Over the last century we have seen a slow transformation of the architecture of school classrooms in response to changing pedagogical theory and practice. A shift from teacher-centred to student-centred learning is accompanied by the move towards a more ‘open’ plan with new spatial types, interconnections and modes of adaptation. This paper seeks to understand this linkage of plans to pedagogies in the case of the middle school. Using an analytic framework of assemblage theory, clusters of learning spaces from a range of recent innovative school plans are analysed in terms of capacity for socio-spatial interconnection and adaptation. Five primary plan types are identified, ranging from the traditional classroom through various degrees of convertibility to permanently open plans. Patterns of spatial structure and segmentarity emerge to enable new forms of teaching and learning on the one hand, but also to camouflage a conservative pedagogy on the other. If traditional classrooms with their corridors and doors can be understood in terms of Foucaultian disciplinary technology, the new learning clusters suggest a use of Deleuzian social theory to understand an architecture of connectivity and flow. Through an analysis that is intended to reveal rather than eliminate ambiguities, architectural capacities for ‘convertibility’ from one pedagogy to another are distinguished from properties of ‘agility’ or ‘fluidity’ that enable continuous adaptation between learning activities. We find that the most popular types have high levels of convertibility and reveal conflicting desires for both discipline and empowerment. We also suggest that the most open of plans, while cheaper to build, are not the most agile or fluid.

The development of online and virtual teaching and learning environments to augment formal face-to-face environments raises questions about the way the new communication and information technologies (CITs) are being incorporated into the on-campus environment. More importantly, this development challenges the meaning of the on-campus student learning experience. The new CITs require institutions, teachers and researchers to reconsider the relationship of the physical setting to the student learning experience. This paper highlights examples of recent developments of new learning environments which have been enhanced by the contribution of educational developers at several Australian universities. It also proposes a set of pedagogically informed principles to guide the development of on-campus teaching and learning environments which may feature the use of CITs.

The twenty-first century has seen the rapid emergence of wireless broadband and mobile communications devices which are inexorably changing the way people communicate, collaborate, create and transfer knowledge. Yet many higher education campus learning environments were designed and built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prior to wireless broadband networks. Now, new learning environments are being re-engineered to meet these emerging technologies with significant challenges to existing pedagogical practices. However, these next generation learning environments (NGLEs) have not been evaluated thoroughly to see if they actually work as they are scaled up across the higher education system. Whilst there have been a range of NGLEs designed globally – with Australia leading in the past five years or so – it is timely that a more rigorous research methodology drawing from health facility evidence-based design is taken to evaluate their effectiveness in improving the student experience and learning outcomes.Open Acces

Kenn Fisher (2004) Revoicing Classrooms: a spatial manifesto, FORUM, 46(1), 36-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/forum.2004.46.1.8

Biophilic design emphasises human connections to nature to enhance health and well-being. In health and medical environments, the biophilic design hypothesis suggests improved healing and health outcomes when patients have a connection to nature. Emerging evidence indicates that if teachers and students experience a greater sense of health and well-being in the campus environment, they are likely to have better teaching and learning outcomes. To understand this at a deep level, a critical synthesis and analysis of some fifty systematic reviews outlines the significant emerging body of evidence in support of this approach. Systematic reviews are a fundamental basis for new research to be framed in the context of existing research findings within the evidence-based research methodology. Key outcomes of this critical synthesis review are that there is compelling evidence of some 70 health and well-being factors being improved though biophilic design. Also, organising an agreed taxonomy of biophilic design and health and well-being elements at a granular level would assist in simplifying and compiling the evidence of the benefits of such an approach to inform school funding, planning, design and operations authorities.