This article focusses on the lessons learnt from the collaborative design of guidance for new build schools in England about the processes of school design, construction and occupation. The study involved head teachers, school building commissioners, teachers and wider school communities thinking about the pedagogic implications of the production…

School design in any epoch reflects the collective values and attitudes of the time, and the political currents which shape perspectives. In this paper, we consider the risks associated with an English school's rebuilding under the Priority School Building Programme, a standardised approach to school design, tending to result in 'traditional'…

This article examines documentation from a previously unpublished architectural survey of English comprehensive secondary school music classrooms, conducted between 1976 and 1978 by a team of Department of Education and Science architects led by David and Mary Medd on behalf of a Schools Council music curriculum research project directed by John…

School architecture is often taken for granted both in use (where it is naturalized) and in writing on education policy (tending to feature simply as policy setting.) Built policy instead points up the active and ongoing role of the material environment in shaping education. From financing and procurement to the design of individual classrooms,…

This chapter presents a heuristic of four principles for researchers, designers or school communities to use to facilitate collaborative engagement about school space. It first explains how each idea is derived from the literature and previous research. Then a practical example of the process in an English primary school is reported. Finally, a…

The relationship between school buildings and their pedagogies is complex. There is a consensus that the built environment through its structure and organisation can impact education, but it is often unclear or unknown how this happens in individual cases. Here we examine one design process, which led to the construction of a secondary school in…

The quality of education suffers when pedagogies are not aligned with physical learning spaces. For example, the architecture of the triple-decker Victorian schools across England fits the information transmission model that was dominant in the industrial age, but makes it more difficult to implement student-centred pedagogies that better fit a…

'New people create new buildings, but new buildings also create New people', so wrote the German art critic Fritz Wichhert in "The New Building: Art as Educator" in 1928. The social and psychological legacy of the First World War was deeply profound and affected how people thought about the future. Children were seen to symbolise a new…

School building design plays a central role in the creation of learning environments and can therefore support educational change. However, non-architectural elements must also be considered particularly when change is attempted. Material space, pedagogical and organisational practices, staff culture and student milieu are interconnected features…

This paper centres around a discussion of the design and rebuild of a secondary school in Birmingham (England) as part of the Building Schools of the Future (BSF) Programme. The BSF Programme was influenced by a vision of future schooling in which learning environments are transformed by the integration of ICT into teaching and learning practices.…

As a child the author had the ability to roam and adventure in green space. Every day as a child she had the ability to lead herself in the 700 hectares of forest that was her backyard. The ability to explore in nature alone is not a common activity for children today. A telling study from Sheffield, England (Derbyshire, 2007) highlights the way…

What narratives may a micro-study within a school reveal about past lives, roles and design? What traces may be contained within a single room? This paper focuses on an oral history of a "welfare room" in a postwar Infants school as told by a welfare assistant. The school is an early example of school designed by Mary (Crowley) Medd…

During the years following the Second World War, there were efforts in several European countries to grasp the opportunity to re-imagine "school" created through the need to rebuild on a mass scale. This article examines in detail an episode in the exchange of knowledge between English and Danish architects and educators during a period…

The Labour Government launched the "Building Schools for the Future" programme (BSF) in February 2003 with the aim of refurbishing or rebuilding all secondary schools in England over a 15-year period, with an anticipated budget of 45 billion British Pounds. In this article, we locate BSF in a wider public policy context which has already…

This article explores the European dimension of a collaborative approach to school design through the lives and relationships of a group of key individuals who in England set about transforming school in the post-war era. The philosophy and practice of this group of architects, educators, designers and policy makers, who regarded the school…