Looking back to imagine the future: connecting with the radical past in technologies of school design

Abstract

Why look back to imagine the future? Given the almost universal consensus that higher level technology-enhanced learning should lead in the design of school buildings, what place is there for low-level (non-digital) technologies in education? What can we learn from revisiting schools that were at one time seen to be internationally pioneering in the education of young children? What has changed, been lost or endured over time and how do these changes reflect an altered view of the school pupil and their relation to the material world? What differences can be brought about by the new emphasis on the views of children and their participation in the design of education and educational environments? This paper brings together some evidence of the views of school pupils with past and present ideas and practices concerning the design of learning environments. It argues that there are consistencies over time in certain design features valued by pioneering architects and educators that are also found to be appreciated by schoolchildren. Finally, it explores the meaning of designing schools for the future applying the concept of ‘future building’ learning spaces within a framework that links past experiments in education with future scenarios.

Keywords:

• school
• architecture
• design
• learning
• pupil voice

Notes

1. The Schools Network, Annual Conference, 2010. http://blog.ssatrust.org.uk/blog/index.php/tag/spending-review/

2. See Burke (2010, pp. 65–82). The term ‘digital natives’ is from Marc Prensky (2001).

3. ‘The School I’d Like’ (2001) combined reflections of children and young people of 5–18 years. See also Burke and Grosvenor (2003).

4. UK government Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and Primary Capital Programmes (PCP).

5. Dea Birkett, The Children’s Manifesto, 3 May 2011. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/03/school-i-would-like-childrens-manifesto. Children’s drawings tell us as much if not more than their words but there is not space here to do justice to that topic.

6. The ‘Research Cluster’ was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in 2005, part of the Designing for the 21st century programme. See http://www.viewofthechild.org; Burke, Gallagher, Prosser, and Torrington (2008).

7. The term ‘future building’ is suggested by Keri Facer (2011).

8. The Ministry of Education was renamed the Department for Education in 1964. Mary Medd retired in 1972. David Medd continued at the Department until the 1980s.

9. All quotes from The School I’d Like, Dea Birkett.

10. The term was used by David Medd in explaining the design process.

11. Other members of the research cluster were Rob Walker, Alison Clark and Peter Cunningham.

12. D. L. Medd address to the Architectural Association, 18 February 1965, ‘The Work of the D.E.S Development Group’. Gordon Wigglesworth, David Medd, John Kay and John Hitchin.

13. The full report is available from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. See also Burke et al. (2010).

14. Produced by BBC film maker, Eileen Molony (1914–1982).

15. The design for the new school incorporates the old listed buildings and was selected from a list of four finalists in an architectural competition published in Building Design. John Pardey, an adviser to the new scheme, has done much to preserve the unique features.

16. David L. Medd, personal account, School Design 1920s–1970s. March 2009. Unpublished document in author’s possession, page 31.

17. Elizabeth Herbert continues to advocate on behalf of the school design and advises architects in the USA on its suitability and fitness for purpose for education in the twenty-first century.

18. Herbert, interviewed June 2006. Retrieved from http://archives.njit.edu/vol01/etd/2000s/2007/njit-etd2007-034/njit-etd2007-034.pdf, page 91.