Category Building Schools
Measuring and Evaluating as Rhetorical Management
Are evaluation and measuring a form of rhetorics? A political art of obscuring the political? What’s Post-Occupancy Evaluation got to do with it?
What High Schools Look Like and Why
After 1968, James Ackerman, Giancarlo De Carlo and others questioned school design: why? why like this? This post revisits their questions.
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 […]
What Are We Building Schools For Again?
For OECD and UNICEF, the well-being of UK young people is not good. Is it time to rethink the aim of school architecture?
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 […]
An Interview with Jill Blackmore on space, learning, feminism and the politics of education
Professor Jill Blackmore discusses learning spaces, teachers’ work, feminism and the complexity of education.
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 […]
An Ideal School-Building Programme
Thinking about some of the differences between school-building programmes in Australia, England and Italy got me wondering – what would you want in an ideal school-building programme? Here’s a personal wish-list though I’d welcome suggestions. It’s unfinished and I’ll probably return to it – I think there’s much more to be said, especially about how […]
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 & […]
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 […]
Italy’s ‘Competition of Ideas’ for a New School-Building Programme
Italy’s “Competition of Ideas” for Innovative Schools could stimulate architectural & educational debate.
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 […]
When School Architecture Meant System Architecture
In 1811, Joseph Lancaster publishes his Hints and Directions for Building, Fitting Up, and Arranging School Rooms, one of the key triggers for the idea of a modern school building and a legacy-leaving document that affects how we think of schools today and perhaps even the fact that we can think of schools today. Just […]
Schools and School Design in Africa: An Interview with Ola Uduku
Ola Uduku (Edinburgh University) speaks about the historical influence of Western pedagogies and architectural traditions and their local adaptation in school design.
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 […]
Does a School Building need to look like a School?
…is a question posed by the architect of the school where I’m doing my research. It came up in an interview over a year ago and has stuck with me ever since. Neither of us answered his question – the recording of the interview has us both umming and urring for the next 15 seconds. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
