BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

Part One
CO-ORDINATION IN SINGLE PROJECTS
SUMMARY
20. Part One deals with two opposite solutions for the co-ordination of
school and community facilities: the large purpose-built educational and
community centers of unprecedented size, a widely sought after solution of
the 60's; and the use of existing vacant school spaces to accommodate
social services in a more modest way - this has become the widely accepted
solution of the 70's. Both aim at upgrading the social and physical
environment through better use of personnel and institutional resources,
and the elimination of duplicated services. In addition, both aim at a
more adequate distribution of available resources through the integration
of different socio-economic groups, different races (one of the main
problems of the 60's), and the handicapped, senior citizens, or otherwise
disadvantaged individuals (one of the main problems of the 70's). The shift
from providing new facilities to re-using existing ones has three major
reasons: <
i) the decline of economic resources for .all social services;
ii) the dramatic decline of student enrolments since the early
70«s;
iii) a distinct trend away from large organisational units toward
more decentralised and small scale solutions.
21. Although the time in which large purpose-built community/schools
could be planned and implemented seems to be over,the influence of the
early community/school types on today's developments are marked. They
not only provide models, training grounds, and research opportunities;
their initiators, with few exceptions, have assumed greater responsibilities
in the decision-making hierarchies and are spreading the gospel based
on early experiences - successes and failures. The large purpose-built
community/schools, were built upon the following assumptions.
The first is that the physical integration of educational and other
social services will enhance communication and co-operation among
usually separated functions. This, as was found in the course of
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