Creativity + Education + Health = Well Being?

Ken Robinson's "Do Schools Kill Creativity" talk (posted yesterday) has had me thinking a lot about the notion of well being and the role creativeness plays in that. My thoughts for my final project have been lingering around the loose term of 'community well being' but it needs to have a very clear focus and programme which approaches the subject from a different perspective.

When I think about well being I immediately split this into two categories, mental and physical; my building should aim to address both. Physical well being can easily be defined as good physical health; participation in sport and healthy eating are a big part of this and are, currently, very popular topics. So the obvious conclusion here is to provide a place which deals with these issues; however it is not enough to include mearly a kitchen and a sports hall and this isn't just about children.

Like many [or most?] students, I left home at 18 with few skills in the way of household tasks, my terrible cooking being a source of fun for my housemates (although I promised I'm much better now), as I all I was ever taught to cook at school was cakes and pizzas. This building could provide a place for people, children and adults alike, to learn not only basic cooking skills but also how to shop for food; if the knowledge was there could people prepare their food fresh and save money? What about not only teaching them that not all food comes from a supermarket? Providing local food stalls would be a great addition but even better would be a vegetable garden, an orchard, a chicken run or a field of cows!

Sport is somewhat of a disappearing activity in the life of many people; video games and TV dominate leisure time. As a child growing up in the area around Kelvin Hall School in north west Hull, which is likely to be the site of this community intervention, we played football and games constantly, that's not to say we didn't play video games and watch TV as we certainly did. However, it was limited. The fields were open and our parents were not scared to let us play on them. Yes, the odd time we got in trouble with the school caretaker but he would let us play there as long as we liked so long as we caused no trouble, my initial thoughts are that this is becoming less common. Providing a safe, monitored and exciting facility for sport is important, the school has the capacity, unleashing that onto the community is the challenge.

So, coming on to mental well being, this again can be broken into many more topics than I could ever cover or understand so I'll focus on those I can.

Education is the most important aspect of this whole proposal, a building that plugs into a school has to provide an environment for learning, what this learning is is what is open to debate. Firstly, relating back to the previous idea about teaching people about food, I feel it important to educate people with what I want to call 'survival skills', that is the skills necessary to form a enjoyable existence. By teaching people basic economics you can provide a platform for them to survive an economic crisis, such as that we currently see, but also teach them how they could take responsibility for their situation rather than pointing the finger.

Ken Robinson suggests that there is a hierarchy of subjects (Maths & Literature, then Humanities and finally the Arts) which is detrimental to the education and creativity of children. I wholeheartedly agree that creativity is something that should be encouraged and if this means channelling a child's education through art rather than maths (as a crude example) than why is that of any less merit? I don't believe it is and this is something I wish to address.

Education is what draws this whole proposal together, be that educating children or adults, in art, maths or cooking, all is important. If I can begin to knit some of these thoughts into a coherent brief/strategy then maybe I can create an Architecture of Well Being.