Author Archives: Emma Dyer
Conference: Architecture, Citizenship, Space: British Architecture from the 1920s to the 1970s
PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS 15th – 16th June 2017 Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford How did individuals and groups concerned with architecture and the built environment respond to, and seek to shape, the challenges and opportunities of twentieth-century life? Engaging with themes such as democracy, citizenship, leisure, culture and new subjectivities, and showcasing […]
Schools of Tomorrow, a free “kick-off conference” Berlin, May 4-6 2017
One hundred years ago, educational reformers across the globe strove to create the foundation for new methods of learning and teaching. Industrialization, worldwide migration and urbanization led to profound upheavals, to which progressive educational reformers responded with new school concepts. In his groundbreaking 1915 publication “Schools of To-Morrow” the philosopher und educator John Dewey and […]
Transitions: Inhabiting Innovative Learning Environments
Transitions: Inhabiting Innovative Learning Environments – Graduate research symposia. While the provision of innovative learning environments in many countries around the world is an exciting and overdue development, they are also presenting new challenges for teachers. How well are teachers making the transition from traditional to innovative spaces? Are these innovative spaces facilitating any improvment […]
Conference: educational architecture – pasts, presents and futures.
27 September – 29 September 2017 The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Campus Copenhagen, Tuborgvej 164, 2400 Copenhagen, Denmark. The purpose of this conference is to bring together international scholars working in the field of educational architecture in the broadest sense of the words. This could include (pre)schools and universities (colleges), […]
INSPIRE: A celebration of the RIBA’s National Schools Programme, London, UK.
INSPIRE is a celebration of the RIBA National Schools Programme to be held at the Royal Institute of British Architects, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD on Friday 1 July at 2pm. The event will feature Baroness Doreen Lawrence as a special guest. The programme of events for the afternoon is as follows: 2pm Welcome […]
The spaces have to really want to change: an interview with architect Ruth Taylor
Ruth Taylor was born in London, England and attended schools in Surrey and Buckinghamshire. Prior to studying Architecture at University of Westminster she studied English Literature and Language at University of Liverpool followed by four years working for an investment bank. Before joining SCABAL, as a Senior architect in 2008, she worked with Cottrell & […]
Hertzberger’s ‘cupboardness’
Should schools have cosy, secluded spaces for children? The architect Herman Hertzberger thinks so. His ‘little library,” is one example: a small space beneath a staircase*, furnished with a single, child-scaled chair that offers an inviting, secluded space without prescribing exactly how the space should be used. In Space and Learning (2008), Hertzberger’s text about […]
An educational paradox: where beginner readers learn in school
As a collaborative* doctoral research student in the field of architecture and education, I’m often asked to explain what my research is about. I’m always surprised by how much my answer changes according to who I’m talking to, when and where we’re talking and how I’m feeling about what I’m reading and writing at the […]
Learning how to listen: an interview with Jennifer Singer
Jennifer Singer is an architect and education design advisor. She has collaborated with students, teachers, parents, contractors, local authorities, government bodies, developers and others on the design of nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools throughout the UK. Originally from Philadelphia, USA, Jennifer is based in London. Tell me about an early school. I lived […]
Schools should feel more like home: an interview with Lina Iordanaki
Lina Iordanaki is from Piraeus in Greece. Her first degree was in Primary Education and her master’s degree in Literature at the University of Athens. She is currently a 3rd-year PhD student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. Her research areas include picturebooks, graphic novels, literacy and poetry for children. Her […]
Architecture and Education seminar: two-footed stories of exploration. May 11th 2016, University of Cambridge
Over the past three years, an innovative collaborative research partnership, funded by the AHRC has been established between the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge and SCABAL architecture studio, London. The partnership is entitled ‘Creative Discipline: exploring the value of design in building high quality schools supporting excellence in teaching and learning.’ Three […]
Rising to the challenge: an interview with Helen Taylor, architect
Helen Taylor is Practice Director at Scott Brownrigg, responsible for the strategic planning and implementation of programmes to enhance technical competence and expertise across the whole company. As well as specialising in education design, Helen is committed to sustainability, diversity and inclusive design. She is well-recognised through her collaboration with industry bodies and is a […]
Interview with Herman Hertzberger
Herman Hertzberger, born in Amsterdam in 1932, is one of the world’s pre-eminent architects. He founded Architectuurstudio HH in 1960 and continues to run this thriving practice in the centre of Amsterdam. Best known for his designs of cultural buildings, housing complexes, offices and schools, he is also a prolific writer and teacher. His books, include […]
Discipline and punish in a Pugin school: an interview with Anne Prendergast
Anne Prendergast has spent 30 years in media and publishing and is currently media director at Strattons: a bespoke advertising and design agency specialising in luxury travel, fashion and interior decorating. A graduate of Bristol University and the University of London she also is a new business consultant for Webpuzzle an innovative, digital content management […]
Interview with Irene Lindsay
Irene Lindsay is the Assistant Head of a 2-form entry primary school in Raynes Park, London, which was refurbished by Haverstock Architects in 2012. She has been working in primary education as a teacher since she trained at Roehampton University in the early 2000s. Before that she worked in music education while bringing up her four […]
Problem-solving and school design: an interview with Tim Byrne.
Tim Byrne is a writer and illustrator of books for children and young adults and a digital technology expert, currently a senior project manager at Macmillan cancer support. He was a primary school teacher, ITC co-ordinator and gifted and talented advisor in schools in Lincolnshire and South West London between 1995 and 2008. He has […]
Improving access in schools: an interview with Jane Simpson
An Architect and NRAC registered Access Consultant, Jane is the Director of her own company; Jane Simpson Access Ltd. She has over two decades of experience in inclusion and is noted for her knowledge of the educational sector. She provides advice on a broad range of issues, often clarifying complex aspects of the Equality Act […]
The importance of acoustics in learning: an interview with Shane Cryer, Ecophon
Shane Cryer manages the education sector in the UK and Ireland for Swedish acoustic experts, Ecophon. After a career in the construction industry, having studied building and property surveying, he now concentrates on building acoustics. Working closely with organisations such as The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) and the RIBA, Shane has been promoting the new […]
Futures for English School Design
The following is a list of things we learned during the Education Estates conference, held in Manchester on 10-11th November 2015. We’re not promising they’re all news to you and we’re still unsure what they might mean either now or in the future. We are not experts in building construction; we do have some knowledge […]
Why are people so fixated on area in schools and not on cost?
I returned home from the Education Estates* conference in Manchester earlier this week with one question lodged firmly in my head: why are people so fixated on area in schools and not on cost? The question was asked at the very end of the conference in the final session just as the conference organisers began to […]
I started school twice: an interview with Bridget Murray, teacher
Bridget Murray attended primary schools in the late 1970s in Middlesborough, Hertfordshire and Basingstoke, Hampshire (UK) where she also went to secondary school. After a degree in Computer Science at Warwick University, Bridget took a PGCE at the Institute of Education and taught in primary schools in London and Kent. In the past five years […]
A less modern but more hi-tech primary: more from the DfE’s PSBP
Following yesterday’s cheaper, faster … and better? post, I must apologise for a lack of thoroughness in my research of the school building and maintenance section of the Gov.UK website. At the time of writing I had only read one of the DfE’s latest press releases, dated 21st September 2015, about their Priority School’s Building […]
PBSP school buildings in the UK: cheaper, faster… better?
A Victorian-era community primary has been rebuilt as a modern replacement primary academy in the West Midlands of England and the DfE puts out a press release to celebrate its opening. As a promotional puff for a new school, some of the language used initially strikes me as rather odd. The building is modern, boasting […]
Allowing for easy interaction: an interview with Hedwig Heinsman, DUS architects, Amsterdam
Hedwig Heinsman is an architect who grew up in the Dutch Flevopolder and now lives and works in Amsterdam. One of the three co-founders of DUS architects, probably best known for their 3D Print Canal House, she is passionate about public and social architecture. Hedwig is a graduate of Delft Technical University and the […]
Interview with Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley
Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley, former British secretary of state for Education and Skills (2001-2) taught PE and Humanities from the mid-1970s until 1992, when she was elected as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley. In 2005 she joined the House of Lords as a Labour peer. What are your early memories of school? […]
Interview with Sarah Cuthill, archivist and librarian
Sarah Cuthill is school librarian at Clifton High School in Bristol, England and has worked in archives and libraries in universities, the arts and business, both in the UK and in Australia. She began her school life in Buckinghamshire in the UK and then moved with her family to Switzerland at the age of ten. […]
Interview with Sue Steggles, teacher.
Sue Steggles was a pupil at John Scurr primary school, Bethnal Green in the East End of London in the 1960s. After attending grammar school, she trained to be a nursery nurse. Subsequently, she retrained as a primary school teacher and taught at Curwen primary school in Plaistow, Essex, Old Ford Primary in Bow, London […]
Interview preview: with special school deputy head Pamela Murphy
Pamela Murphy read Geography at the University of Cambridge before working as a University administrator and then training as a primary teacher. She worked in a mainstream school as a class teacher before working in two special schools and she is currently the assistant head teacher of Queen Elizabeth II special school in London. Pupils at the school […]
Interview with Suvani Dave
Suvani Dave has attended independent primary and secondary schools in Ashford, Windsor and Hounslow. She is currently a student in the sixth form at Orleans Park secondary school in Twickenham, where she is taking ‘A’ levels in art, maths and psychology. She is considering studying architecture at university in the USA or the UK. Suvani […]
A school on the edge of a small town
Treetops Primary is to be sited on the edge of a small town in the South of England on a large site with plenty of room for a large school playing field. The school will be two-form entry (420 pupils) with a 56 place fte.nursery, which may be separate or linked to the school. This […]
What is a class?
I’d never been inside an architect’s office until a couple of years ago but I’d always been curious to know what architects actually did while they were at work. I suppose I imagined them sharing ideas around a table, talking, drawing, drinking coffee, making models, both real and virtual … that sort of thing. It […]
Architecture, design and embarrassment
As a student of architecture and education you have all the fun and none of the responsibilities of the professional architect/educator. In June I was given the opportunity by SCABAL to write a brief for their architectural studio’s open day to design a primary school in a day. Once I’d written the brief, I watched as […]
Wiping the slate clean: one way to declutter a primary school
When I asked Catherine Burke what she would wish for if she could change just one thing in all schools, this is how she replied: (T)o remove everything from schools including all the clutter and all the paraphernalia and all the technology and all the stuff and then have a really good think about what […]
The phantom cloakroom
When I was considering whether to include my own childhood school as one of a series of research visits to primary schools, I wondered how that might affect the research. It wasn’t until after I’d made the visit that I remembered Katie Jones & Jon Anderson’s excellent (2009) paper about the methodologies of different research […]
Interview with Judith Baines
Judith Baines was born in 1933 and is a former primary school teacher and Deputy Head. She pioneered progressive teaching methods at Eynsham Primary in Oxfordshire with her husband George Baines from the late 1960s until the 1980s. Judith and George then worked at Bishop Grossteste College, Lincoln, a teacher training college, before their retirement […]
Interview with Ruth Benn and Rebecca Skelton, teachers at Sparrow Farm Infants & Nursery school, Feltham.
Ruth Benn and Rebecca Skelton teach at Sparrow Farm Infants & Nursery school in Feltham, close to Heathrow Airport. Rebecca began working at the school in September 2013, after completing a PGCE in Primary Education while Ruth joined the school a year later after finishing her BA in Education. They both work in the Year […]
Why are there so many interviews on the A&E site?
For a while, I’ve been posting interviews here without writing anything about why these interviews are such an integral part of the A&E website. So here’s my attempt at an explanation. One of the reasons for creating this site was to have a good look at the intersection between architecture and education. When I initially […]
Interview with Georgie Hughes, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, Tower Hamlets
Georgina (Georgie) Hughes is the Reading Recovery teacher leader for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and also trains teachers in Reading Recovery for other London boroughs. Georgie is based at the two-form entry Osmani Primary School in Whitechapel, East London, where she is the Inclusion Manager. Osmani’s intake of children is primarily of Bangladeshi heritage, with seventy […]
Interview with Rima Tarar, architecture student
Rima Tarar was born in Paris in the early 1990s, where she attended nursery and primary school. One year into her secondary education, with very little English, she moved to London and was enrolled in a state secondary school in Hackney. Rima is currently studying interior architecture at London Metropolitan University and considering a number […]
Interview with Dominic Cullinan, SCABAL
Dominic Cullinan is an architect and founding partner of SCABAL (Studio Cullinan & Buck Architects Ltd.) based in Hatton Garden. Dominic met Jon Buck at Ian Richie architects in 1989 and they have worked together ever since, forming a partnership as Cullinan & Buck Architects in 1996. Tell me about your first school? My primary […]
Interview with Nicky Manby, Chair of Governors, Pakeman Primary, London
Nicky Manby first became involved with Pakeman Primary, a North London state primary school, as a reading volunteer after a career as a French and German teacher. The teaching and sharing of reading with children has been a significant part of her life and she believes that without good reading schools, children are held back […]
Child vs Book
A short film about reading, place and memory in an East London Primary school.
School design podcast
Five minute sound montage featuring descriptions of school architecture
Interview with Ji Yu (Summer)
Ji Yu, who likes to be known as Summer at the University of Cambridge where she is a doctoral student in Education, is investigating the impact of learning spaces upon student learning in higher education. She is exploring this topic with a comparative (mixed methods) case study in China. Summer grew up in Zixi, […]
Interview with Dr Catherine Burke
Dr Catherine Burke is a well-known historian of childhood, education and school design whose books include School (2008) and The School I’d Like (2003), both co-authored with Ian Grosvenor. Her latest book, A Life in Education and Architecture, is a study of architect Mary Beaumont Medd (2013). She reflected on her own experience of the materiality […]
