Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture

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Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture

Information

  • Project Name: Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space
  • Student Name: Jovan Theophilus Amin
  • Awards: 2025 NCKU James S.C. Chuang Thesis Prize | 2025 ADA (Advanced Developer Association) Thesis Prize | 2025 3rd Prize Taipei Architects Association Thesis Prize | 2025 Honorable Mention New Taipei Architects Association Student Project Award | 2025 Shortlisted for IEAGD Exhibition
  • Softwares/Plugins: Rhinoceros 3D , D5 Render , Adobe Illustrator , Adobe Photoshop , Adobe Indesign , Microsoft PowerPoint
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Excerpt: ‘Kampung Education’ is an architecture thesis by Jovan Theophilus Amin from the ‘Department of Architecture – National Cheng Kung University.’ This project aims to redefine educational architecture by applying the adaptable, community-driven spatial logic of Jakarta’s Kampung to a contemporary campus. By fostering meta-learning, spontaneity, inclusivity, and deeper urban integration, it creates a flexible environment that evolves with its users and supports continuous, collaborative learning, preparing communities for future uncertainty.

Introduction: Education has consistently developed alongside sociopolitical and technical transformations, advancing from medieval elitism to guild-based apprenticeships, industrial institutions, and now, into the rapidly changing landscape of the information age. According to a Dell research report, “an estimated 85% of the jobs in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.” The pace of change will be so rapid that people will learn “in-the-moment” … Consequently, the ability to acquire new knowledge will be more valuable than the knowledge itself, highlighting the necessity of active meta-learning as opposed to passive knowledge acquisition. Yet, contemporary educational environments and pedagogies remain anchored in passive involvement and inflexible limits, limiting learners’ ability to adapt to the instability and complexity of modern society.

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Site Context

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Location Of The Site Relative To Jakarta Metropolitan Area

This thesis extrapolates the uncertainty of societal and technological shifts to assert the relevance of meta-learning (active learning) by implementing a vernacular spatial framework from Jakarta’s Kampung community. The Kampung—known for its diverse, resilient, and informal urban spaces—offers a living testbed for understanding how spatial configurations encourage multiple modes of learning, interaction, and collaboration. 

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Site Plan

By examining the spatial dynamics of the Kampung and its intersection with Jakarta’s formal urban environment, the research seeks to reimagine educational spaces as adaptable, interactive, and integrated with the city.

Design Process

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The symbiosis between high density development and informal kampung enclave in Jakarta is clearly depicted here, working classes are supporting the service industry for the high end neighborhood while the kampung sustain their housing needs.
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Grafting learning space unto the existing kampung fabric serves as initial studies of how the alien and the native programmatic fusion creates new possibilities in space
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The idea of understanding how the Kampung operates needs more than plan-based research, utilizing human perspective to understand spatial interface and interaction that happen inside the Kampung
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The Kampung is not only the physical space but its societal structure, build up of multiple layered neighbor system makes the area safe and active, enabling dwellers to be interconnected.

Utilizing a campus building as an empirical case study, this thesis evaluates a design methodology that reinterprets Kampung spatial attributes into an innovative architectural lexicon with prospective global applicability. The methodology encompasses a comprehensive design of the building’s spatial configurations, material properties, and circulation patterns, drawing systematic parallels with the organic, adaptable characteristics inherent in Kampung environments. 

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The diagram categorizes multiple modes in which the space inside the Kampung operates, unveiling a unique vernacular system
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Research by the Boston CCR examines 3 aspects that are essential in navigating the AI age which includes character building through experience and interaction
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The diagram unfolds the idea of grafting learning spaces unto an existing kampung environment

Through an iterative design process, a series of frameworks were developed to create dynamic, community-centric spatial assemblages that facilitate spontaneous interactions, promote multimodal learning paradigms, and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Final Outcome

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The plan exposed how the building operates, its organic alleyways and niches creates an idea of dynamic environment which allows for learners to engage and negotiate with the space itself
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Exposed concrete composes the main material of the building, the building is a canvas capable of engaging with the learners, thus becoming the “third teacher”
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The rooftop floor acts as buffer zone during daytime allowing heat to pass through, while at the evening it transform itself into a flexible and adaptable semi-outdoor space

Louis Kahn said, “School began with a man under a tree, who did not know he was a teacher, discussing his realization with a few, who did not know they were students.” This thesis in its entirety proposed an open-ended idea of creating a new typology of architecture that acts as an orchestrated piece of tree capable of knowledge and social reproduction. Exposing itself to the city, thus making learning an urban lifestyle.

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
The building juxtaposes linearity of the conventional modernist campus planning with a organic vernacular boxes that twist creating tension and interaction | The building exposes itself to the city through its porous facade, making visible the learning and experience that happen inside-out
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Axon view of 1:100 scale design model | 1:100 model on display

Conclusion: Ultimately, this thesis shows that future education requires spatial systems that support adaptability, interaction, and continual learning. By translating the informal resilience of Jakarta’s Kampung into a new architectural framework, the project proposes an educational typology that blurs the boundary between school and city. In doing so, it reimagines learning as an active, urban, and communal practice—an open-ended environment where knowledge can constantly emerge and evolve.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]

Site Context

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture

Design Process

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture

Final Outcome

Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture
Kampung Education: Active Learning through Vernacular Space | Bachelors Design Thesis on Educational Architecture

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