Creating ‘perfect’ new learning spaces: collaboration to align design and use

Research conducted over the last half century, in many different countries and multiple educational settings, has demonstrated the impact of the physical learning environment on education. Physical space and material resources make a significant difference to the processes and products of learning and teaching. More subtly, research and historic experience also show that it is vital to align design with use. Therefore, no learning environment, however well designed, will be universally appropriate. This central challenge makes the option of participatory approaches to planning seem more appealing but does not resolve all the tensions inherent in attempting such collaboration when designing for education.

Through this chapter, we explore the proposition that although there is no universal, perfect school design there might be approaches to facilitating participatory planning and design that can be shared. Approaches and tools are investigated for their potential in facilitating productive discussions with and between school users, municipal or other funders of space and architects/designers. We conclude that the various tools can indeed support the sort of collaborative engagement about school spaces that we have argued is necessary, producing settings where design and use are aligned to support current needs, and even enable future innovation.