Four Ways Schools are Rethinking Building Design
Date Posted: August 13, 2023
Posted In: News, Projects,
From Construction Dive: Schools investing in campus upgrades are putting more emphasis on spaces that encourage student engagement, allow flexibility for changing enrollments, and ensure student and staff safety, according to experts in school architecture.
Before new spaces are built or existing areas reconfigured, however, there’s a lot of planning between school officials and designers about how best to maximize a district’s desires with what is practically and financially possible.
″It was with that kind of question that we pulled together diverse thought leaders … to come together and kind of try to answer this question of what is the school of the future,” said Melissa Turnbaugh, a board member of the Learning Environments Action Research Network, or LEARN, and partner at PBK, a K-12 and higher education school design firm. LEARN, a new nonprofit organization, is a collaboration of education design experts, district officials and others working to promote safety, access, innovation, health and sustainability in schools.
Turnbaugh said the group will specifically look at best practices and how to replicate those model programs. “There’s so much research out there, but it’s not necessarily easily curated and accessible,” she said.
Meanwhile, as some have their eyes on the future, many schools already are taking new approaches when building or renovating campuses. Here are four trends currently in play, according to architecture and school funding experts working with districts.