| When you think of a traditional school, you may imagine long corridors lined with lockers and doorways leading to box-like classrooms. The classrooms often have small windows or no windows at all and are lit by fluorescent lighting. The desks are arranged to face the teacher’s desk and a wide blackboard.
Now imagine a different school. Classrooms with large windows for natural light are grouped around a central gathering area. Students are mobile, moving to the media area for group projects, tutoring or individual computer time, working in the classroom for a lab or multi-disciplined project with the Spanish and history teachers. Just outside, students are engaged in an “outdoor” classroom, collecting samples from a wetland area. In a nearby park, older adults attend a picnic and daycare children take a nature walk.
This second school experience describes the future of K-12 school design according to the Report from the National Summit on School Design, a collaboration of more than 200 public, private, and civic sector leaders who participated in the three-day National Summit on School Design late last year. The report outlined the following components of the new American school to address different learning styles, safety, health and self-esteem — not only for students and faculty but also the community.
• Learning and Security
Since the 1950s, educators have applied new techniques to engage students with different learning styles. This is difficult when teaching in a 1950s-style school. For tutoring or group projects, students are often limited to space in the hallway or a scheduled time in the media center. Study across disciplines is rare, again due to space and scheduling.
Innovation in facility design can remove these challenges. Instead of designing one large central media center, schools can include smaller media centers within several “schools” or “houses” of classrooms. Students and faculty have greater access to quiet study spaces, portable computer stations and small group space. The classrooms in each house can also be designed with removable walls, expanding or contracting to fit team teaching, traditional lectures and labs. Such flexibility also accommodates space needs as student populations or academic offerings change.
Besides addressing different learning styles, this school-within-a-school design also creates a more intimate learning environment. Faculty are working with a smaller group of students, improving not only security but also their understanding of individual student needs. While the school may have 2,500 students, each house may have only about 500.
• Technology and Comfort
It’s no secret that schools are challenged to offer the latest technology. While personal computers could be updated every few years, it’s often the building’s infrastructure that limits learning options. To remain academically relevant and cost effective, school design must address infrastructure that will accommodate technology not yet invented. Today it’s wireless; tomorrow it’s about interactivity.
At the same time, technology should improve a school’s efficiency and the comfort of its users. Studies on daylighting have been shown to improve learning and attentiveness, but it also reduces costs for artificial lighting. Special attention should be given to the location of heating, ventilation and air systems for easy maintenance and energy distribution. Site configuration can make the best use of the sun for heating and cooling, and new sensor technology can automatically change lighting and temperatures when no one is in a room.
• Community and Re-use
The only way the new American school can become a reality, however, is through community support. Concern over student achievement and how to effectively use tax dollars has caused conflict between school districts and the public. The most effective school projects are those that begin with a discussion of community needs.
The National Summit envisioned future schools returning to the center of local culture, meeting the needs of preschoolers to the elderly and housing services beyond K-12 education. This includes gathering spaces for community events, a teen center, a daycare, and even a health clinic. Outdoors, the school may be surrounded by green spaces, sports and fitness facilities that serve students and the public.
In order to think beyond education, school districts must engage citizens and find out what they desire for their community. Instead of seeing a school, people can begin to imagine an intergenerational gathering place for learning, recreation and town pride.
Source: Adapted from the Report from the National Summit on School Design, American Architectural Foundation (AAF) and KnowledgeWorks Foundation, 2006.
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