CENTRO EDUCATIVO PEDREGAL
The Centro Educativo Pedregal is a proposal for the design of a repeatable permanent infrastructure, aesthetic and functional that serves the demand of the Panamanian student population.
In Panama between 1970s and 2009, educational infrastructures of the public sector were ignored. This resulted in a lack of educational centers for the growing population and for 80% of existing educational centers to be in a deplorable condition. New educational centers being built are based on an obsolete design with rigid spaces where the student is a passive entity being taught with a lecture based method and the teacher is the only bearer of knowledge.
The trends of the XXI Century call for multipurpose and flexible spaces where different types of activities can take place. The student is an active entity in their education and bearer of knowledge.
This means a student can learn from their classmates, the teachers and by themselves. Classrooms are open spaces that can be expanded according to the current need, they are permeable and become a display of knowledge where students learn about everything that happens within the educational center.
The lack of educational centers in the community were a student lives forces them to commute long distances, this an insurmountable obstacle that most of the time results in the student dropping out of school. In Pedregal, a growing sector in Panama, there are no high schools or complete educational centers that encompass preschool to high school. It is then decided to implant in Pedregal what will be a model educational center repeatable around the country that eliminates the gap among educational centers of the private and public sector applying trends of the XXI Century in an establishment that encompasses education preschool to high school.
