 | SPACES FOR LEARNING Richard Leonard urges architects to embrace the
new education pedagogies and to “use the physical
environment as a major reform element”.
Photography Chris Ott.
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Wallan
Secondary College.
Stage 2: music,
drama and food
technology wing.
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Wallan, Stage 2:
junior and middle
years wing.
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Recently, on a bitterly cold winter’s afternoon
in Melbourne, I attended the opening of a modest
extension to an inner-urban primary school. All
300 students were as proud as punch and, in ragged
unison, greeted the attending guests and community
in the singsong chorus of primary students the world
over. Your heart melted. Each and every guest, the
adoring parents and the gathered community were
transported back to their school days in an instant
– the more things change, the more some things stay
the same.
Eager Year 6 students ushered the guests
individually through the new facility with all the
dedication of an estate agent smelling sale. Escorted
by Simon, my 10-year-old chaperone, I marvelled at
the confidence of the children, their delight in their
learning environment and their explanation of the
myriad activities that occurred in every nook and
cranny of the building and its environs. The building
was now “their world”; it was exciting and varied
and stimulating.
This was not school as you and I knew it. Our
schools were based on the same efficiency and control
theories as Henry Ford’s production line – and they
were about as stimulating and flexible. But the “cages
for ages” of our days are being supplanted by radically
new settings for students such as Simon, driven by a
reversal in educational focus and an understanding of
what truly deep learning requires. The teacher-centric
model of the industrial age is disintegrating before
our eyes and is being replaced by the student-centric
model of the twenty-first century. And, hand in hand
with leading educators, architects are at the pointy
end of the change.
The role of the architect
Education has always been fertile ground for the
design profession. Particularly since the 1970s, the
design of schools has provided the opportunity for
architects and educators to work in an integrated way,
with innovation built in at the foundation. However,
the new education pedagogies are challenging the
knowledge and understanding of all involved –
particularly the architect and the educator – requiring
a new mental model where examples of thoughtful
learning environments are rare.
The architect now needs to understand both
the new curriculum and its changing requirements
of design. Not only do they need to be conversant
with the educational principles involved, a forward
vision is now fundamental to encompassing global
educational trends. Architects are now required
to realize the possibilities for translating these trends
into an innovative and appropriate design; in other
words, to use the physical environment as a major
reform element.
We can no longer simply leave the educator
to focus on practice and the architect to focus on
construction. More than ever, architects can play
a pivotal role in the establishment of an appropriate
design brief. In the formative process they can
question intelligently the base assumptions and can
challenge, guide and lead the development process. The schools of the new paradigm are being developed
by an intensely collaborative partnership (between
architects, education policy makers and educators)
and frequently embrace the community and students.
In his paper “Innovative Pedagogy and School
Facilities”, the American architect and educator
Elliot Washor says it is essential that the architect
understand the dilemma of translating pedagogical
designs into responsive facilities.1 The experienced
education architect will “have developed design
processes for translating pedagogical designs into
facilities. They also envision schools that are very
different to the schools we have today”.
To develop facilities thoughtfully and successfully
in support of the current pedagogies, the designer
(like the educator) now needs to be equipped with
a new brace of skills, knowledge and techniques. These are best exemplified in Elliot Washor’s call for
an integrated design approach between educators,
architects, builders, community and bureaucrats.
His chief concerns are:
- that a new language and terminology needs to
be developed for educators, architects and builders
that changes the definitions of school space to
ensure that the old mental model does not affect
the new innovative design;
- that educators (and architects) need to plan
and think more about innovative educational
design before building;
- to ensure that there is a community and student
voice in the design process;
- that architects (and educators) need to become
“bilingual” (to understand the varying disciplines
involved in the development of schools);
- to design for redesign. Establish a new mental
model and design with the intent to rebuild that
mental model;
- to design to change the system. The more
innovative the design, the greater the opportunity
for the design to change the system;
- to line up angels. Embrace the need to incorporate
community, business and bureaucratic allies; and
- to design for flexibility, not necessarily durability.
A school building: built
The newly developed Wallan Secondary College lies
about one hour north of Melbourne on the remnants
of the old Hume Highway. A state school, the facility
has been designed to expand in a series of defined
stages on the greenfield site as the student population
grows from the initial Year 7 intake in 2006 to its
full complement of over 800 students up to Year 12
in several years’ time.
The school was planned with the participation
of the local community and educators coopted from
other schools – as is common with the development
of new schools, when staff are yet to be appointed. Working within standard departmental budgets and
allowances, the desire of the planning group was
to embrace the new learning paradigm and to connect
the facilities strongly to the local community.
Some of the key features incorporated into
the design included:
- development of discrete junior, middle and
senior precincts to ensure definition of learning
communities and to establish the concept
of transition;
- integration of staff areas within the learning
communities;
- incorporation of Learning Commons in all core
teaching areas to facilitate multipurpose, group
and project-based activities;
- integration of arts, science and technology into
a single combined facility;
- integration of food technology, drama and music
into a single, multipurpose community facility;
- development of a range of alternative areas and
spaces to facilitate optional learning settings;
- operable walls to permit reconfiguring of
classrooms and team teaching; and
- emphasis on environmentally sustainable design.
In relatively simple forms, the new buildings
embrace the new learning challenges by providing
integrated spaces, variety, flexibility and relevance. In the state’s inaugural School Design Awards 2006,
it was awarded Best Secondary School and Best
School Overall.
A school building: planned
Currently on the drawing boards, the development
of the Dandenong Education Precinct for the
Department of Education represents a different
response to the new education pedagogies. The new
school is an aggregation of three existing and very
different local colleges. Designed for 2,100 secondary
level students, the school is planned around seven
Schools-Within-Schools (SWIS) buildings, each
containing a learning community of 300 students. There are many inventive and different learning
settings proposed here, but perhaps the most notable
is the process itself.
During the design process the school initiated
a mini-SWIS programme, echoing the curriculum
model proposed and road-testing the ideas as far as
possible in a dedicated area in the existing school. With the agreement of the department, this process
has been extended into the construction phase of
the new buildings. Flexible, fully operational SWIS
shells will be constructed with the possibility of
finetuning the interior configurations full-scale and
“on the fly”; the educators themselves, therefore, will
simultaneously live in and create the innovation. The finetuning will be undertaken collaboratively
with the teachers while they work in the facilities
and will be supported by the guidance of specialist
external expertise (including the design team).
This technique should avoid the dilemma
of the 70s open-plan classrooms, where facilities
designed by architects and education policy makers
often failed to be fully exploited by the educators
– because the educators had not led or developed
the design. The physical design did not match the
programmatic design and the schools were often
landed with unusable and noisy spaces.
In exploring the new education pedagogies
and the built-form response, this evolutionary model
is an entirely sound and prudent technique to ensure
that the best educational outcomes can be achieved. The process aligns perfectly with the evolving nature
of the new pedagogy and the need for facilities to
adapt with the educators.
The state
To varying degrees, all of the states have been
embracing the new learning pedagogies and
instigating programmes of curriculum and facility
reform. These initiatives have had profound
implications for educators and architects.
In Victoria, for example, the state government
has embarked on an education facilities programme
that is vast in terms of scope, pedagogical change
and financial commitment ($1.9 billion committed
for the course of the government from the May 2007
budget). The largest programme has focused on
regeneration and includes the development of
a series of large primary and secondary schools in
a number of key areas including Bendigo, Geelong,
Broadmeadows and Dandenong. These projects have
linked schools and their architects with leading
educators (Kenn Fisher, Julia Atkin and Prakash Nair)
in a collaboration to explore reform in both planning
and curriculum.
Simultaneously the state government has set
up innovation programmes, establishing on a smaller
scale creative partnerships between schools, educators
and architects. The focus of this initiative has been
to develop transformative spaces in support of the
new learning paradigm and to inject into these schools
a living, working example of the new learning model –
a “Trojan Horse” of new education.
All of these are courageous examples for which the
government should be congratulated and encouraged
to take further. There is much ground to make up.
The federal government
Education is one of the “hot potatoes” of politics
and, in the views expressed by Richard Florida’s
The Rise of the Creative Class, education will need
to be a priority if countries are to prosper in the
post-industrial age.2 The new, knowledge-based
economy – the creative class – has profound
implications for all governments, especially in
terms of education priorities and curricula.
It is apparent that both major political parties
are pursuing roughly similar policies of centralism,
standardization and control: witness the current
discussions on a national curriculum. The states
and the territories, in their recent submission to
the federal government, focused on the national
curriculum, reporting standards, performance and
workforce reform. Its laudable objectives were
“to commit all Australian Governments to a national
framework for schooling and co-operation between
governments as a means to achieve the best possible
results for all Australian students”.3
Yet it is worth considering again our current
system derived from the factory-based education
model. In How People Learn, the National Research
Council in the United States notes “the emulation
of factory efficiency fostered the development of
standardised tests for measurement of the ‘product’,
of clerical work by teachers to records of cost and
progress (often at the expense of teaching) and
of ‘management’ of teaching by central district
authorities who had little knowledge of the
educational practice or philosophy. In short,
the factory model affected the design of curriculum,
instruction, and assessment of schools.”4 These
comments have very direct correlations for Australia.
It is frustrating that most of the current
discussions are not about deep, authentic learning; they are not about new pedagogy, nor are they
wrestling with what it means to equip our children
– children like Simon in Year 6 – for the evolving new
world and new economies. This is surely the real core
of the issue. Under the current debate we are not,
for example, considering the reformative approach
of Finland and learning from its initiatives and
spectacular education outcomes that were identified
in the 2005 OECD Program for International Student
Assessment.5 In the OECD analysis, by the way,
Australia was assessed as punching above its weight
on a dollar-for-dollar basis: not bad, but by no means
the best.
Conclusion
The discussion is warming and perhaps we –
the community, the educators and the architects
– now have the opportunity to effect real change. In his book stressing the urgency of education reform,
Rexford Brown commented that “Communities,
through the democratic, learning-oriented
conversation, can decide what knowledge and habits
of mind will best prepare students for the world they
lie in and will inherit, and they can support their
decisions through strong, sometimes courageous
political leadership; or they can let things drift
on in a muddle.”6
On that cold Melbourne afternoon, being led
around the primary school, I understood that young
Simon was already a knowledge worker and would
surely slot into the creative class seamlessly, given
half a chance. It was also an empowering experience
to appreciate that facilities do matter, that design
does have a significant impact and, most importantly,
that design can be a tool for reform. The challenges
for us all – and particularly those planning and
designing schools – are staring us in the face. This is a rare opportunity for architecture to interact
with the new education pedagogy in a truly radical
way – an opportunity for design-led leadership to
support a genuine transformation in education. Lest we let things drift on in a muddle.
Richard Leonard is a director of Hayball Leonard Stent.
WALLAN
SECONDARY
COLLEGE,
VICTORIA
Architect
Hayball Leonard
Stent Architects.
Stage 1
Building surveyor
Reddo.
Engineer
Taylor Thomson
Whitting.
Environmental
consultant
Sustainable Built
Environments.
Landscape architect
Oculus.
Quantity surveyor
Clive Davies and
Associates.
Services consultant
Connor Pincus and
Saunders.
Structural engineer
Meyer Consulting
Group.
Stage 2
Builder
Devco Project
and Construction
Management.
Building surveyor
Reddo.
Project facilitator
Indec Consulting.
Landscape architect
Oculus.
Quantity surveyor
Clive Davies and
Associates.
Services consultant
Connor Pincus and
Saunders.
Structural engineer
Taylor Thomson
Whitting.
1 Elliot Washor,
“Innovative
Pedagogy and
School Facilities”,
DesignShare, 2003. www.designshare.com
2 Richard Florida, The
Rise of the Creative Class
(Basic Books, 2003).
3 Professor Peter
Dawkins, “Federalist
Paper 2: The Future of
Schooling in Australia”,
The Council for the
Australian Federation,
2007.
4 John D. Bransford,
Ann L. Brown and
Rodney R. Cocking
(eds), Committee on
Developments in the
Science of Learning,
Commission on
Behavioural and
Social Sciences
and Education, and
National Research
Council, How People
Learn: Brain, Mind,
Experience, and School
(National Academy
Press, 1999).
5 Barry McGaw,
OECD Program for
International Student
Assessment, 2005.
6 Rexford G. Brown,
Schools of Thought
– How the Politics of
Literacy Shape Thinking
in the Classroom
(Jossey-Bass, 1993).
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