For a number of years, higher education has moved away from didactic teaching toward collaborative and self-directed learning. This paper discusses how the configuration and spatial geometry of learning spaces influences engagement and interaction, with a particular focus on hierarchies between people within the space. Layouts, presented as…

Background: Education researchers are paying increasing attention to student activism and to the social production of school spaces. Few studies, however, have brought these two concerns together to examine how student activists work to rebuild school spaces in line with their political commitments. In the present study, I address this gap at the…

On 26 February in Lisbon a team from the OECD's Centre for Effective Learning Environments (CELE) presented its first review of a national school building programme. The school building renovation programme in Portugal, which began in March 2007, involves the renovation of 332 schools by 2015. However, Portugal plans to complete 205 by the end of…

Our analysis of the phrase "social space" first of all concentrates on the modal or functional nature of the different aspects of reality, including the social and spatial aspects. Subsequently this leads to an analysis of the problem of modal analogies--one way in which an answer is given to the perennial philosophical problem…

If school administrators do not have a genuine commitment to education that is backed up by funds for staff development, they should steer away from open plan schools. (Author/MLF)

The findings of two studies establish some deleterious effects of unsatisfactory physical environment on school children. However, modern technology enables the exercise of total environmental control in new and existing facilities. Between the realities of today and the exceptations of tomorrow we have a transitional model--the open plan concept.…

The architects, with the teaching staff, administration, students, and community, worked as a team to make a coordinated statement of the physical, functional, and esthetic proposals for a new school. The space and functional requirements of each teaching area have been documented and analyzed to arrive at a realistic appraisal of need for the…

The information presented in this report is designed to develop a better understanding of the design background of the Northwest Christian College campus and its academic center, activity center, and residence center. The goals, facts, and needs of the educational program of the college have been analyzed and synthesized into a design concept for…

Architectural solutions to some educational problems are explored and a systematic method is presented for designing schools as learning environments for children. Classroom environments and outdoor play areas are considered as functional art forms and seen as three-dimensional textbooks. The book demonstrates a way of using curriculum as a design…