Architecture of Schools: The New Learning EnvironmentsMark Dudek

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 13 No. 1 (2003) ISSN: 1546-2250 Architecture of Schools: The New Learning Environments Dudek, Mark (2000). Boston: Architectural Press; 238 pages. $69.99. ISBN 0750635851. Architecture of Schools: The New Learning Environmentsmakes a substantial contribution to the perennial debate on the role ofarchitecture in the educational process. As Mark Dudek, the author,explains, teachers are mainly guided by their own theories on education, whichon the whole take little account of architecture and space. Theviews of architects are often deemed irrelevant within the framework ofa more general educational debate (101). This is the position from which Dudek works, attempting throughout thebook to “make the case” for the value of architecture in schools, bywhich he means the aesthetic and environmental qualities of thelearning environment. He illustrates his arguments throughout the firsthalf of the book, while providing additional case descriptions of 20school buildings from Europe and North America in the second half. Describing himself as “an informed school architect,” Dudek is afaculty member of the School of Architecture at University of Sheffieldwhere he is the director of a design and research group thatspecializes in educational environments. He is also a practicingarchitectural consultant to the Educative Design Group that formed in1998 as a collaborative project between educators and architects toproduce an integrated childcare prototype environment in the UKcontext. Architecture of Schools reads like a companion to Dudek’s earlier book, Kindergarten Architecture: Space for the Imagination(first edition, Chapman and Hall, 1996). Dudek 243 explores the “evolvingtheory of school design,” and the dichotomies with which schooldesigners have historically dealt since the rise of industrialism. Thetwentieth century has seen an uneven process of“de-institutionalization of the institution” of the schoolhouse, atheme that describes the rise of mass education and the continualproblem of accommodating the needs of the child, needs often definedwithin the context of changing societal perspectives on children. Dudek explores the recurring theme of school architects having todesign large buildings for mass education while simultaneouslyaddressing the conflicting need to create humane environments forlearning. He attempts to present what he calls both the traditional andradical approaches to education and school design. Primary emphasis isplaced on the views of Pestalozzi, Montessori, Steiner, Wilderspin,Froebel, and Dewey, e.g., against the backdrop of traditionalism,authoritarianism and utilitarianism. Dudek describes quite well thependulum swing from the austere architecture and educational theoriesof the eighteenth century to the increasing influence of these earlyinnovative educators who introduced ideas founded in child psychologyon the form of the modern schoolhouse structure and culture. Dudekcovers a broad range of seminal contributions to school architecturefrom Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius,Tony Garnier, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, the Smithsons, Aldo van Eyckand Herman Hertzberger. Another familiar theme weaving throughout the book is thenotion of schools as micro-societies, best articulated by John Dewey’sconception of schools as cooperative communities; as embryoniccommunity life containing scaleddown adult activities. Echoing Dewey,Margaret MacMillan, working with the urban poor in London in the earlytwentieth century, referred to “cities of childhood” where school was aplace of many shelters, just as children create their imaginary, safeshelters out of furniture and other materials. The school becomes atownship of small shelters built as one community but with each shelterorganized as a separate self- 244 contained unit or school home to meet theneeds of children of specific ages. Following this metaphor, architects have imaginatively organized theschool as a microcosm of the city with classrooms as houses, corridorsand communal space as streets, and assembly hall as town hall or forumof public life. Architects have typically seized the “spaces inbetween,” or the “un-programmed” space, as an opportunity to enhancesocial relationships between users, differentiating this social spaceto correlate with diversity of the learning experience. Today,architects specializing in educational facility planning talk regularlyof neighborhoods, a recurring theme in school design. In Chapter 2, Dudek focuses on the modern classroom from theperspective of the educator and asks what must teachers in the modernclassroom do to be effective educators? What concerns might classroomteachers have with their environment, relating to the delivery ofeducation, which school designers should understand? Dudek uses theexercise of creating the ideal classroom to engage educators in adiscussion concerning the complexities of the roles of classroomteachers. In...