This article focusses on the lessons learnt from the collaborative design of guidance for new build schools in England about the processes of school design, construction and occupation. The study involved head teachers, school building commissioners, teachers and wider school communities thinking about the pedagogic implications of the production…

Data show an increasing number of Catholic schools from elementary to tertiary levels in developing countries, especially countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. These new Catholic schools seem to follow the industrial-era school design trajectories. However, the exigencies of the 21st century require a paradigm shift, ensuring that Catholic schools move…

This article examines the changing architectural environments of deaf education in the nineteenth century, taking the national institutes in Paris and Bordeaux as its main focus. Founded in the late eighteenth century and initially housed in government-expropriated properties, both schools underwent comprehensive renovation and reconstruction…

The role played by innovative educational environments to support learning for the 21st century has attracted the interest of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development at the global governance level and at the national policy level internationally. This article draws on global, European and Australasian research and data from a…

Amid increasing global and national interest in the built educational environment, this editorial considers developments within the Nordic countries that are investigated and discussed within the articles in this special issue. We discuss commonalities and divergences in the experiences of transition and change in the schools, located in a range…

Award-winning Green Preschools in Bali, Berkeley and Hong Kong were selected to explore the characteristics of Green Schools using measures developed by educators (Environmental Rating Scale for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood (ERS-SDEC)) and architects (simplified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) development).…

In this paper we present the findings of an investigation into the ways in which the discourses and practices of school design produce educational spaces which influence the discourses and practices of teaching and learning when the building is occupied. It expands notions of post occupancy evaluation (POE) research by exploring how the…

The idea that the New Zealand education system will cater to all students, regardless of ability, and support them in developing their full potential to the best of their abilities, is enshrined in the famous 1939 Beeby/Fraser statement. Equality of access policy discourse has shifted to emphasise equitable outcomes, focussed increasingly on…

This paper centres around a discussion of the design and rebuild of a secondary school in Birmingham (England) as part of the Building Schools of the Future (BSF) Programme. The BSF Programme was influenced by a vision of future schooling in which learning environments are transformed by the integration of ICT into teaching and learning practices.…

This article draws together two linked studies on formal teaching spaces within one university. The first consisted of a multi-method analysis, including observations of four teaching events, interviews with academics and estates staff, analysis of architectural plans, and a talking campus tour. The second study surveyed 166 students about their…

Good architecture responds to contemporary challenges, irrespective of fashionable trends, and is characterised by rigorous building processes. Office buildings, housing, stadiums and theatres offer outstanding examples of this principle. But do school buildings figure among them? Happily, in Germany they do, although they are still too rare. This…

The Building Schools for the Future programme has been established to ensure that English secondary schools are designed or redesigned to allow for educational transformation. The programme represents the biggest single UK government investment in school buildings for over 50 years. For this reason, it poses a major challenge to those involved in…

It is important to engender a "sustainable" architectural consciousness in the students who will be the next generation architects. In architectural education, design decisions taken during the early phases of the design process play an important role in ensuring concern for the sustainability issue. But, in general, all discussions…

The UK Government's Building Schools for the Future programme has provided schools with a unique opportunity to improve education for sustainable development substantially by giving pupils the chance to study within a real-life context. This article documents an engagement project in which experts in low-energy building design are facilitating…

One of the central themes addressed by this paper is the design of the curriculum for architectural education using three schools of architecture: the Bauhaus in Dessau, Crown Hall in Chicago and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU) in Sao Paulo. It also reflects on the practices in other schools such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin…