Routledge Revivals: School Design (1994)

Henry Sanoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351662420
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Arquitectura general

Educators often overlook the positive impact of changing the environment of the school itself when considering how to improve the quality of education.

First published in 1994, School Design shows how to create more effective schools through a design process that involves teachers, students, parents, administrators, and architects. It reveals how to create school environments that develop the whole child, instil enthusiasm for learning, and encourage positive social relationships.

Readers discover how to integrate design research, design participation, and design development to optimize school settings. Using a number of case studies, detailed practical methods show how to:

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• Link behavioural objectives to spatial needs

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• Achieve spatial efficacy without compromising education

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• Match children's developmental needs to facility requirements

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• Promote greater variety in physical facilities to accommodate various teaching and learning styles

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• Gain more valuable feedback from teachers, parents, students, and local citizens on building performance.

In response to tight school budgets, Henry Sanoff discusses how relatively minor design modifications can have a major positive effect on school performance. This path-breaking volume will provide architects, teachers, and school administrators with a wide array of insights into creating spaces that promote better learning.

1
Child Care Centers

Child Development

This section describes the way in which research findings can be integrated into design decision processes. There is the need for a new approach that can engage the architect and the client-user group in a process that links children's developmental needs to facility requirements. Strategies are described that engage parents, teachers, and administrators in collaboration with the architect during the initial stages of design. This process has produced teachers with new capabilities in playroom planning and organization, as well as with an understanding of the way in which architects make decisions. Integral to the process, is the concept of the nonpaying client. For programming purposes, people who use the building are the clients of the architect, whether or not they pay for services. Reference to the user as the nonpaying client, then, attaches greater significance to the importance of user contributions, and to a nontraditional relationship between the paying and nonpaying client.

It is widely accepted that a developmentally appropriate environment — one with well-trained and consistent staff in sufficient numbers, moderately sized groupings of children, and proper equipment and activities, will lead to good child care (Whitebrook, Howes, and Phillips 1989). In all types of environments, working conditions affect services provided. Measures of quality child care have been discussed in several ways. Researchers have attempted to examine the structural aspects of child care, such as group composition and staff qualifications, dynamic aspects of child care that pertain to children's daily experiences, and the contextual aspects of child care, which are concerned with the type of setting and staff stability. One approach for obtaining a quality assessment relies on a rating scale. The Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale, referred to as ECERS, developed by Harms and Clifford (1980), examine seven dimensions of quality:

1. Personal care
2. Creative activities
3. Language/reasoning activities
4. Furnishings/display
5. Fine/gross motor activities
6. Social development
7. Adult facilities, opportunities

Adding the scores across the seven factors provides an overall quality rating. The results of such assessments have shown that children in higher quality centers showed more advanced communication skills and verbal intelligence, and more positive social behavior and task orientation (Phillips, Scarr, and McCartney 1989). It is apparent from the literature related to quality, that classroom quality, child-care setting, and contextual features are measures of social interaction and not measures of the physical features of the environment. Consequently, there is a general lack of understanding, in the early learning field, of the role of the physical environment in contributing to quality child care.

In recent years there has been a surge in the construction of child care facilities. Each project is approached in a unique way with very little programmatic knowledge transferred or recorded. From the limited research related to children's environments, it is becoming evident that new facilities are meeting health and safety standards, but not providing the physical conditions for the developmental needs of young children (Moore 1987).

Major components of the collaborative design process.

This section represents a synthesis of numerous consulting efforts with a variety of client groups who are planning to construct a child care facility. The results of these experiences consist of a process and techniques that can be used by architects and teachers to facilitate a constructive dialogue concerning facility needs. The diagram shown above describes the integration of three major components of the collaborative design process: design research, design participation, and design development. These components precede production, construction, and evaluation. In this model programming represents the synthesis between design research and design participation. This collaborative design process is a departure from traditional programming approaches since the client, the nonpaying client, and the architect are directly involved in all decision-making stages. Furthermore, the stages described as design research and design participation subsume what is normally referred to as facility programming. This distinction enables the identification of discrete activities for each stage as well as clarifying the difference between information received from secondary sources, such as surveys and data bases, and information received from primary sources, such as direct, face-to-face involvement.

Research Findings

Since needs-assessment studies often yield conclusions far in excess of what is practical or feasible, the most important planning decision for the child care center is the number of children to be served. The research studies of Kritchevsky, Prescott, and Walling (1969) have shown that the developmental quality of child care services drops sharply with increases in the number of children served in one building. Prescott et al. (1975) found that center size was a reliable predictor of program quality. In centers serving over 60 children, major emphasis tended to be placed on rules and routine guidance. Conversely, teacher emphasis on these concerns was found to be significantly lower in smaller centers. Prescott et al. (1975) also found that large centers rarely offered children the experience of participating in wide age-range groups. These findings were also supported by Gump (1978). Mixing of ages in smaller centers offered opportunities for older children to serve as models and to enrich overall play possibilities (Moore et al. 1989).

The age groups generally served by most centers are infants (six weeks to 12 months), toddlers (12 months to two years), and preschoolers (three to five years). In order to achieve the needed critical number in each age group, a target number of 60 to 75 children is recommended (Moore et al. 1989) as a basic planning module. As the institutional needs increase, the number of children should then be increased in multiples of 60 to 75 administratively independent units, to keep the scale of the facility within the child's grasp.

In addition to the number of children in a center, an adequate amount of space for children's activities is necessary to insure a quality program that is developmentally oriented. In a commission study for the federal government, based on a review of cases of density and behavior in child care settings, Prescott and David (1976) recommended a minimum of 42 square feet of usable floor space per child. Cohen, Moore, and McGinty (1978), in conducting interviews as part of their national research, suggested that 42 square feet per child permits a much more flexible program, allowing simultaneous options in active and quiet pursuits without children disturbing each other, in contrast to the average minimum requirement of 35 square feet stipulated in most states. A study by Rohe and Nuffer (1977) showed that while increasing spatial density by reducing space tended to increase aggressive behavior, sheltering activity areas by inserting partitions increased cooperative behavior. Both density and partitioning affected children's activity choices (Rohe and Nuffer 1977). In a review of studies, Moore et al. (1989) concluded that the most desirable social environment occurs at a density of 42 to 50 square feet of usable activity space per child. These research findings provide the basis for facility size and classroom organization criteria.

During this stage of the process, background research findings are integrated into the activity analysis. Accompanying the area requirement for usable activity space for each child is the need for well-defined areas limited to one learning activity, with clear boundaries from circulation space and from other activity areas (Moore 1986). Well-defined activity areas or centers may be created with surrounding partitions, storage cabinets, changes in floor levels and surface materials, or other visual elements that suggest boundaries. Spatially well-defined areas support social interaction, cooperative behavior, and exploratory behavior (Moore 1986; Smith and Connolly 1980). Well defined areas also prevent ongoing play from being disrupted by intruders (Field 1980).

A process by which the architect and teaching staff link behavioral objectives to spatial requirements corrects an inadequacy in the traditional practice of architecture in that it recognizes the behavioral requirements of the children in making design decisions. Decisions about classroom organization are usually delegated to the teachers, who attempt to create learning or activity centers, but who are often hampered by the lack of knowledge of how to shape the centers physically. Consequently, running and chasing activities are common in classrooms where boundaries are not well defined (Smith and Connolly 1980). Well-defined activity centers, conversely, separated by clear boundaries from circulation space and from other activity areas, and also with some visual or acoustic separation, decrease classroom interruptions and contribute to longer attention spans (Moore et al. 1989). This implies that activity centers within the classroom require a high degree of spatial definition. The design task, then, requires the development of a building program that can spatially respond to the developmental goals of the teachers of young children as well as to the literature on child development and behavior.

Jonesboro Child Development Center

Attitude Survey
Charette Process
Community Meetings	✓
Design-In
Focused Interviews
Fishbowl Planning	✓
Game Simulation	✓
Group Dynamics
Publi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Dedication
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 CHILD CARE CENTERS
• 2 RESPONSIVE ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE, AND HIGH SCHOOLS
• 3 ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS
• 4 HIGHER EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTS
• 5 PARTICIPATORY THEORIES AND METHODS
• References
• Index