School Design Studio

Scotch Oakburn College's Middle School in Tasmania, Australia opens as excited students and teachers jump right into learning the 21st Century Way

This is a short photo summary of Scotch Oakburn College in Tasmania, Australia we at FNI started working on in 2004. I am so excited to see the fruits of our labors, and those of our local architectural colleagues on this project. The school is organized into learning communities of 150 students with associated space to help them define their identity as a small community within the larger school. Integrated project-based learning is a strong part of the school's philosophy to teaching and learning.
This first space is what we call the DaVinci Studio. DaVinci was a Renaissance Man, someone who integrated the disciplines and did not think of him self as one thing of another. In the same vein, we encourage educators to think of the Studio (fully equipped for both science and art) as a studio for integrated project-based learning. We are proponents of moving full tilt forward with wireless laptop computing across the entire campus including the outdoor spaces surrounding the building. Kids may or may not have access at home. If they do, then they take to the environment right way, if they don't, they now have access they didn't have. This allows for learning outside of the classroom and lots of communication between teacher and students outside of class time. Bean bags are a must in all classrooms and spaces in the school! They create personal space for students when they need it. Think of this happening in a US school - forget it, such stodgy administrators I want to puke! Let kids be kids once in a while. The revolution within classrooms are the Smart Boards that allow teachers and students to access the web from the classroom making every single classroom a potential distance learning lab. Using simple tools like Skype, that now eight million people are using for free when connecting computer to computer, kids can communicate with their peers in Japan, Indonesia, or even the United States (if you get the time zones to work out). Most teachers I've seen control this technology for lecturing, but that is a sad state of affairs! This tool, placed responsibly in the hands of students could unleash an amazing outpouring of exploration and self-directed learning! Outdoor space is a critical must for kids (and adults for that matter). Vitamin D from the sun, fresh air to breath, and outdoor learning opportunities make it a simple no brainer. Of all the ideas we propose, indoor-outdoor connections are one of the most favorite for teachers and students.

Obesity and the Design of the School Environment

"Spatial features of obesogenic environments studied on a broad, community level have been associated with childhood overweight and obesity, but little research has focused on the effects of the design of micro spaces such as schools on individual health behaviors.  This presentation aims to generate thinking and research on the link between school space and architecture and obesity prevention by reviewing and synthesizing available literature in architecture, environmental psychology, and obesity research, in an effort to propose promising ideas for school space design and redesign..."

This was the beginning of my abstract to a conference panel I was invited to put on by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development entitled "Obesity and the Design of Microenvironment: Beyond Individual Behavior: Multidimensional Research in Obesity Linking Biology to Society in Pentagon City, Arlington, VA on October 10 - 12, 2007. My session was on "Engaging and Integrating Industry and Social Entrepreneurial Partnerships Into Empirical Research."

Learning Improves with Exercise

HealthDay News reports that research by Dr. Catherine Davis, a clinical health psychologist at the Medical College of Georgia, in Augusta, indicates that three months of daily, vigorous exercise can improve. In fact, physical activity can also lower their diabetes risk, reduce their body fat, and strengthen their bones, says a team that looked at about 200 overweight, inactive children, ages 7 to 11.

"Aerobic exercise training showed dose-response benefits on executive function (decision-making) and possibly math achievement, in overweight children," the researchers wrote in an abstract presented this week at The Obesity Society's annual scientific meeting in New Orleans. "Regular exercise may be a simple, important method of enhancing children's cognitive and academic development. These results may persuade educators to implement vigorous physical activity curricula during a childhood obesity epidemic," the researchers concluded.

"We hope these findings will help persuade policymakers, schools and communities that time spent being physically active enhances, rather than detracts from learning," Davis said.

These results encourage us to rethink policies that keep kids in chairs all day long!

Do Schools need playgrounds?

The Guardian in the UK reports that a new school, one of the most expensive in Britain in fact, does not require a playground! The school, Thomas Deacon city academy, designed by Norman Foster for the price of £46.4m opens in September for 2,200 pupils (lucky?) students. The blancmange-shaped building offers a wetland eco-pool and plasma screens on its main concourse but no playground and no traditional breaktime.

What is the reasoning for no outdoor playground you ask?

Barkham reports, "The Peterborough school says not having the "uncontrollable space" of a playground will cut bullying and pupils will not need to let off steam because they will not be bored."

Think of it, no need for fresh air in the lungs, none of those naughty children running around making noise! Amazing!

In the report, Miles Delap, the academy's project manager, says pupils will instead have a "programme of enrichment", including 500 sports fixtures each year, "fantastic" facilities for music, dance and theatre and a combined cadet force, "so they don't need this time of running around and disappearing on truant and sorting out a bit of business behind the bike sheds - that's what we want to take away".

All the research by childhood specialists I have read shows conclusively the need for unstructured play in learning. Tim Gill, a writer and expert on childhood, argues that "unstructured activity allows children to choose what to do and learn to take responsibility. "It's yet more colonisation of children's lives."

In a report released recently, the American Academy Of Pediatrics said children need undirected playtime, which provides a creative outlet and allows them to learn important social skills. Many schools under pressure to raise test scores or provide structured physical activity time, however, have been scaling back recess or eliminating it altogether.

If you feel as I do that this school is moving down a troubling path, you can go to a petition site and sign the petition.

Katherine Kerrison aged 8 who eventually expects to attend the academy contributed the following poem. It expresses the feelings of the children who this policy will effect:

NO PLAYGROUND

My two brothers and I don't
want to go to the Thomas
Deacon Academy because there
will be no playground and we
won't be able to  get frseh air

If it is a hot day we will
get quite tired and hot
We can't last a week without
going outside in school.
Probably the only time
we will get fresh air is
when we go to school and back and PE.
I really wouldn't like it.

Leave No Child Inside! Combat Nature-deficit Disorder!

Brian McCombie's article "Leave No Child Inside: With a Little Help, Kids Can Learn to Love, Not Fear, Nature" in my hometown paper Isthmus, reports that kids today are more likely than not to lack experiences of the outdoors and some may even be scared by the outdoors. As Karen Dostal, the school district's environmental education coordinator tells Brian McCombie: “It’s surprising how many of even the farm kids are so plugged into their Game Boys and PlayStations."

It’s a truism as old as the woods: If you want to help kids develop an appreciation for nature, you have to get them outdoors.But some observers say kids today are having fewer opportunities than ever to experience nature firsthand.

“Within the space of a few decades, the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically,” writes Richard Louv in his 2006 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. “Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment — but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading...“A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rainforest — but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move.”

Louv cites a three-generation study showing that the radius around the home in which 9-year-olds were allowed to wander had shrunk by 90% from 1970 to 1990. Parents cited fears of everything from crime to air pollution.

When Louv writes that many American children suffer from a “nature-deficit disorder,” he is not suggesting some medical diagnosis. Rather, he’s referring to “the human costs of alienation from nature,” like diminished use of the senses, a dearth of physical activity, and an overall lack of emotional and spiritual health, compared to kids who regularly spend time outside.

Kids to Adults: We Want a Water Slide!

SparkBugg found an interesting idea of an apartment slide! I can't tell you how many times kids have asked for a water slide in schools I've planned! We design in rock climbing walls now as a matter of course, why not water slides?! Maybe school would be more fun!

SparkBugg also found an adult slide as well in the Tate Modern, London!

Children's Landscapes

Frode Svane was kind enough to send this wonderfully provocative image of children playing in water. Great design and the kids apparently enjoy playing with it!

Outdoor Learning Environments in Scandanavia

The Frode Svane's site Barnas Landskap is a wonderful site full of examples of outdoor learning environments for children in Norway, Sweden and across the world. It also contains articles on playgrounds, child friendly cities, deschooling, the future of schooling, children's participation, building sustainable cultures and architecture in education. Worth a look!

Here is an interesting climbing wall from a project in Norway (permanent anlegg for stille høydehopp (satsplanke og hoppegrop med sand).

Textbook on Educational Facility Planning

Ken Tanner and I have co-authored the definitive textbook entitled Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture and Management. Our essential goal in writing this book on educational architecture is to establish a common language, a Lingua Franca, for better more constructive communication among the various groups and interests involved in planning, designing, constructing, and using educational facilities. We have found that the communication divide between architecture and education, and in general between researchers and practitioners in both fields are as wide as they have ever been, despite sincere, thoughtful and tireless efforts of individuals in both disciplines – many voices of whom we have endeavored to capture in this book. Flowing from our fundamental goal of improved cross-disciplinary communication, are several purposes for writing this book. First, we aim to introduce ideas that encourage people who plan and design physical learning environments to become more responsive to students’ needs and community cultures. Second, we anticipate this book will provide a scholarly reference work for practicing educational leaders and architects that picks up where most guideline books leave off. Finally, we intend for this book to be the primary textbook for students of education architecture and planning who plan to either become school administrators, professional designers or educational researchers.

Sustainability for Young Children

Randy White has created the Institute on Creating Sustainable Environments for Young Children that provides a place where designers and early childhood educators can learn about how to create high quality environments that meet children's needs and protect Mother Earth.