The black box of the daily routine and the writing of the history of architecture and school urban planning: POE reports as sources of interpretation

Abstract

This study emerges as a reflection on the writing of the history of architecture and school urban planning to identify a historiographical gap in the absence of approaches that consider the forms of use and occupation of space as a category of interpretation. Identified in daily school practices, these forms characterize school equipment as a place produced and lived collectively over time. They are responsible for a silent spatial production, with an educational dimension as impactful on schooling as the architecture and urban planning project. In order to weave this argument, the idea of ​​a black box of the daily routine was mobilized, taking into consideration the notes on child behavior present in the reports of the post-occupancy evaluation (POE) carried out in schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The reading demonstrates that, based on these reports, it is possible to instigate the history of architecture and school urban planning to navigate through other interpretative layers beyond those centered on agents, policies, institutions and their products. Despite the unquestionable urgency for infrastructures suitable for schooling, pedagogical practices combined with children's acumen produce environments that inform about the creative capacity contained in teaching work and in childhood cultures. Results provide a platform for problematizing the impact of the forms of use and occupation of common school equipment on children's education, as well as the design of public policies focused on its maintenance.