Feature Favourites

Towards Enlightenment

Authors: Bhavini Pandya

As school logos go, Wesley Primary School’s is definitely one of a kind. It’s inspired by the school’s location, ethos and culture. The school in Mount Roskill, a suburban area in Auckland, New Zealand, sits between two maunga (mountains): Owairaka and Puketapapa.

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The Use Of Colour In Learning Spaces

Authors: Noémie Park

Ripping up the floor tiles with my bare hands wasn’t what I had in mind when I was asked to set up an early learning space at an international school in Germany. But as soon as I had stepped into the classroom, I felt queasy. The acrylic floor tiles were what I’d describe as acid sunset orange, and both physiologically and psychologically, the colour deeply disturbed me.

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Designing Inclusive Spaces Beyond The Classroom

Authors: Peter Lippman & Reiko Shimokura

For children with special educational needs, it’s clear that inclusive classrooms are an absolute must. But as well as these, we believe schools should also have complementary inclusive settings. Some may call these breakout spaces, but we use the term complementary settings because this then includes other types of learning activities not possible, or difficult to undertake, in a classroom.

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Powering Up Learning And Life Experiences

Authors: Kate Parker

Ask anyone who meets him, and they’ll tell you: Dan is an incredible gamer. FIFA is his passion, and he’s a serious contender at the national student competitions. But unlike other competitors, Dan’s ability to play and participate is reliant on factors beyond his dedication and skill.

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Learning And Empowering Differently

Authors: Ali Durban

Gesher is an all-through school for children and young people who are differently able and who learn differently. Our ambition is to transform how children and young people are educated in the UK by offering an allthrough learning community that functions differently – from its relationships, pedagogy, and canvas for learning to its engagement with the community and partnerships with parents. At Gesher, there are clear, accessible progression pathways which enable children to leave school as young adults with their self-esteem enhanced and with skills and qualifications equipping them not only to get jobs and lead independent, meaningful, and active lives but also to contribute their gifts to the world.

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Starting From Scratch

Authors: Irena Barker

If you have no experience of them, it might be easy to believe the stereotype that special schools are isolated places, hidden away from mainstream society.When you think of their interiors, maybe you think of medical equipment, wipe-clean surfaces and hoists, things more reminiscent of a hospital or care setting.

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Wood Is Way

Authors: Viktoria Petrovskaya

The funding for SVK was allocated in 2015 and the project required the demolition of the old building, erected in 1955, and construction of a new one. AFKS Architects (afks.fi) was awarded the contract to build the 6,400-square-metre (68,889-square-foot) school, which has 85 staff and 700 students, many learning in Finnish and Russian.

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Research: All About Spaces For Playful Learning

Authors: Dr Fiona Young

Play is a critical part of children’s learning and space is recognised as an enabler for these playful learning experiences. However, as students progress in their development, the perceived relationship between play and learning and the spaces that support these complementary activities can become tenuous.

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Home Away From Home In New York City

Authors: Bridgitte Alomes

It all starts with the founder, and in this case it is Eva Ruiz, who was the inspiration and creator behind Mi Casita, a bilingual pre-school and cultural centre in Brooklyn, New York City (NYC). Ruiz left her position as the Director of Community Affairs at the NYC Department of Education in 2010 to follow her vision of creating an early learning space that she would be proud to have her own daughter attend.

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Realising The Esteem Dream

Authors: Meg Fargher

After heading up St Mary’s School for girls in Johannesburg for the first decade of the twenty-first century, I found myself leading Somerset College in the Cape winelands. Both are excellent private schools thatcater to the economically privileged.

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Setting Up For Success

Authors: Dr Robert Dillon

In education, it would be great if every instructional decision that we made had a direct and clear impact on the academic achievement of students, but it is rare that we can isolate a variable, especially individual decisions of teachers, and its effect on test scores. The realm of classroom and school design is no different. Design is an intentional act of hundreds, if not thousands, of micro decisions based on research and best practice that happen in real time each day. This can make it easy for educational pundits to question why we should be spending money on where students learn, but the reality is that a proper environment can create the conditions needed for excellence, and it is our role to explain this reality in six, clear, powerful ways that resonate with our families and communities. These six ways of intentionally designing learning environments will set students up for success.

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A Sense Of (Re)Purpose

Authors: Michál Cohen

At my practice, Walters & Cohen Architects, we have been designing and transforming schools for over two decades. Even when we started the practice I was keen to embed sustainability into our designs. Now, as the importance of reducing carbon emissions grows, our first consideration should always be to repurpose existing buildings before considering building new.

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All Hail, The Milan Manifesto

Authors: Dr Mariagrazia Francesca Marcarini

It all started in Milan with ‘The Memorandum’. We are all familiar with the debate around innovative school learning spaces and that the great majority of schools are still created around traditional design and use. However, research has shown that there is a link between teaching effectiveness and the physical and organisational structures within which educational activity takes place. But what to do about it?

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Womb With A View

Authors: Alessandro Zecchin

Children learn more effectively if their path towards discovery is led by curiosity and experience. The creation of the Iride nursery school in Guastalla, in the province of Reggio Emilia, was guided by this simple concept.

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A Refit Worthy Of A Master

Authors: Herman Hertzberger

Last year it was time to refurbish the famous de Vogels public school in Oegstgeest, near Leiden in the Netherlands. But de Vogels is not any old school building. Its beautiful architecture was created in 1998 by Herman Hertzberger, the legendary Dutch architect.

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A Taste For Learning: Why Growing Food At School Brings The Outside In

Authors: Edd Moore

When designing primary schools, it is accepted best practice that there needs to be easy access to external learning environments. Even in schools with more than one storey, the design of learning platforms and roof terraces are becoming accepted features of contemporary school design.

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Don’t Stay In Your Lane

Authors: Andrew Smyth

“On the Tuesday I could be researching a future aircraft for Rolls Royce and on Wednesday I could be trying to crack the perfect recipe for baked Alaska, it’s a fun juggle,” says a smiling Andrew Smyth as he describes his typical working week. The 31-year-old works four days a week at the sharp end of aircraft design, and keeps one day aside to promote “Bakineering”, his imaginative fusion of baking and engineering that first emerged when he was a contestant on 2016’s Great British Bake Off.

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Designing a Space to Empower Learners to Engage their Aspirations

Authors: Thom Conaty

Gesher School, situated in northwest London, is an Ofsted “Outstanding” primary school currently expanding into an all-through school for learners from four to 16 years of age. The school caters for students with a range of mild to moderate special educational needs (SEN), including autism, ADHD, dyslexia and Down’s Syndrome.

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Ubiquity, Variety And Creativity

Authors: Prakash Nair & Louis Serota

It was not so long ago when art instruction in schools was considered less important than the “real” purpose of education: to help students master subjects like science and mathematics. This trend is being rapidly reversed as the evidence mounts regarding the value of the arts in the school curriculum for learners up to the age of 18. Sufficient data exists to overwhelmingly support the belief that study and participation in the fine arts is a key component in improving learning throughout all academic areas. Evidence of its effectiveness in reducing student dropout, raising student attendance, developing better team players, fostering a love for learning, improving greater student dignity, enhancing student creativity and producing a citizen more prepared for the workplace of tomorrow has been documented in studies held in many varied settings, from school campuses to corporate America.

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Too Special To Measure

Authors: Murray Hudson

In 2016, architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios won a RIBA South West Award for its arresting new building designed to house the Plymouth School of Creative Arts (PSCA), a four–16 mainstream, city centre, all-through school sponsored by Plymouth College of Art, in the southwest of England. This was a school designed to put creativity at the heart of all subjects; where learning by making would apply as much to English and maths as it did to art and cookery. The ethos of the school rejected the idea of art and creativity as “boundaried” subjects, instead seeing their application as the key to unlocking the entire curriculum. For example, before studying Macbeth in English, the pupils explored the landscape and weather of the moors by producing a vast mural. Drawing was seen as a process of learning in the same way that writing can be; as a way of recording, enquiring and illustrating.

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The Cultivation Of Confidence And Enjoyment

Authors: Eric Underwood

When Eric Underwood was a child, he literally “stumbled” into ballet. He had just fluffed an acting audition at the local performing arts school in Washington, DC, and noticed some girls doing ballet through a doorway. Underwood walked in and asked the teacher to let him have a go. “I felt like I could be great at this, and that I could change my family’s destiny if I got it right,” he told The Guardian in 2016.

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A School With Learning At Its Heart

Authors: Michàl Cohen

North London Collegiate School (NLCS) is a highachieving academic all-through school in North London. In 2017 NLCS asked us to help with their junior school accommodation, specifically their ICT and music facilities, which were undersized. The school is located in a conservation area on Metropolitan Open Land and with listed buildings, so the extent to which we could build in open space on the site was very limited.

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Ringing The End To “Cells-And-Bells” School Design

Authors: Nathan Strenge

Imagine a space where you feel a deep sense of comfort. Take a moment and create your own mental picture of that environment. How would you describe the space you’re imagining? Are you indoors or outdoors? What sounds do you hear? What kind of lighting enhances the comfortable feel? Are there places to sit or lie that add to your level of comfort? Does the environment allow you to move freely about the space?

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The Benefits Of Dynamic Sitting For Children In Schools

Authors: Levent Çaglar

Back pain among schoolchildren is on the rise. About 12 per cent of 12-year-olds and 22 per cent of 16-year-olds experience recurrent back pain, and 15 per cent of 12–16-year-olds seek medical care for this. Causes of this back pain include using ill-fitting, inappropriate furniture during the 15,000 hours they spend sitting at school when their body is growing. Another factor is carrying heavy loads of books and equipment when appropriate storage is not made available.

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The Thinking Behind Space

Authors: Alex More

Imagine a time-travelling child from 1870s’ Shaftesbury, England. If they were transported to 2021, they wouldn’t recognise our transport, our technology, our fashion and many aspects of our world. But when they arrived in school they would instantly recognise the classroom with its rows of desks, chairs and the teacher stood at the front imparting knowledge.

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Looking Beyond The Mountains

Authors: Irena Barker

The theme for the 2021 A4LE LearningSCAPES Conference in Denver is “Disruptive Optimism”, a term synonymous with futurism. At Fielding International we look at futurism through a lens of gentle disruption, with an eye for the future of all humans and how they interact with their environment and with each other. Futurists have always looked “beyond the mountains” to new ideas imagining the world as it could be. However, to create an ideal future, you have to somehow disrupt the status quo by questioning what is working and what needs to evolve. A child currently in the first years of learning will not be entering the independent world until the early 2040s. What will that world be like? What can we do now to evolve? How might we prepare the incoming generation so they will be successful and happy in the future to come? Our children and grandchildren will build the economy of the future. This is our human calculus.

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The Shape Of Things To Come

Authors: Hugh Gatenby

A new type of learning Fifteen and a half million students in the UK were affected by school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, UNESCO reports. From their homes, students relied on remote learning technology to link them to their schools, where their teachers were broadcasting lessons from otherwise empty classrooms. It was an unprecedented experiment into the viability of remote learning, and one that teachers and students were forced into without any time to prepare, and with inadequate resources – particularly the prerequisite laptops or tablets. In spite of these obstacles, Ofsted’s research into remote learning found that the majority of teachers expressed some confidence that they were delivering a high-quality education.

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Mad World

Authors: Ma Yansong

In 2017 MAD Architects was commissioned to design a kindergarten next to a senior citizens’ apartment block in Beijing, reflecting the client’s “intergenerational integration” ethos that blends pre-school education and eldercare. The subject site, covering an area of 9,275 square metres, insisted of an original eighteenth century Siheyuan courtyard, an adjacent replica courtyard built in the 1990s and a four-storey modern building. Following its completion at the end of 2019, the kindergarten now serves as a pre-school education space for 390 children aged from 18 months to six years old.

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Designing Feel-Better Educational Environments

Authors: Dianna Fletcher

We’re all growing more aware of just how common mental illness is, and many will already be familiar with the statistic that one in four of us will suffer from it during our lives. What might come as more of a surprise is how early these issues can start.

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Just What Dr. Drea And Jimmy Iovine Ordered: Inside The LA Academy That Beats Billions Built

Authors: Irena Barker

“There wasn’t as much making as I thought there would be…that is, physically tinkering with things,” says Trent Jones of the engineering degree he started but abandoned. “It definitely revealed maybe this isn’t quite the path I wanted.” Fortunately, the young innovator and maker wasn’t in the wilderness for long.

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Aspiring To Be The Magic Kingdom

Authors: Richard Gerver

I remember the day I was appointed headteacher of Grange Primary School, a large, struggling primary school in Long Eaton, UK. The 500-place school had been under a cloud for the best part of a decade; poor results, high staff absence and low-level behaviour issues were the norm.

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A Movement Rooted In Nature

Authors: Fiona McCarthy

Leading Dutch-born, Denmark-based designer and dynamic public speaker, Rosan Bosch wants us to move more. “The actual movement of our body defines our thoughts, meaning that if you want to change your thought pattern, you actually have to change the way you move,” she asserts. She also wants us to reconnect with nature: “Our relationship with nature is in our DNA – we instinctively feel comfortable within the landscape.”

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A Community Where Happiness Can Be Cultivated

Authors: Danish Kurani

The inspirations were a documentary, The Economics of Happiness, about how villages foster strong relationships, and a Harvard University study, which found that strong relationships lead to happiness. Armed with these insights, Kurani created a school where happiness is a top priority.

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Changing Lives Through Good School Design

Authors: Irena Barker

At around the ages of seven and eight, Danish Kurani often found himself with time on his hands. His parents, immigrants from Pakistan and India who worked hard to run a dry-cleaning business in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, would leave him in the back of the shop to play with whatever was lying around.

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Leaning Landscapes For Wonder

Authors: Rosan Bosch

The imaginative design of St. Andrew’s Scots School in Buenos Aires Argentina evokes the Scottish landscape to encourage the youngest students to learn through play, bringing out their curiosity and creativity.

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A Natural Habitat

Authors: Irena Barker

The small Swiss town of Port, with its neat buildings and sloping roofs, is surrounded by the gentle hills of the Jura. Fresh air is plentiful and nature is never far away, making it a good place to grow up and learn. This was all at the forefront of architects’ minds when they were asked to design a new kindergarten and elementary school for the town. It would replace tired temporary wooden buildings that had been in use since the 1960s.

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Nobody Say “School”

Authors: Irena Barker

Sandwiched between a Mexican restaurant and an artisan cobbler on a pedestrianized Barcelona street, it would be easy to mistake the Learnlife hub for a small art gallery or fancy shop. Intriguing artworks in the windows attract curious viewers every day and people frequently stop to take pictures and peer inside.

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Nature And Nurture

Authors: Lesley McMillan

Lesley McMillan, an interior designer with The City of Edinburgh Council, tells Planning Learning Spaces about the key things she considers with each new project and why incorporating nature into schools and nurseries is so important.

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Brief Encounters

Authors: Gareth Long

It all started with a phone call. The caller, the business manager of what was then Rydens Enterprise School in Hersham, Surrey, said that they were selling some land to fund a replacement school building.The value of the land, close to London, enabled them to be ambitious and innovative, they explained. The school had heard that our consultancy — the-learning-crowd — provided education support to new school design projects and wanted to know how we could help.

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Making The Most From The School Corridor

Authors: Dr Robert Dillon

As designers of space, it is essential that we see all space as a potential place to guide learning. Students are learning every moment of every day. They are refining their ideas and beliefs. They are adding to their understanding of the world.

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Barefoot Ninjas Learning In Motion

Authors: Aaron Hathaway

An experimental, innovative design to create active learning spaces, the Frederiksbjerg School in Aarhus, Denmark is built for play. In this school, walking is the least common form of movement. Aaron Hathaway explains why.

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Challenging The Classroom Status Quo

Authors: Murray Hudson

Ten years after after the seminal book The Third Teacher showed how design could help transform education, Murray Hudson met contributor and architect Trung Le at the Art Institute of Chicago to reflect on the decade.

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Short And Sweet

Authors: Murray Hudson

It is a common misconception that good collaboration and consultation in the school design process can take up too much time and money. There are, therefore, many examples of inappropriately designed schools where all stakeholders working together has not been a priority.

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Building The Foundations Of Friendship

Authors: Irena Barker and Murray Hudson

“When we have the final exams the children use the round tables, it signals that we are all in this together,” says deputy headteacher Kim Rasmussen, perhaps summing up the overarching culture of learning at Katrinedals Skole in Copenhagen.

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Top 10 Ways To Innovate The Classroom

Authors: Professor Peter Barrett

Along with the more detailed advise and suggestions illustrated here, the key questions to be considered are…

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Space To Expore

Authors: Professor Peter Barrett & Raphaella Mackenzie

What does it take to make independent and creative learners who then go on to be independent and creative adults? Is it just a question of dishing out the coloured crayons, putting pupils in a relatively flexible, healthy environment and letting them get on with it?

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The Power Of “Unofficial” Space

Authors: Charlotte & Peter Fiell

It is not often one gets the chance to meet and interview one of the great humanist architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but recently, we were lucky enough to get that chance.

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