Search results

This study aims to develop a set of design quality indicators (DQIs) suitable for the design and evaluation of public schools in terms of their technical, functional and behavioral performance.

The methodology entailed the review of literature on the design quality of school buildings to identify potential DQIs. Subsequently, the eighty four DQIs were validated through a three-round Delphi evaluation process, with 35 participants in the first round and 28 participants in the second and third rounds. The participants consisted of architects, facility managers, administrators, teachers and students. The results of the Delphi survey were analyzed based on the relative importance index, which was further rated according to the levels of importance.

The findings from this process revealed that most of the DQIs were categorized as extremely important and very important.

The design quality of school buildings is crucial to the success of a community’s social life and educational process. However, the lack of a set of DQIs has hindered the potential to benchmark similar facilities and derived lesson learned. The value of the DQIs is in its potential application as a design tool for proposed school buildings, as well as for facility audit of existing school buildings.

Students have a unique perspective on how learning space design impacts their school experience (Cook-Sather, 2006). As a result, schools need to be intentional about capturing student voice and feedback throughout the design process. For learning environments to be responsive to the needs of students, schools must enact an inclusive, inquiry-based approach to design.

In this chapter, the authors describe the role that student voice played in an inquiry-driven, iterative process of designing and implementing innovative learning environments in the Middle School at Singapore American School. Through sharing three concrete examples of different data collection methodologies and the changes that emerged as a result of the feedback, the authors outline the power of intentionally centering student voice and experience in designing learning environments. School leaders will learn practical tools to use and a roadmap to follow to create a more inclusive, responsive process of learning environment design, whether engaging in small-scale renovations or planning a whole school. While this chapter focuses on applying this inquiry cycle to learning environments, the process described can equally be used to center student voice in other school change initiatives.

This study aims to identify the role of nature-related features in promoting well-being from the perspective of children as the users of post-disaster schools. It highlights the importance of connectedness to nature in design strategies for post-disaster school reconstruction.

The mixed-method study was conducted in three primary schools reconstructed after the earthquakes in Lombok (Indonesia) and Chiang Rai (Thailand) that integrated some nature-related elements in their design. The questionnaire survey explored the children’s satisfaction with the post-disaster school environment as an indication of well-being.

The findings suggest that priority in post-disaster school design strategies should incorporate nature-related design features that provide opportunities for children to be with friends and to play, to learn in comfortable and safe conditions, to interact with nature and to be in a quiet and relaxing place.

Most post-disaster reconstruction prioritizes the speed of construction rather than the spatial qualities that could help children deal with the disaster. This study provides evidence on the potential of nature-related design features to support the children’s well-being after the disaster.

The purpose of this paper is to canvass debates arising from encounters between architectural and educational history and to introduce a themed section of four papers exploring aspects of the history of school design and the spatial arrangements of Australian schooling across the twentieth century.

This is an interpretive introductory essay that characterizes trends in historical and sociological studies of school space and materialities, and synthesizes the arguments and contributions of the four companion papers.

A case is made for greater exchange among educational, architectural and social historians and key insights and findings from the four papers concerning school space, design and educational ideas are summarized. Themes of community, citizenship and progressive education are highlighted.

The value of the paper lies in introducing the context and scholarly debates framing a collection of four papers that seek to open up new avenues for investigating the history of modern schooling through studying intersections between school space and design and educational purposes and aspiration.

Education is a key institution of modern society, long recognized for its central role in the reproduction of inequities and with the potential to challenge them. Schools behave as their systems are designed. Achieving equity and excellence is not possible through attempts to fix “the school” or educators. Principles of systemic design that incorporate equity and excellence are needed to increase the likelihood of desirable outcomes.

Using the social contract as a design principle, this paper systematically builds an empirical model of school provision aimed at equitable excellence.

Equitable excellence in school provision is possible if choice is available across geolocation and socio-educational (dis)advantage, schools have autonomy over fiscal, personnel and curricular matters, public accountability is linked to academic outcomes and social impact, all moderated by the quality of teaching.

Data-driven empirical modelling is particularly attractive to policy makers, systemic authorities and researchers when theory (of all varieties) does not yield the necessary insights to support the functionality and effectiveness of systems to deliver equitable outcomes at scale. Empirical examples can be used to test the explanatory power of the novel model – and refine it when necessary.

The empirical model and threshold question are the genesis of a common language for assessing relevant costs and benefits of initiatives for government and system designers. Significantly, establishing a threshold question and tests of legitimacy and strength to accompany the novel model provides a more principled way of prioritizing the competing demands on public investment in education.

Establishing a threshold question and tests for legitimacy and strength to accompany the novel model provides a more principled way of prioritizing the competing demands to accompany.

The objectives of this paper are to present an assessment for the consideration of fire safety during the design stages of school facilities in Saudi Arabia; and to present the development of a fire risk assessment survey tool whereby existing school facilities can be evaluated for the purpose of identifying and eliminating fire hazards, and meeting the minimum requirements of current legislation.

The paper classifies the factors that make school facilities a high‐risk type of buildings to fire; reviews causes of fires in schools and identifies potential high‐risk areas to fires in school facilities; and reviews design and operation factors controlling fire severity.

Investigating the consideration for fire safety in the design phase of public school facilities in Saudi Arabia indicated that the design office at the Ministry of Education is active in providing the following fire safety requirements: fire detection and notification systems including smoke detectors and fire alarms; fire suppression and extinguishing systems including automatic sprinkler systems, standpipe and hose system and portable fire extinguishers; and means of egress and evacuation systems including exit doors, emergency lighting and directional signs. The fire risk assessment survey tool developed in this paper consists of 61 items to assess fire protection equipment, exitways/stairs, interior decorations/interior finish integrity, fire hydrants and lanes, electrical wiring, laboratories, and maintenance measures.

The paper provides practical value to design professionals of school projects and school staff and facilities managers responsible for the day‐to‐day operation of school facilities.

This paper discusses the opportunity afforded by a substantial research grant to examine three aspects of recent school design and learning. First, spaces that support effective learning, second, the role of the building in achieving sustainability, and third, pedagogies and practices that support one and two. Schools are complex systems in which the physical environment interacts with pedagogical, socio-cultural, curricular, motivational and socio-economic factors as well as providing benefits or costs in environmental terms. Limiting the research focus to exemplar case study schools will enable a more comprehensive study of the schools as 3D texts. Through proactive research methodologies, students, teachers and architects will collaborate to manipulate the spaces to suit different learning modalities. Students will help collect environmental data and therefore learn more about climate and energy. They will also participate within teams to further their problem solving, communication and organizational skills. Teachers will become more aware of and hopefully skilled at managing space both environmentally and pedagogically. Architects will have the unusual opportunity of experiencing and analyzing their designs through the eyes of users. While this ambitious research is in its infancy, the interdisciplinary approach and support from nine industry partners is relevant for other researchers who are seeking to have an impact on design practice using an action research methodology. The research is timely.4 Following in the footsteps of the United Kingdom, Australian state and federal governments have committed to reinvigorate our aging school stock. This research led by an interdisciplinary team, was developed in partnership with Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, the Victorian Government Architect's Office, and seven design firms with expertise in learning environments. The research has been funded by the Australian Research Council

The educational process in schools involves many activities that ultimately aim at testing students' motivation, knowledge assimilation, academic performance, and teachers' productivity. How these activities are accommodated in a responsive environment is a critical issue that deserves special attention especially from users' perspective. This paper analyzes emerging understandings of learning environments. Reactions of teachers and students to classroom and cluster prototypes, among other aspects, against a number of spatial requirements and educational objectives are analyzed and discussed based on two mechanisms. The first is a comparative analysis of reactions of teachers from three elementary schools within Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District. The second part is a case study of a pre-design phase undertaken for redesigning some buildings of North Carolina School of the Arts. The results of this investigation support the assumption on how the school environment has a direct impact on the way in which teaching and learning takes place. A conclusion envisioning the need for going beyond adopting prescriptive measures to address the quality of the learning environment is conceived by highlighting the need to utilize knowledge generated from research findings into school design process, to pursue active roles in sensitizing users about the value of the school environment in reaching the desired academic performance while increasing teachers' productivity.

As part of the UK Government’s strategy to address the current shortage of primary school places is the construction of standardised designed schools. The UK Government has been facing an uphill battle to meet the demand for the ever-increasing number of school places it requires. This paper aims to explore the use of standardised school design in addressing the problem of primary school places in the UK.

Due to the exploratory nature of this investigation, a pragmatic research philosophy is utilised and mixed-method data collection techniques are used. Quantitative data collection is in the form of a survey involving 306 construction professionals and stakeholders; this has been consolidated using qualitative data collection in the form of nine purposefully selected semi-structured interviews.

The research highlighted the influence that people and their perceptions have on the successful implementation of standardisation. The results show that a high level of misunderstanding exists around the concept of standardisation and its definition. Standardised design has shown to have a remarkable influence in reducing the cost and time required for delivering the construction of new schools.

Due to the exploratory nature of this research, the results obtained have not been wholly conclusive but have instead provided a contribution to the area of standardisation in construction.

The research has uncovered that, to truly promote and drive standardisation in the delivery of schools, a joint approach is required with designers, contractors, clients and manufacturers, working in partnership to develop successful solutions. The paper will, therefore, help the key stakeholders delivering standardised schools in UK to fully understand the concept and turn the challenges into opportunities.

Recognizing the close relation of educational philosophies and methods with the design of the built environment which accommodates them, the purpose of this paper is to bring insights to the issue through presenting the interpretations of one of the major user groups, educating staff, to determine the primary sources of the need for spatial change at primary schools in the local context.

A field study has been conducted with the participation of 142 teachers from 15 public primary schools located in a dense urban environment, in Bayrampasa district, Istanbul. Responses to the open-ended questions were analyzed through the use of the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method.

The results indicate that the need for providing qualified spaces for physical activity and play as well as devoted subject-specific learning areas, utilization of outdoor spaces, accommodation of high numbers of students emerge as primary sources of the need for spatial change.

The contemporary child-centered and experience-based educational approaches of the twenty-first century, developed around carrying the learning activities beyond the traditional classrooms brought the formation of boundaries at schools under question. Regarding these ideas, flexibility and related concepts have become the common design aspects to come under focus for school architecture. In Turkey, there is an increasing trend in the production of educational facilities due to population growth and rapid changes in the educational system, which seems to proceed in the foreseeable future. The innovative proposals of school design indeed have the potential to contribute to the development of future school projects.

The study presents a unique contribution to the related literature through presenting empirical data from users’ perspective.