Part II - Premises for the Development of School Facilities

* Part II of the ACEF “BLOG” on Premises for the Development of a Procedural Planning Model

by

Dr. Ken Tanner, REFP

Premise 4.  The educational program’s goals and objectives are linked to physical places for teaching and learning. 

First, we must know what the curriculum will look like when it is placed in the structures being planned (Now, tomorrow, next week, next year, and as far into the future as we can possibly see.)  After all, we want the function of the school building to be clear so that “function determines form. ”  We want the statement that  “form follows function” to be more than just a cliché. 

Planners and architects should clearly understand what the implications for the curriculum and instructional program are with respect to school learning environments.  We have evidence that the physical environment influences student behavior; therefore, may we also assume that learning is influenced by the physical structures where teaching and learning are supposed to take place?  The places where students learn are important elements of curriculum and instruction, and should be addressed in research and professional conferences of leadership, curriculum, and supervision of instruction.

 

Activities pertaining to premise four may have been called the ‘educational programming’ phase and extend all the way into design development and construction documents.  The curriculum will certainly change and the way teachers are expected to teach will also change over the life of a school.  Therefore, a review of the present and expected curriculum and instructional program is important to prevent obsolescence of the school in relationship to course content, student learning, and teaching methods.  Such concerns bring up the need to plan for flexible and developmentally appropriate learning spaces, school furniture, and technology.

In my opinion, the best way to accomplish valid program definition and description of the functions needed in the school’s physical environment is through the time consuming process of strategic planning that includes curriculum experts, educational planners, administrators, school personnel, community members, students, and parents, for example.  There are some other ways that you might try in planning for a school building, however (see for example: Sanoff, H. (2000). Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning.  New York:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) 

I can tell you what you don’t want and that is a trip over to another school to copy its design.  I strongly oppose cookie cutter (prototype schools) since they speak to the masses and tell them that they are all alike – that just is not so.  Hence, as long as we ask taxpayers to pay for the schools, then we should include them in the planning and design process.  Above all we want “buy in” and community pride built into this monument that is going to be around for a very, very long time.

Premise 5.   Planning and design activities are integrated. 

I suggest a comprehensive approach to planning and designing schools, allowing for interaction across leadership and stakeholder lines.  I concur with McGuffy (1973), who “… suggested that careful management of the planning, design, and construction processes will provide for a comprehensive, overlapping, non-linear approach to the delivery of a facilities project” (p. 2.4).   The management of time for planning, designing, bidding, and constructing the project is vital.  Hence we suggest a modified version of Kowalaski’s (1989) idea of an integrated planning model.  This modification includes the leadership component; a data, resources, and information base; and the specified involvement of the community and educators.   Moor and Lackney (1994) proposed a similar procedure entitled “ an integrated educational facility development model” (p. 84). 

Integration means more than compressing the time between steps.  It also means shared decision-making and collaboration in both the educational planning, programming, and the concept design phases.  The distance between planning and concept design represents perhaps the largest gap in the entire school facilities planning and building process.  Often people in the school and community have complained that they participated in planning and concept design, but when the school buildings were completed they were shocked to see nothing of their work.  This should never occur, given proper leadership and information in the world of school facilities today. Our model encourages and requires involvement in planning, programming, and concept design and continues through the design and construction phases.

Test the above line of reasoning by asking teachers, students, and citizens of a community with a new school building to tell you exactly how much time they spent in planning and designing the new school.  Ask them if they considered their role in the process to be a significant influence on design.  Did they have any influence at all?

References

Kowalski, T. J. (1989).  Planning and Managing School facilities.  New York: Praeger.

McGuffy, C. W. (1973).  Systematic Planning for Educational Facilities. Chicago, IL:  Chicago Board of Education.

Moore, G.T. and Lackney, J.A. (1994). Educational facilities for the twenty-first century: Research analysis and design patterns. Report R94-1. Milwaukee, WI: Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.

*Parts of this blog are used by permission from the book by C. K. Tanner and J. A. Lackney entitled Educational Facilities Planning (1996) by Longman.