Paper

KSU Mini Pavilion: A Constructed Ecology and A Didactic Tool for Learning

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Abstract

The KSU Mini Pavilion Project consists of an inter-disciplinary team that includes faculty from computer engineering, construction management and architecture as well as administrators from the county’s school system (see acknowledgements) with a focus on STEM and its intersection with elementary school education. The project began in 2019 with a vision to construct an exhibition space that would demonstrate to elementary students the connection between safety and sustainability at the Cobb County Safety Village (CCSV) in Marietta, GA. The CCSV is an eight-acre campus the replicates a reduced size village that teaches students of the county subjects like fire safety and crime prevention. In recent years, local businesses and institutions have constructed mini versions of themselves to represent their contribution to the community. Our mini pavilion will represent Kennesaw State University, the largest university in the county and the third largest post-secondary institution in Georgia. The philosophy of the Mini Pavilion project echoes the thoughts of the Tokyo-based architect, Kengo Kuma and his notion that architecture of the 21st century must be less monumental and more environmental. Kuma suggests in his writings and work that buildings echo the local geography and ecologies and merge with the environments, so they become less formalistic, and more performance driven. Performance that is not only technological but also a kind of visual performance that contributes to the cultural identity of a place. It is hope that the project is a built realization of this philosophy and that it engages the imaginations of both young and old for vision of future that is not only safe and sustainable but regenerative in the Age of Man in the Epoch of the Anthropocene.

Keywords: Sustainability, Safety, Community, Constructed Ecologies

How to Cite:

Carroll, M. & Kihei, B., (2023) “KSU Mini Pavilion: A Constructed Ecology and A Didactic Tool for Learning”, Building Technology Educators’ Society 2023(1), 292-300. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/btes.1966