Research in the field of Education has produced a corpus of studies dealing with the specific relationship between school building condition and student achievement reporting positive results. Yet, studies have been completed reporting no significant difference in achievement scores from students in buildings in poor and good condition. The…

An engagement with the senses is essential to the creation of closeness and intimacy between people and their environment. It follows then that the development of this way of thinking about the built environment should be prominently addressed in the training of future architects. If an architect has the opportunity--or responsibility--to…

In Pennsylvania, Family Day Care Homes (FDCH) are private residences used to care for up to six children in a 24 h period. These homes are often times the most affordable alternative to day care centers parents have in low-income communities. The aims of this study were to evaluate FDCH providers' knowledge of hazards and their understanding of…

Research has shown that a school building's condition affects student achievement and behavior and that certain facility design elements can improve the learning climate. An ideal CDC (cost-design-climate) associative environment has a balanced interrelationship among the three elements. Unnecessarily emphasizing one or more elements may seriously…

During the 2.5 years the project was in operation, the International Center for Culture and Environment (Santa Fe, New Mexico) provided courses concerned with aspects of intercultural communication related to environmental design and planning to students and practitioners from 15 U.S. states and 15 foreign countries. Courses were provided in three…

Improving the quality of educational buildings is one of the objectives of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Programme on Educational Building (PEB). The PEB does this by disseminating information about ways to produce quality educational buildings at a reasonable cost. This report contains descriptions of buildings…

The development of adaptable and flexible educational buildings and facilities to support changes in educational systems is the subject of this report. A summary of a seminar sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) comprises the first part of this report. Issues discussed include the nature of change and…