Schools and Kindergartens under Reconstruction

Abstract

It is inevitable that, when educational concepts and policies radically change, even solidly built schools and kindergartens have to be renovated. The poor scores achieved by German schoolchildren in the OECD PISA tests prompted a heated debate about how the state school system might be improved and, as a result, German schools and kindergartens are undergoing a range of very different reconstruction programmes. Many schools are now opening all day, which means that children are provided with lunch in newly built refectories and supervised during the afternoons. Kindergartens are also increasingly required to take on a teaching role, offering children a preschool education and preparing them for school life. The spatial reorganisation of children’s day centres is therefore essential to foster group activities and provide areas of refuge for individual children. In schools, formal front-of-class instruction is giving way to group work but the classrooms are to be retained, thus creating a need for additional rooms. Moreover, schools and kindergartens are important focal points in the social life of their immediate neighbourhood. Children spend a large part of their day here, but their parents also make a substantial contribution to the life of the school and kindergarten. In city areas with a highly segregated population where language barriers and cultural differences sometimes produce problems, schools and kindergartens provide an opportunity to make contact and integrate. The capacity of children to socialise readily also offers adults the chance to mix more freely. Architecture may assist this process and act as a social catalyst if all interested parties and users of the building are involved in its design and are thus given the opportunity to identify with ‘their school’ or ‘their kindergarten.’ Several schools and kindergartens consider this part of their social and educational function with the architecture of their establishment in a valuable supporting role. Italian and Swedish school reformers have suggested that a room with a stimulating atmosphere becomes a ‘third educator’ after the class group and the teacher. A sensitive architecture, which addresses all human senses and can be experienced physically, is helpful in this respect. It also enables the user (in this case the children attending the school or kindergarten) to identify with the institution by encouraging a rational, emotional and, most especially, a personal bond with the school or kindergarten. Children therefore feel they have a second home, and they are able to accept their educational institution as part of their new home environment. It is only too easy to underestimate the users’ appreciation of spatial and atmospheric qualities and, in most cases, little value is attached to the spatial ambience as perceived through the senses. Tremendous inspiration may be drawn from the potential to translate the fantasy worlds of those outside the architectural profession.