4.4 INTERVIEW DATA
4.4.4 Spatial Needs of Adults
128 | P a g e Figure 4.102 - (Author, 2021)
129 | P a g e Figure 4.103 - Articulated classroom cluster (Nair et al., 2009; pg 35)
Celumusa* notes specific considerations for adult learning environments:
Kube nogesi yabo. Kube nezitebhisi ezingabi zinde kakhulu. Ama-toilet abe eseduze.
‘There must be lighting. Steps must not be too high. Toilets must be close-by.’
He continues to note:
In terms of the learners with special needs, it's like, I think the government should put more money or more specific time for those who are slow learners in writing, or they can, or they can't see properly and the blackboard you see. Even the time should be more or should be now given to teachers or employ more teachers in order to have that process to to fast or to fast track that process.
This suggests well-lit environments, especially for the elderly with visual challenges. Universal access principles must be incorporated into the design and allow students to easily navigate within the building. Toilets blocks are inappropriate. Toilets can be shared by a pair or clusters of classrooms, allowing for greater accessibility and monitoring. Classrooms are to be articulated to enable students to engage in varied tasks in the same environment without disturbing each other, which allows slower students to engage in the learning process without being distracted by their quicker counterparts.
130 | P a g e Adult learners need comfortable furniture appropriate for their size. Students seem unperturbed by the scale and quality of the child-sized furniture of their host schools. Nandi*
provides insight to this phenomenon:
I-furniture-ke ikhona kodwa futhi ekubeni khona kwayo ayigculisi. Umuntu omdala phela nawe uyamazi. Akathandi ukuhlala esihlalweni esiqinile. Ufuna uthole izihlalo ezi-comfortable. Netafula ngeke umfake kuleli elikanje ufuna lawa akanje.
Kanti i-most yamakilasi amanye uthola ukuthi kunalama desk enihlala nga-2 kuwona. So kubuye kuthande ukuba nzima-ke. Kodwa ngenxa yokuthi basuke bephokophele phambili abayinaka-naki izinto ezikanjalo kodwa ukubone as uthisha ukuthi, kukhona izingqinaba la ezibakhonyana - kukuthi abaphimiseli.
‘There is furniture [in the classroom], however, it is unsatisfactory. You also know how an elderly person is [like]. They do not like sitting on hard seating. They want you to avail comfortable seating. With regards to tables as well, you can not seat them at these [desks], they want these [tables]. However, in most of the other classroom you find there are desks where seating occurs in pairs. So, it can be quite challenging. However, due to their determination to persevere, they don’t dwell on those things, but as an educator I often see that there are difficulties that exist – it is just that they don’t voice them.
Bongani* and Nathi* agree with Nandi* that the furniture must suit the students, not only those who are abled but also who are disabled.
All participants advocated for vocational skills to be made available at the centres. However, since the CET College lacks adequate infrastructure and resources, such aspirations have not been realised at Centres A and B. Mncube affirms this specialised space.
We need workshops. Yeah, equipped workshops. That's the space that's currently doesn't exist. It's just a classroom. But a classroom isn't enough for skills training.
Yeah. So, a workshop should be equipped for a program. If it's an electrical workshop, it must have all the electrical tools that I need in order to be able to leave the centre and go and wire a house.
131 | P a g e There are students, staff and architects who feel that learning environments of children and adults should not differ. The literature in chapter three indicates that adults and children are affected by the same stimuli, however, at varying degrees. Certain stimuli have far greater effects on children. This suggests there will be common spatial programmes, seating configurations, and opportunities for interactive learning as per the responses in the interviews, but their articulation must represent and identify with the adults of that particular community.
4.4.4.1 Participatory Planning
Architects and centre managers agree on the importance of participatory planning and community involvement in general. Van Heerden affirms the claims of the literature in chapter three which cites the benefits utilizing this process to uncover appropriate solutions for distinct community characteristics, as opposed to imposing foreign ideals:
And it's amazing what, what comes out when you actually ask with your local community. So, a lot of these things are unique from one community to the next, you know.
Nathi* also affirms the benefits of appropriate CET centres. He alludes that responsive centres lead to a sense of ownership:
The community, the centre is for the community. It belongs to the community. So, it's very, you know, if people-, the-, in order to support that particular Centre, the centre needs to try to offer the things that is quite relevant, things that are going to change their lives. Things that are irrelevant [Sic] to the community, things that will change their lives for the better. So, at the moment, it's very important. The centre is very important. As long as, if the centre is relevant to the community, I think the community will play a bigger role. Not in sustaining, in protecting, in sustaining, in developing, making sure that the centre is well up to standard. So, the centre, the centre without a community is not existent. So, we need the community.
132 | P a g e Van Heerden echoes the words of Nathi*, emphasises the role of the architect’s design and design process has to play when designing community projects.
We have to actually make people feel a sense of ownership of buildings, you know.
And then, and that, and that's been our experience once we started to kind of invite people to become owners.
Such a process will build on the uncovered general spatial needs of adult learners of CET colleges in townships, to ensure increased alignment to aims of responsive learning environments.