Educational architecture, school architecture or school building design is a discipline which practices architect and others for the design of educational institutions, such as schools and universities, as well as other choices in the educational design of learning experiences. The design of building can significantly influence the learning experience of students. [1] Additionally, because schools are important sources of traffic, employment and community activities, school buildings often act as anchor institutions in neighborhoods or communities. [2] [3] The decline of a school can have significant impact on local communities.
Educational buildings are often purpose built: designed with architectural choices unique to schools, such as classrooms and centralized restrooms, and other purpose built features. When the schools are closed, its often hard to repurpose the buildings. For example, in 2013, Chicago closed 50 school buildings, and even in 2023, the government was struggling to identify new tenants and how to utilize the buildings. [4]
Various countries have gone through significant changes in philosophies associated with educational institutions, influenced by trends in investment by governments as well as larger changes in educational philosophy.
Though primarily dealing with the physical building where education is given, for example a school. Educational An educational architect can therefore also be someone without an official architect's title. [5] Both the methodical as the physical structure of the education influence the learning outcomes. [6]
Examples of educational architecture as redesign of the physical place are
Examples of educational architecture as redesign of the education process are
The Staatliches Bauhaus, commonly known as the Bauhaus, was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts. The school became famous for its approach to design, which attempted to unify individual artistic vision with the principles of mass production and emphasis on function. Along with the doctrine of functionalism, the Bauhaus initiated the conceptual understanding of architecture and design.
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).
A school is both the educational institution and building designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools that can be built and operated by both government and private organization. The names for these schools vary by country but generally include primary school for young children and secondary school for teenagers who have completed primary education. An institution where higher education is taught is commonly called a university college or university.
The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cranbrook Schools, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Institute of Science, and Cranbrook House and Gardens. The founders also built Christ Church Cranbrook as a focal point in order to serve the educational complex. However, the church is a separate entity under the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. The sprawling 319-acre (1,290,000 m2) campus began as a 174-acre (700,000 m2) farm, purchased in 1904. The organization takes its name from Cranbrook, England, the birthplace of the founder's father.
Special education is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates their individual differences, disabilities, and special needs. This involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, and accessible settings. These interventions are designed to help individuals with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and in their community, which may not be available if the student were only given access to a typical classroom education.
In education, a curriculum is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experiences in terms of the educator's or school's instructional goals. A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives. Curricula are split into several categories: the explicit, the implicit, the excluded, and the extracurricular.
Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, abbreviated "USC" and often called simply Sagrado, is a private Catholic university in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is one of the oldest and largest educational institutions in Puerto Rico with origins dating back to the 1880 establishment of an elementary school by the Society of the Sacred Heart.
A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution.
Interior architecture is the design of a building or shelter from inside out, or the design of a new interior for a type of home that can be fixed. It can refer to the initial design and plan used for a building's interior, to that interior's later redesign made to accommodate a changed purpose, or to the significant revision of an original design for the adaptive reuse of the shell of the building concerned. The latter is often part of sustainable architecture practices, whereby resources are conserved by "recycling" a structure through adaptive redesign.
A classroom, schoolroom or lecture room is a learning space in which both children and adults learn. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, ranging from preschools to universities, and may also be found in other places where education or training is provided, such as corporations and religious and humanitarian organizations. The classroom provides a space where learning can take place uninterrupted by outside distractions.
Columbia College Chicago is a private art college in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1890, it has 6,493 students pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
An educational institution is a place where people of different ages gain an education, including preschools, childcare, primary-elementary schools, secondary-high schools, and universities. They provide a large variety of learning environments and learning spaces.
The Moray House School of Education and Sport is a school within the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. It is based in historic buildings on the Holyrood Campus, located between the Canongate and Holyrood Road.
The Avery Coonley School (ACS), commonly called Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove, DuPage County, Illinois. The school was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive educational theories developed by John Dewey and other turn-of-the-20th-century philosophers, and was a nationally recognized model for progressive education well into the 1940s. From 1943 to 1965, Avery Coonley was part of the National College of Education (now National Louis University), serving as a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research. In the 1960s, ACS became a regional research center and a leadership hub for independent schools, and began to focus on the education of the gifted.
Student engagement occurs when "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success, but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives."
Springmont is a private Montessori school located in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, in Metro Atlanta, at 5750 Long Island Drive. The school serves around 260 students rangingfrom 18 months to 14 years old. It is the oldest Montessori school in the Southeast.
"Factory model schools", "factory model education", or "industrial era schools" are ahistorical terms that emerged in the mid to late-20th century and are used by writers and speakers as a rhetorical device by those advocating changes to education systems. Generally speaking, when used, the terms are referencing characteristics of European education that emerged in the late 18th century and then in North America in the mid-19th century that include top-down management, outcomes designed to meet societal needs, age-based classrooms, the modern liberal arts curriculum, and a focus on producing results. The phrase is typically used in the context of discussing what the author has identified as negative aspects of public schools. As an example, the "factory model of schools are 'designed to create docile subjects and factory workers.'" The phrases are also used to incorrectly suggest the look of American education hasn't changed since the 19th century. Educational historians describe the phrase as misleading and an inaccurate representation of the development of American public education. Education historian Sherman Dorn offers:
the [factory model school] myth exits because teaching and schooling is risk-averse, and because we argue based on metaphors: schools as factories, teachers as armies, schools as malls... knowing the accurate history frees us from the idea that schools cannot change. They can, and we are not the first generation to try. Nor will we be the last.
School organizational models are methods of structuring the curriculum, functions, and facilities for schools, colleges, and universities. The organizing of teaching and learning has been structured since the first educational institutions were established. With greater specialization and expertise in a particular field of knowledge, and a gathering of like-minded individuals, instructors clustered into specialized groups, schools, and eventually departments within larger institutions. This structure spread rapidly during the 19th and 20th centuries with factory model schools and their "assembly-line" method of standardized curriculum and instructional methods. Beginning with the progressive educational movement in the early-mid 20th century, and again with similar trends in the late 20th and early 21st century, alternative models structured towards deeper learning, higher retention, and 21st century skills developed. The organizational models of schools fall into several main categories, including: departmental, integrative, project-based, academy, small learning communities, and school-within-a-school.
Learning space or learning setting refers to a physical setting for a learning environment, a place in which teaching and learning occur. The term is commonly used as a more definitive alternative to "classroom," but it may also refer to an indoor or outdoor location, either actual or virtual. Learning spaces are highly diverse in use, configuration, location, and educational institution. They support a variety of pedagogies, including quiet study, passive or active learning, kinesthetic or physical learning, vocational learning, experiential learning, and others. As the design of a learning space impacts the learning process, it is deemed important to design a learning space with the learning process in mind.
Prakash Nair is an American school architect, entrepreneur, writer and public speaker who advocates for open classrooms in schools.