What if...? Re-imagining learning spaces
October 2006
Tim Rudd, Jo Morrison and Keri Facer, Futurelab
Carolyn Gifford
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Introduction
At the present time we are witnessing a massive investment in the design and build of new schools to equip the UK education system for the 21st century. The economically and architecturally ambitious Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is setting out to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England over the next 10 to 15 years. But how much of this effort has been inspired by an equally wide-reaching educational vision? Already, evidence from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) is suggesting that the design quality of recently built schools is not good enough to achieve the Government’s aim of transforming children’s education[1]. If the design quality is insufficient – what is the quality of the educational strategy underpinning that design?
The design of these schools will shape the ways in which we think about, experience and conduct education in this country for the next 50 to 100 years. The educational visions upon which they are built will be solidified in bricks and mortar, the learning relationships they envisage will be captured in concrete and glass. The institutions created now will physically encapsulate and determine the ideas it is possible to have about education, learning and learning relationships until the dawn of the next century.
That is a long time to spend working in institutions that do not engage with the educational challenges of the 21st century and which do not exploit the resources that it has to offer.
This paper is not concerned with questions of ‘design quality’, nor with the funding mechanisms enabling the build of new schools. Instead, our aim is to ask the following questions:
- What are the educational visions and debates needed to underpin the design of new educational institutions?
- What are the digital resources which may reshape the practice of learning in the 21st century?
- What alternative visions could be conceived for the ‘schools of the future’?
Our aim is to ensure equal attention is paid to the educational visions underpinning new school designs as it is to questions over the abilities and costs of architects and builders. Without this educational debate, the new schools currently in development are likely to become straightjackets for educators and learners, rather than sites to support, encourage and develop learning in all its guises over the next 100 years.
This paper arises from a two-day workshop bringing together individuals from a range of design, teaching, mentoring, policy and research backgrounds. The workshop aimed to ‘re-imagine’ learning spaces, and actively encouraged the development of ‘what if’ scenarios that push the boundaries of current thinking and encourage debate of the relationship between educational goals and the design and resourcing of spaces for learning. These scenarios are presented in the paper, not as recommendations, but as a stimulus for discussion.
The images in this publication are included to prompt debate and discussion rather than to act as simple ‘illustrations’ of the text. They were generated by young artists as creative responses to the scenarios presented in the document. Translated into image, these ‘future visions’ of educational spaces are at times challenging and distopian, at others delightful and engaging. They all, however, serve the purpose of questioning our assumptions about what constitutes a ‘
Useful links
Oblinger, DG (ed) (2006). Learning Spaces. Washington DC: EDUCAUSE.
www.educause.edu/learningspaces
This excellent edited collection of chapters, debates, examples and case studies illustrates the ways in which we can rethink learning spaces. A must for anyone about to embark on re-designing spaces.
Design Share
www.designshare.com/index.php/awards/2006/commentary
This site offers a range of examples of new and unique
Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE)
www.cabe.org.uk
Design Council
www.design-council.org.uk
Architecture.com (RIBA)
www.architecture.com
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A recent report from CABE identified that “the design quality of secondary schools completed over the last five years is not good enough to secure the Government’s ambition to transform our children’s education… Too many of the mistakes of the past look like being repeated in the fi rst wave of schools being built under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme”. Over half of 52 schools audited in the last five years were assessed as ‘poor’ or ‘mediocre’.