Classroom, Courtyard, Community reimagines the idea of community gardens––that established the revitalization of the East Village in the 1970s––as a new structure of how schools can foster education through community engagement. The school proposes to keep the existing outer corridors of old P.S. 64 and add two street front corridors to create a porous public courtyard building, making the school a central node for the neighborhood and encouraging engagement between the students and the community. The Triple C School is an advocate for allowing children to forge a sense of belonging within the education system by stripping the idea of the square classroom and creating both collective and private spaces for students to inhabit. The school aims to fuel the child’s imagination through a series of curved partitions that invite students to learn, play, rest, retreat, collaborate, and engage with their academic surroundings while also teaching students about the historical importance of the East Village through active community engagement. Maintaining the history of old P.S. 64 was important to the project, so The Triple C School proposes to repurpose the historic demolished brick as a new porous brick façade that will connect the inner life of the school with the existing community.
