21st Century School Design.
The purpose of today's posting is to share some of the resources that I believe capture the future of school design and really address the needs of 21st Century Schools.
The first is a great film that talks about school design from an architects perspective and briefly reviews some of the existing research on best practice related to school design. One thing in this film that is touched on briefly is the idea that schools need to be stimulating environments. While this is true based on the research, there are some students who need controlled stimulation, areas for rest and reprieve, and visually organized materials. Take for example gifted students, it is important to remember that environments for these students should be stimulating, but we need to also provide places for students to "get away" or spaces that provide a reprieve from stimulation so that they can avoid being over-stimulated due to their sensory sensitivity and capacity for overstimulation of the central nervous system (Gere, Capps, Mitchell, & Grubbs, 2009). This short film might be an excellent resource to be used when endeavoring to design a 21st Century School to engage in important conversations with all of the decision makers and stakeholder in the complex process of designing appropriate learning environments for any population.
Another resource you might want to consider when addressing school design is the short document on designing learning spaces for 21st century learners. This really talks about the idea that classrooms, and technology in particular, are going to continually evolve, so the educational spaces must be designed in such a way as to evolve or be responsive to these ongoing changes. The link to the document is:
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/uploads/NECC2009/KEY_43175395/Brook_DesigningLearningSpacesforContemporaryLearning16.6.09.pdf
A third resource comes from a PhD at the University of Georgia, Athens. Kenneth Tanner has been doing research on the effects of school design on student outcomes (Tanner, 2009). While the link I am providing you is focused on elementary school design, there are many principles that still hold true for secondary school design. One focus of Tanner's work is translating Alexander's 1977 book Pattern Language, a fundamental work for the field of architecture, and puts it in a language for school design. It is a very useful way to address school design and an important consideration for all dwelling spaces. The website is:
http://www.designshare.com/index.php/articles/a-design-assessment-scale-for-elementary-schools/2/
You will want to make sure that you continue to page 3 of this document for a comprehensive listing of essential spaces for schools.
One more resource that addresses classroom design specifically is:
http://archrecord.construction.com/schools/09_School_of_One.asp
I would like for you to take a look at this as something to consider. As you may already know, the answer to many of questions about school design really have to reflect your school's culture, mission, curriculum, pedagogical approach, and openness to thinking about educational settings differently then they have been thought about for the last 100 years. Pushing the envelope, to really think about education differently and create change that starts with the structuring of the classroom environment, is a profound, but necessary undertaking that would require buy-in from all of the stakeholders in an educational community. That being said, if you were really ready to push the envelope further than you have already, your school could be an example for schools around the world (not unlike the Reggio schools in Italy that have been an example for pre-K schools around the world). It really depends on your goals related to school design.
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. (1977), A Pattern Language. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Gere, D. R., Capps, S. C., Mitchell, D. W., & Grubbs, E. (2009). Sensory sensitivities of gifted children. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 63(3), 288-295.
Tanner, K. C. (2009). Effects of school design on student outcomes. Journal of Educational Administration, 47(3), 381-399.
