The Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL), an independent research organization established by the Ford Foundation, opened its doors in 1958 under the direction of Harold B. Gores, a distinguished educator. Its purpose was to help schools and colleges maximize the quality and utility of their facilities, stimulate research, and disseminate…

A study of what people valued in an old school in Virginia and what they wanted in a new one can be summarized as a facility that encourages interaction among people. Specific planning recommendations include using the home as model for designing schools, creating areas for congregating, and designing the school to be the center of the community.…

The concept of order-seeking is presented as characteristic of school management and related to adaptability as a strategy for design. The actual patterns of management in four schools are presented from survey data. A proposal for a measure of adaptability is made and illustrated in a hypothetical example. (Author)

An evaluation of various plan forms for primary schools analyzes school activities in terms of their acoustic characteristics. The acoustic properties of different teaching spaces and the extent to which these meet the needs of the various types of activity are discussed. (Author/MLF)

The sensation of thermal comfort is determined by a combination of air temperature, humidity of the air, rate of movement of the air, and radiant heat. This digest is intended to assist architects to design educational facilities that are as thermally comfortable as is possible without recourse to mechanical air conditioning. A nomogram is…

The Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering at the University of Minnesota is constructing a building that will be 95 percent underground. (Author/MLF)

This paper investigates the special considerations in defining an acoustical environment acceptable for educational purposes. Reviews various approaches for anticipating the degree of dissatisfaction or annoyance in school spaces, including statistical distributions of class noise, and deals with some design recommendations. (Author/MLF)

Tornadoes and extreme winds cause heavy loss of life and property damage throughout the United States. Most buildings offer significant protection from this danger, and building administrators should know the areas where this protection is available. This booklet presents a review of three schools, all of which were struck by tornadoes on April 3,…

Building systems can be traced back to a 1516 A.D. project by Leonardo da Vinci and to a variety of prefabrication projects in every succeeding century. When integrated into large and repetitive spatial units through careful design, building systems can produce an architecture of the first order, as evidenced in the award winning design of…

Following recent tornadoes, terms of specially trained architectural and engineering faculty conducted onsite examinations and research of building damage. It was concluded that tornado damage to buildings is predictable. A trained architect or engineer can establish, before a tornado strikes, those portions of the building that will offer the…

Much of the destruction labeled vandalism is a consequence of thoughtless design and therefore avoidable in the planning stage. Presented are a redefinition of vandalism, a discussion of administrative programs, and a review of the literature. (Author/MLF)

This article focuses on the future physical layout of the university in view of the profound social and cultural changes of our time that are affecting the structure of higher education in general and universities in particular. We suggest that the basic architectural prototypes of university design should be re-examined in view of these changes.…

This report describes studies on natural air motion induced in wide-span educational buildings. It includes a discussion on the influence of air motion indoors on various factors such as the span of buildings, orientation in relation to outdoor wind, open spaces such as courtyards, plan form, semi-partitions, external projections, adjacent…

An experimental study compared 32 architectural design students' academic achievement as influenced by two different environmental variables (conventional learning space and personalized learning space) and two different instructional variables (conventional teaching and team teaching). Personalized learning space and team teaching had positive…

Behavioral Path Analysis is both a theory and a methodology for studying person-environment interactions. It is designed to be applicable to the evaluation of both environments in use and proposed designed environments. This paper presents the basics of the theory, and some examples of recent applications that have guided its development. The…