“Form follows Function” is a well known architectural maxim espoused by Louis Sullivan in 1896. In fulfillment of this, hotels are designed to function as places for drinking and accommodation, churches as places of worship, hospitals as places of healing and schools as places of learning. What Sullivan went on to say (which is rarely mentioned) was, “where the function does not change – neither should the form.” By implication, therefore, it is safe to say that where the function does change, then so should the form.
The problem with most buildings is that they are long term assets. We build them to last, generally for 40 or 50 and more years. For previous periods in history this was not so much of an issue, but in the current age when change is all around us and the rate of change is increasing, the function within buildings is moving but the form is not. This brings us to the dilemma of Winston Churchill who, in 1924, (complaining about the Houses of Parliament in London) said “we first design our buildings and in time then they design us.” This is the concept of form determining function.
With our schools, the reality is that most of them have been “on the ground” for a number of years and were designed along industrial “process” lines to suit the didactic paradigm of education at the time. A number of these schools were built of light weight materials and constructed in great quantity to cater for the baby boomer years of the Post Second World War period. Many of these schools will last a lot longer than the present – some for the next 20 to 30 years.
However, education has changed – at least educational leaders tell us this at conferences. The general reality, though, may be somewhat different. Across the system, change may not be as radical and dynamic as conference presenters would have us believe. Nevertheless, there are pockets of innovation happening in individual schools which give cause for hope.
There are reasons for slow rates of change in education. Firstly, teachers are generally considered to be a conservative group of professionals. Some of them have never been out of the classroom and so don’t know how to operate any differently than the way they were first taught and the way they were taught to teach. Secondly, systemic change is hard. It is difficult to scale up good ideas to operate throughout the entire system. Thirdly, the curriculum, mandated assessments and school accountabilities act as dampeners for change, particularly in the senior years of Secondary School where “enter scores” for tertiary institutions are all important. And then, there is the impact of existing buildings which don’t support the new pedagogies.
But if we could redesign our schools to be places which support the new ways of learning in the “knowledge age” – perhaps taking on board some of the ideas from existing innovative institutions, what sort of things would we consider ?
In Primary Schools, for the most part, students don’t move from one room to another during the day. Generally, their room is their place and space for the entire year and this is often evident by the way they personalize their space with colour and various adornment. At their levels within the primary sector, it is considered important to have this form of security. Furthermore, the curriculum does not prescribe that the primary learning content is broken into distinct subject specialties as it is later on. Primary schools are excellent places for interdisciplinary learning perhaps using teams of students for projects and teams of teachers to assist. If learning spaces are based on year levels (and they don’t have to be – recall the one roomed school house for all grades), then adjacent break out nooks and generous resource areas are important to support this more independent and team based approach.
Learning spaces don’t have to be enclosed as are traditional classrooms. There may be some definition of space but three sides may be sufficient with the fourth side being open to a common resource area. This area may include the library together with supporting information and communication technology and media facilities. And it all needs to be at the appropriate scale for the junior students.
Early learning philosophy supports the importance of the environment for younger students – Montessori, Steiner, and Reggio Emilia being some of the theories. Included here are the issues of physical comfort, eg; temperature and light, but also of spaces that elicit curiosity and wonder. The external environment is a part of this. Whilst it is necessary to have adequate play space which may include some hard surfaces, it is undesirable to have “wall to wall” asphalt in any school. Much can be done with the external environment to create learning experiences. Creative gardens, water ponds, bird hives and so on all give rise to rich learning possibilities.
When students progress to the traditional Secondary School, they enter a new type of learning regime. The curriculum is divided into subject disciplines, learning time is divided into periods of 40 minutes (for the most part) and the students are faced with many teachers in lieu of the one they had in primary school. The students are constantly moving around the school from one room to another which makes for lost time and points of congestion.
In comparison to Primary Schools, many Secondary Schools are often bland and basic building types. There seems to be an assumption that the physical environment is not important to secondary school students. However, we know that this group are still impressionable and can be led to appreciate good design – an attribute which will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Good design encompasses appropriate planning of the internal and external spaces as well as the external elevation or façade of the buildings. Both aspects are equally important.
Within the Secondary School learning environment, there have been many pressures for change. The first would be the recognition that students have preferred methods to learn. This has come out of the work by Howard Gardner and others on multiple intelligences. The didactic method may be appropriate for some but totally non-productive for others. The recognition of the value of constructivist learning is also taking hold.
There has also been a re-questioning of the purpose of our Secondary Schools. In general their purpose has shifted from being vocationally oriented institutions to places where the students not only learn various subject contents but also learn how to process information and create new knowledge. They learn “how to learn” and how to defend and demonstrate their learning with their peers. Students should leave Secondary Schools with critical minds and problem solving abilities – skills which can then be applied to many and various academic disciplines and life situations.
The quantity and quality of information available to students via the computer network has grown exponentially. The skills of accessing and sifting this information as part of the learning process.
Communication technology has given students the ability to converse with anyone, anywhere in the world. It has also given students the freedom to work off campus to various levels and to take courses in the virtual sense entirely divorced from their physical school environment. The quantum of communication happenings from SMS text messages to synchronous voice and video communication has burgeoned. This has given education a new dimension. It is possible for the virtual school to replace the physical school and this has happened for a while with our “Outback School of the Air.” Although virtual schooling is possible it is not a first option for the main component of the educational experience. Humans need social and physical contact. In the real world, much work and leisure happens with other humans in groups and teams. The educational experience should mirror this.
Whilst the curriculum has broadened considerably in the Secondary Schools, the method of assessment has largely remained with the examination system. To a significant extent this has had a negative influence on learning innovation in the senior years of secondary schooling.
Nevertheless, pockets of innovation have occurred and much has been spoken about new ways of doing things. High on the agenda is team based learning where students learn in groups instead of individually. Added to this could be that the content studied spans various disciplines and age groups. Mix this with the resource of unlimited electronic information and the ability to meet and work in the virtual sense rather than always in the physical form and we have a new educational paradigm. This is already happening in some places – The School for Environmental Studies (The Zoo School) in Minnesota being one example.
Furthermore there is a trend to have students engage in “authentic” or real life learning in the community rather within the confines of the school. This is particularly relevant to the more vocationally oriented courses. Partnerships with tertiary institutions and industry are of importance in this respect.
What does this all mean for the design issues for secondary schools ? Firstly, it means that the industrial design of long corridors and small classrooms should no longer be the dominant model. Students should have a home base and have their own workstation. This gives them continuity, permanency and assists them with teamwork. They may well have one or two members of staff who are group tutors and/or mentors who occupy the space with them. Such a space could look like the following diagram.
At the same time it is recognized that some movement will be required to attend specialist spaces such as music and science.
Schools should also be designed for the students instead of for the ease of the staff to supervise the students. Emphasis should be given to the creation of informal learning areas. These are places where the students can relax or work informally with each other or with teachers. A successful learning environment along these lines was designed by Architectus at Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne. Here a quadrangle in the senior school was created by raising the floor or a wasted space in the school grounds to a level surface with colour, sound, heating and light. It works ideally as an informal learning place due to its centrality but particularly with the library being on one side and the cafeteria being on the other. It is popular with both staff and students during the day and can be used by the school or external groups for dinners in the evening.
The external environment is also important. Again, spaces should be provided for informal gatherings with appropriate landscaping.
Given the trend for students to spend a greater proportion of their time working off campus either in work place settings or at home, it is considered that schools should place a greater emphasis on the collective activities for students such as sport and performing arts. It is difficult or even impossible to undertake these activities on an individual basis. Such facilities could also be available for use by community groups.
Whilst it is easier to design such facilities in a new environment, it is still possible to convert existing buildings for some of the above features. The form of our school buildings should not be allowed to frustrate the progress of the education function. Too often they do without the staff or students realizing the effect.
Predicting the future of education cannot be done with absolute certainty, however trends are evident. We don’t want to build for the past, we can build for the present but we should build for the future. How is it best to do this ? Recent solutions to this include building for adaptability and flexibility. For adaptability, schools should be designed so that every five to ten years the internal fitout can be reconfigured. For flexibility, the design should allow for the configured spaces to be changed on a daily basis using, for example, operable walls and moveable furniture. All this can be done without compromising the structure of the buildings.
It is evident that educators are talking more about the effect of the built and natural environments on the learning process. Education buildings are significant community assets. They are built at a point in time with a particular capital cost. However, during their life there will be additional recurrent costs to refit them for current functions in much the same way as the Navy refits its ships for current warfare. And there the analogy ends !!!
Andrew Bunting
Director
Architectus
Andrew.bunting@architectus.com.au
