Traditional school looking to the future – Style – Kommersant
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Mount Rosenberg overlooks the historic center of St. Gallen, a city in the German part of Switzerland famous for its baroque cathedral, former Benedictine monastery and library, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
On the Rose Hill (as translated from German Rosenberg), among greenery and Art Nouveau villas, there is a private boarding school Institut auf dem Rosenberg – one of the oldest and most expensive in Switzerland. 13 villas, together with modern buildings, serve as residential and educational buildings, in which today 230 children of 50 different nationalities from 6 to 18 years old are educated. There are no more than eight students in each class, and the ratio of teachers to students is 1: 2 – the school believes that this can provide a truly individual approach.
Students are not limited to one common program or even education system. When drawing up a study plan, both the personal abilities and interests of the student are taken into account, as well as where he subsequently plans to receive higher education and what certificate he will need for admission: an American high school diploma, British A-Levels, an IB international baccalaureate or its German equivalent GIB. To bring all curricula into a common schedule, the school administration has to resort to the help of artificial intelligence. Many school courses go beyond standard academic programs – you can choose, for example, “Diplomacy and Leadership”, “Creative Technologies and Robotics”, “Sustainable Design” or “Wealth Management”.
The family-run Institut auf dem Rosenberg is celebrating 133 years since its founding this year. The head of the school, Bernhard Gademann, the fourth generation of the family of owners and a former graduate of the school, is not looking to the past, as one might assume, but to the future.
Already at the entrance to the campus, you can see the “wind trees”, which are more reminiscent of art objects than a source of energy for charging Audi e-tron school electric cars. In the neighborhood are two glass hemispheres – “climatic gardens” Climate Gardens, the result of collaboration with the ETH Zurich ETH Zurich: here students study the development of plants in the face of global warming. The yellow Spot robotic dog from Boston Dynamics walks along the green lawns – it, like the ABB robot in the technical laboratory, is programmed by the students themselves.
“Wind Trees” and “Climatic Gardens” are part of the school’s “Park of the Future”. This summer, another futuristic facility appeared in the park – Rosenberg Space Habitat, an experimental “space habitat” where students can do hands-on research. “We want our students to be able to meet the future today,” says Bernhard Gademann. “Our goal is to introduce them to the topic of space exploration as early as possible and inspire them to jointly search for answers to complex global questions.”
The project, developed with the participation of school students, was implemented by the Copenhagen architectural bureau SAGA Space Architects. Its co-founder Sebastian Aristotelis Frederiksen is an idealist who also looks to the future and is already designing habitats for lunar and Martian missions. Last year, together with bureau partner Carl Johan Sorensen, he spent 100 days in Greenland in a prototype “lunar” habitation capsule to assess the possibility of autonomous existence in conditions close to extreme.
The seven-meter Rosenberg Space Habitat has become the tallest 3D-printed polymer structure. At the same time, the dimensions of the structure are designed so that it fits into the SpaceX Starship rocket. A team of two people can live and work in a three-story space house. The lower level is reserved for hygiene and laboratory research, drones and the Spot robotic dog are immediately placed. The second floor is for work, the third, similar to sleeping capsules, is for relaxation. Natural materials that are pleasant to touch (cork and felt coverings) are used for interior decoration, while ergonomic furniture is made by Vitra.
“Rosenberg Space Habitat is the most modern of analog space habitats,” says architect Sebastian Aristotelis. “This is a great example of how working with space expands the possibilities of technology and design here on Earth.”
In the capsule, students can work with hardware, software, remote flight control and sensory stimulation systems, including light, sound and smell, as well as participate in projects that develop systems thinking and study the behavior of artificial intelligence. However, the first thing students ask is: is it possible to spend the night in Space Habitat? Bernhard Gademann says that they will indeed have such an opportunity – and the list of applicants is only growing.
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