Axel, Grade 7, is the first student to join an internship at IBUKU. He found a passion for Architecture in a Jalan Jalan class “Intro to Architecture” offered to middle schoolers. The course has run for 3 years now, and has largely been based on CAD and sketching. Our first cohort had a student, Joshua Ahman, who (following the class) helped his dad create a home using his new found skills. Now that he is in High School, he still hopes to join our next iteration of the Architecture Jalan Jalan. Axel proved to be a quick learner, and over the 6 week class increasingly focused on more organic shapes. It was an easy transition for him to join IBUKU as their first Green School intern.
Green School courses has also been cross pollinated in this process. The Intro to Architecture class this year will take into account both bamboo modelling and CAD, giving students a starting point for both of these skills. We have also started to extend design principles into Green Studies, and we are running a course called “Green Building and Design” wherein student will familiarize themselves with different organic building materials (Adobe, Earthbags, Bamboo, Rammed Earth). Part of our mission is to build a building kit which we can share with the Primary and Kul Kul students, to spread design thinking further still.
In the future, IBUKU plans to host a couple more Green School students as interns alongside Axel. With this, we will no doubt learn new real world skills and be able to continuously apply these in the educational environmental of Green School, while IBUKU may also learn from our talented young minds.
Written by Pak Noan, Middle School