Architectural education covers a broad range of topics related to the built environment. In contrast, primary school subjects are generally taught as separate entities. When themes related to the built environment are integrated into primary school education through a partnership between an architect or landscape architect and a class teacher, it is possible to discover successful models for future projects.

The Curious Classes of Taivis teaching pilot was part of a larger national flagship project supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The focus of the pilot was on integrating artistic content into teaching through collaborative teaching between a class teacher and an arts educator. This pilot was implemented through a collaboration between Arkki and Taivallahti Primary School from 2018 to 2021, with architecture serving as the unifying theme in education. This project report presents the experiences from this extensive teaching experiment.

The first section of the publication explores the intersections between architectural education and primary school teaching, aiming to highlight the diverse perspectives on interdisciplinary learning that the built environment has to offer. The second section compiles the contents of the Curious Classes of Taivis teaching pilot into a workbook, with annual summaries and task pages organized into teaching modules. The goals, methods, materials, and procedures for each task are described in a practical manner, making the task pages readily usable for teachers and educators. The third and final section presents reflections on the activities using observational and interview data generated during the teaching experiment, integrating experiences into an analysis of the pilot and providing guidelines for the artistic and functional working methods used in the pilot.

Additional information about the project can be found in the Participation and Development Projects section. You can download the material in PDF format (in Finnish) at the end of this article.

The project’s implementation and reporting have been supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.