Designing Schools

Space, Place and Pedagogy

Kate Darian-Smith, Julie Willis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317502661
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Designing Schools explores the close connections between the design of school buildings and educational practices throughout the twentieth century to today. Through international cases studies that span the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia, this volume examines historical innovations in school architecture and situates these within changing pedagogical ideas about the 'best' ways to educate children. It also investigates the challenges posed by new technologies and the digital age to the design and use of school places. Set around three interlinked themes – school buildings, school spaces and school cultures – this book argues that education is mediated or framed by the spaces in which it takes place, and that those spaces are in turn influenced by cultural, political and social concerns about teaching, learning and the child.

1
Architecture and the school in the twentieth century

Julie Willis

Across the developed world, and increasingly in the developing world, the school sits at the very heart of its local community. It is not just an institution of learning but a place that shapes and guides the knowledge, capacity and experience of young lives. Schools are places that foster the intellectual, physical and emotional development of children as they are prepared to join society as productive and engaged adults. Modern schools are not only buildings that support the act of teaching; they also are seen as places that must foster effective learning and socialisation. The foundation of progressive and democratised education is the idea of students as learners who are active and dynamic participants in their education. There is also an understanding that the location of learning cannot be confined to a single place – the classroom – but occurs across multiple spaces and places. Schools are thus designed to foster learning and engagement from students, teachers and the community.

But what makes the modern school? What ideas and aspects of architectural design are realised in the design of schools in the later twentieth century? And where and when did these ideas emerge? The concerns that architects have considered important in the design of schools have arisen repeatedly across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, yet their physical manifestation has changed dramatically over this period. From the mid-nineteenth century, when the design of schools provided teacher-focused environments in which pupils could be effectively taught, it was understood that the relative comfort of children had bearing on their capacity to pay attention, and that the relative hygiene, air quality and light levels of educational spaces were important. By the mid-twentieth century, the concern was more about creating environmentally controlled, flexible, child-centred spaces and environments in which students could effectively learn. Changes to school design were not just a reflection of evolving architectural modes, but demonstrate that pedagogy and design are closely entwined and reflect how, as the conceptualisation of the child as school pupil has changed dramatically over this period, so has the design of the spaces around them.

The design of school buildings developed from the mid-nineteenth century, as various nations began to legislate for universal education as a fundamental social provision; the 1880 amendments to the Elementary Education (‘Forster’) Act (1870) for England and Wales is just one example. The result was a dramatic increase in the number of school buildings that were constructed, mostly as new buildings. Compulsory education meant that every child and every family gained a direct connection to a new type of public building. The design of schools, therefore, shouldered a significant responsibility in the care and education of its students and the message it conveyed to its wider community.

By the twentieth century, the education of children was seen as essential to a healthy and strong nation. The rise of modern nationalism in the late nineteenth century was encouraged by the development of print culture, with the greater circulation and influence of newspapers, books and other printed media. This corresponded with the increased rates of literacy brought about through mass education and were tied to the national interest. The knowledge gained through education underpinned economic competitiveness and, in industrialising nations, the supply of a skilled workforce. Physical health was also considered important in the nationalist project, where the eradication of slums, reduction of infant mortality rates and the control of disease was seen to enable a fit society, capable of contributing to and building the nation. As architect John J. Donovan wrote in his 1921 book, School Architecture, ‘The great possibilities before the nation rest entirely upon the opportunities for universal physical and intellectual education, not upon the development of a few prodigies’ (Donovan 1921: 1). Donovan’s frame of reference was the United States of America, but he could have just as easily been writing about the United Kingdom, France, Germany or many other countries where the circumstances of war had sharpened thinking about the fitness of the next generations to be future citizens. Schooling was not just to be for the privileged few, but for all, as an essential service to the nation.

The idea of healthy children has strongly influenced the design of schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This is evident in a series of major texts written by architects who advocated the needs and requirements for well-designed and appropriate school buildings (Barnard 1850; Robson 1874; Donovan 1921; Martin 1952; Caudill 1954; Otto 1963). Originally, the concern for health was demonstrated by a suggested amount of airspace per child as the basis for classroom planning, or the requirement for sufficient natural light and ventilation. As early as 1850, Henry Barnard was writing of the need for appropriate natural lighting and adequate ventilation in his School Architecture or Contributions to the Improvement of School-Houses in the United States. In his extensive section on ventilation, Barnard quoted scientific studies to demonstrate the need for adequate levels of oxygen and advocated the provision of natural light, to prevent shadows, glare or reflection (Barnard 1850: 41–50). In 1874, E. R. Robson offered an international survey of school buildings within his text School Architecture, Being Practical Remarks on the Planning, Designing, Building and Furnishing School-Houses. Robson used German research to support his discussion of adequate lighting and seating (preferably arranged so the light came over the students’ left shoulders), ventilation and heating (Robson 1874: 176–9; 263–6). These ideas were articulated regularly by experts advocating healthy environments for schools, so by the early twentieth century school facades were marked by large expanses of windows that could be opened, with accompanying passive ventilation systems. Physical exercise was also seen as important, with experts recommending playgrounds and spaces for athletics and gymnastics, both internal and external, for the use of school pupils (Barnard 1850: 62; Robson 1874: 244–62).

These requirements for appropriate light, ventilation and physical activity had a profound influence on the external appearance of schools and the way they were sited, particularly from the early twentieth century. No other public building had the functional requirement of a curtilage of playgrounds and other spaces for physical activity, nor did they need large banks of windows to illuminate each room appropriately for several dozen occupants. The external stylistic representation of the school ranged from the Gothic Revival (echoing the traditional origins of schools from their church-based beginnings) through to classicism, Romanesque, Edwardian Baroque and various revivalist styles, such as the neo-Georgian, up until at least the 1930s, often reflecting the styles of other, similarly sized public buildings. But regardless of its style, its particular functional requirements made – and make – a school instantly recognisable within the built environment.

As Barnard put it:

The style of the exterior should … be calculated to inspire children and the community…. Every school-house should be a temple, consecrated in prayer to the physical, intellectual, and moral culture of every child in the community … for here the health, tastes, manners, minds, and morals of each successive generation of children will be, in a great measure, determined for time and eternity.

(Barnard 1850: 41)

Barnard’s comments pointed to the understanding that the school, and the meanings embedded within its architecture, played a critical role in children’s development. This view has been remarkably consistent across almost two centuries: architects have returned repeatedly to the idea that school architecture should actively support children’s physical, intellectual and moral growth. The exterior of the school was not just a facade, projecting a particular ambition for learning and social improvement: the design of the school building, inside and out, reflected and shaped its educational aspirations. Architects writing on school design noted the importance of translating the school’s pedagogy in its design, so that the building as a whole, and its component parts, could best support the teacher and the curriculum being taught. In this they looked at the internal arrangements of classrooms, the design and position of desks, the line of sight for both teacher and pupil, and the apparatus used in the classroom.

In the early part of the twentieth century, the style of the school was also associated with the seniority of the pupils who attended. Architects recommended that architecture for the youngest students at primary or elementary school be simple and pleasing, to facilitate the transition between home and the wider world, whereas those attending secondary schools should be exposed to architecture that spoke of their transition into productive citizens. This is seen in the different scales of buildings, from the intimate spaces of kindergartens and infant schools that often employed domestic references, to the more imposing facades of high schools, with grand entrances and architectural embellishment. Moving from simpler and smaller buildings into larger and more sophisticated edifices as the school students progressed through their education suggested school as place held an important role in introducing children to and conditioning them for entry into the adult world (Willis 2014).

Increasingly, and in line with modern ideas about pedagogy and child development, the relationship between students and school buildings became more explicit. As Donovan put it, ‘the child should be the motive for the architecture of … school buildings’ (Donovan 1921: 27). This acknowledgement that the needs of children were at the centre of school design was an expression of the wider social shifts that occurred across the later nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. As compulsory education developed the concept of childhood was correspondingly extended. Most notably, in the second half of the twentieth century, the legal age of leaving school was raised, and the period of formal education was lengthened, delaying full engagement with the adult world. Childhood itself was differentiated. In the 1950s the concept of the teenager emerged, where youth between 13 and 18 were considered to be neither child nor adult but a distinct age group of their own.

By the mid-twentieth century, the convergence of ideas about daylight, fresh air, functional spaces and pedagogical principles found a new architectural expression for schools in the clean lines of modern architecture. The principles of modern architecture were founded on functional need, resulting in a universal architectural language that eschewed traditional architectural styles and precedent. This first appeared when architects built social housing projects that focused on providing clean, healthy and functional architecture to the masses, embracing new materials, large windows, open planning and access to fresh air (Le Corbusier 1923). The concern for healthy school children found expression in the open-air schools, beginning in Germany in 1904 and spreading quickly to other parts of Europe, Britain and the United States. Johannes Duiker’s design for the Openluchschool (open-air school) in Amsterdam of 1930 and Beaudouin & Lods’ open-air school at Suresnes, France, 1935–36 (see cover image), exemplified the close connections between modern architecture and the desire to create a healthy environment in the school. In California, Richard Neutra’s design for the Corona Avenue Elementary School of 1935 showed a utilitarian architecture, with large sliding glass doors that encouraged a continuum of the classroom between inside and out.

In the United States, modernism was rapidly adopted for school building, with so-called ‘finger-plans’ (ranges of classrooms opening of a single side of a corridor or breezeway) that allowed for maximum daylight, fresh air and access to the outside, with elevations of unadorned plain-faced brickwork or cement render with large windows and no embellishment, such as Marsh, Smith & Powell’s Roosevelt Elementary School in Santa Monica, CA (1935), and Maynard Lyndon & Eberle Smith’s Northville Elementary School in Michigan (1936). Further afield, examples such as the Bruderholz School in Basel, Switzerland, by Hemann Baur (1939) and Neutra’s San German Home for Girls School in Puerto Rico (1944) included open-air ‘classroom patios’ (Martin 1952): dedicated external spaces for each classroom. It was not just the overall form of the school that was changing. Internally, arrangements for the students had changed significantly, away from fixed, often shared, desks to individual tables and chairs that could easily be moved and rearranged, along with that of the teacher, enabling flexible and changeable teaching and learning situations and a move from ‘formal and directional’ instruction to ‘a classroom … designed to facilitate the learning process … so arranged and so equipped that pupils can work in groups and freely communicate with each other’ (Caudill 1954: 22–3).

Ideas about appropriate learning environments for children, the connection between pedagogy and architectural space and the new built expression of them had only been realised in relatively few buildings prior to 1945. The conditions in the late 1940s, with rapidly rising numbers of school-aged children coupled with changing legislation, like the Butler Act of 1944 in England and Wales, which enshrined education as a basic provision for children of all ages and the responsibility of the state, saw a dramatic demand for new schools. These were to be efficiently built, well designed and fit for purpose. This boom in school building was not confined to the United Kingdom; it was also evident throughout Europe, the Americas and Australia. Post-World War II restrictions of building materials, coupled with new building techniques developed during wartime, gave architects both challenges and opportunities to reimagine school designs. This resulted in a period of considerable experimentation, which can be seen in examples such as the CLASP (Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme) schools in England, the lightweight timber construction (LTC) school designs in Australia and the relocatable prefabricated classroom buildings (‘Bristol huts’) emerging from repurposed aircraft factories, which allowed for rapid, standardised production of new schools.

Mass education and large numbers of new schools meant that the image of school was reinvented to that of a quintessentially modern building – efficient, utilitarian, functional – and centred on the needs of the child. William Caudill, of well-known US school specialist architects Caudill Rowlett Scott, wrote in 1954 of the ‘turning point’ in school architecture that had recently occurred, prompted by a series of factors, including changes to city codes governing educational provision. He wrote:

The ‘pupil [centred] approach’ insists that school planners should begin with a clear and scientifically accurate realization of the actual physical and emotional needs of the pupil … these needs are to be met for the purpose of helping the pupil to perform at peak efficiency in a school designed to function as a positive and flexible aid in the educational process.

(Caudill 1954: 17)

Space and shape were seen to provide the new ways of conceiving the school and its students. School was imagined and realised as locus of community; as a progressive social experiment; as space for diverse educational needs; as mass education; as space for student-centred learning; and as a place for flexible learning. Architects have concerned themselves with many aspects of school design, particularly how to provide what are called ‘well-tempered’ environments, ensuring the school design reflects its pedagogical intent and understanding the important role a school plays in its wider community. It is the move to a modern child-centred educational model, however, that has wrought the most significant change on the design of school buildings. The modern school does not just provide spaces in which children can be taught. It is a place that actively responds to children’s changing needs and development, and it reflects wider social changes.

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The chapters in this volume speak of the changing nature of school as a socially constructed place in the twentieth century. Across diverse locations and populations, the concerns for education remain remarkably similar. The design of the modern school is founded on ideas that had long been considered, such as healthy spaces, conducive to learning; representing and engaging with communities; reflecting pedagogy; and emblematic of modern ideas about architecture. But the twentieth-century school also saw radical experimentation in classroom pedagogy; new ways of framing the classroom; new technologies that shaped learning; and the increasing importance of the child as learner. The contributors to this volume, Designing Schools: Space, Place and Pedagogy, reflect on what makes the modern school through their respective perspectives of architectural, educational and social history.

The volume comprises four parts: ‘Lessons from history’; ‘School buildings’; ‘School cultures’; and ‘School spaces’. Part one, ‘Lessons from history’, includes three short chapters offering distinct perspectives on school design. Ian Grosvenor, in a photographic essay, examines the school as a phenomenon that is both invisible and very present, where designs once considered modern and progressive lose their currency and power over time. Grosvenor encourages us to look at school buildings not just in the present, but ‘to recognise that we are looking at what was [once] the future’. Martin Lawn also considers the invisible school – that which is abandoned and derelict. Contrasting the newly built school as a symbol of hope for the future, he sees the abandoned school as failure: ‘once beacons of learning…. Now they are the sites of the lost ambitions of society’. He exhorts us to understand and value the past, the history, of school design, to understand where its future may lie. Elain Harwood offers a very personal view of post–World War II education through the divergent educational pathways she and her brother experienced, with vastly different places and pedagogical intents. All three authors use the history of schools to suggest what the future may bring for school design.

In part two, ‘School buildings’, the authors examine changing approaches to the design of school buildings. Philip Goad looks at the development of the ideal learning environment through the work of Ernest Kump, a Californian architect and a prolific school designer from the 1930s to the 1960s who was concerned with ensuring that all aspects of light, ventilation and temperature were perfectly controlled for maximum effect to create the ‘well-tempered classroom’. Dale Allen Gyure examines the development of a new type of high school in post-World War II United States, one that moved away from the multi-storey traditionally styled edifices towards schools that were consciously unimposing and more homelike. Reflecting the changing conception of the child, these new ‘casual schools’ combined modern architecture with new pedagogical approaches, and positioned education as preparing children to be productive adult citizens. Marco Di Nallo further reflects on these themes in discussing Swiss schools in the 1960s, where the school was seen as ‘a bridge to the world’. Di Nallo notes the tensions between the creative solutions architects and educators were proposing, through flexible architectural solutions and pedagogical democratisation, and the reluctance of the bureaucracies that governed the school system to embrace such reform. The drawing together of architects, educators and administrators to reconsider and re-vision the school environment through the collaborative auspices of the Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL) in the United States is the subject of Amy Ogata’s chapter. She argues that the activities of the EFL f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• 1 Architecture and the school in the twentieth century
• Part I Lessons from history
• Part II School buildings
• Part III School cultures
• Part IV School spaces
• Index