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Yeonsu Youth Centre
Jacques Rancière, 1987
Youth engagement enables the young to understand, claim and realise their own potential. In his book The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1987), Ranciere describes this state of being an ‘emancipation’; the ability to achieve freedom by living independently and free from the norms imposed by others. Therefore, education is fundamentally providing the optimal conditions to inspire the will to learn. Arguably, youth development is not taught through explanation, but through active participation that enables independent growth.
Our proposal for the Youth Centre is a space that encourages the young to act - through the processes of practice, performance, involvement, and discussion.
At the heart of the Youth Centre we propose a ‘stage’; an atrium space which welcomes exhibitions, performances and other informal or formal events. Adjoined to this space there are learning rooms into which people can meet and perhaps plan, prepare and exhibit that which will then spill out onto the ‘stage’. The ‘stage’ and bordering rooms together is a flexible breakout space for casual meetings,
conversations, reading and relaxing among other interactions. The space shall never be empty. The liveliness and dynamism of this atrium is a catalyst for active
participation and exchange.
Our proposal for the Youth centre is one which gifts the young with spaces into which they can learn, experiment and, most important of all, grow on their own.
