform will lead the participants to become effective individuals.