Rebuild or refurbish? Reaping the rewards of a sustainable approach
As an architect in our carbon-guzzling world, the concept of sustainability is one I am incredibly passionate about. And, as an architect who has been designing schools and educational facilities for the past 15 years, I am on the front line of the issues facing generations of students now and into the future. One of the fundamental decisions to make when redesigning a school is whether to build a new building, or refurbish the existing one. According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction Sector (2019):
The buildings and construction sector accounted for 36% of final energy use and 39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing building materials and products such as steel, cement and glass.
A significant portion of a building’s emissions throughout its life cycle are created by the building itself – not from what happens within the building, but from the embodied emissions in materials used in its construction. This reality leads us to consider what the opportunities of taking a sustainable approach to the redesign of school buildings can bring, not only for the future of the planet but also for the future of teaching and learning.
Rebuild or rethink?
With so many schools finding their learning spaces are outdated, in poor condition, and failing to support modern teaching methods, it is not enough to just depend on the design of super-efficient new buildings. As architects, and leaders in education, we need to make the most of the embodied carbon already used. With considered design and a collaborative approach, existing school infrastructure can have the potential to be adapted to create 21st Century learning spaces and places that have a lower environmental impact.
Key to the success of any school redesign project is taking the right approach, at the right time, with the aim of maximising both the building’s efficiency and educational and community benefit. So, how do leaders decide whether to bulldoze or rise to the challenge of imagining new possibilities for an old school space?
The value of refurbishment
While refurbishment may not always be the cheapest option, it can deliver the best value in some situations. As schools are sites of rich culture and history, many old school buildings contribute to sense of place. Strong emotional connections can also exist within school buildings, with generations of families having attended the school. Where these relationships create a sense of “place”, school refurbishment can influence the pride in and sense of identity created within the school. Conversely, if there is a less positive image of a school building, a successful refurbishment project can transform perceptions. Investing in existing infrastructure can also pave the way to introducing and prototyping new ideas as well as sowing the seed for a new landscape of learning in the school.
When funds are targeted to the areas of greatest need and impact, or when budget dictates staging interventions over time, the value of refurbishment can be measured not just in dollars, but also by happier and better performing students and staff. Global studies such as the Holistic Evidence and Design (HEAD) project (Barrett, Davies, Zhang, & Barrett, 2015) in the UK have shown that even minor upgrades can have an enormous effect on results as well as student engagement and teacher morale. The Clever Classrooms Report (Barrett et al., 2015), which summarises the findings of the HEAD project, found that classroom design can have a 25% impact, either positive or negative, on student achievement over the course of an academic year – with factors such as colour, complexity, flexibility, lighting and student choice having the most influence. Simple changes can thus offer a real uplift in both morale and motivation, and are easily achieved through refurbishment that is thoughtful and intentional.
Strategies for success – people, pedagogy and place
The key to success when considering a school upgrade is to first define the who and the why, rather than start with the where and the how.
Who
Good design, particularly in schools, is always human centered. The approach to successful school design must include the context and the culture of the school. Start with the people. Guiding questions during this initial phase include:
Who are we designing for – teachers, students, the community, a specific stage or year group?
Which critical issues must we respond to – curriculum change, cross-curriculum learning, technology?
What capacity do we have – time, money, is continuing professional development required if we made these changes?
Defining who the design is for, first and foremost, is key to ensuring the refurbishment project will be impactful and support the betterment of learning.
Why
Next, clarity on pedagogy. This accounts for the why and can be achieved by developing a thoughtful and robust educational brief. The educational brief should reflect the difference the school wants to make from an educational standpoint. It may not be a one-shoefits- all across the school, and it may differ (if only subtly) between key learning areas or year groups. Think of every space in school as a learning opportunity. External space, staff professional areas, even the admin or welcome area, offer opportunities for learning. An overarching strategic educational vision is the foundation stone of an educational brief; however, individual briefs for the targeted spaces should be detailed, specific and created in collaboration with the people who will be using the space.
Where
Once the educational brief has been defined, thinking should be focussed to clarify the aim and possibilities, as well as to explore how and where to best conduct the refurbishment project. If this is the first step to a major upgrade of the school facilities, it is worth investing in a whole-school master plan. Master planning may seem extreme for a project if it is of relatively small value, but it is vital to ensuring your refurbished building is a brilliant new asset and not an expensive mistake. A master plan can help to illuminate the educational vision and reveal hidden constraints that can be transformed into exciting, innovative possibilities.
In a school redesign project, understanding people, pedagogy and place is the key to prioritising goals and allocating resources for the greatest educational benefit.
Case study of St Catherine Labouré
Like many schools, St Catherine Labouré Catholic Primary School in Gymea, New South Wales, was constructed over several decades, starting in the 1950s. It has grown over the years from 33 pupils to its current population of around 540 students. While the “who” and the “what” has evolved over its lifetime, very little change has been made to the “where” – that is, classrooms designed as boxes and furnished with rows of desks facing the front where the teacher is hierarchically positioned. During the 1970s, parts of the school adopted an “open plan” approach, which fell out of favour in the 1980s when walls were built in again (see Figure 1). Generally, all learning spaces in the school were cellular and singular in typology, disconnected from outdoor space, with poor or little connectivity to any activity or opportunity beyond their four walls. The school described these spaces as outdated, in poor condition, and failing to support the innovative teaching and learning strategies they wanted to employ.
Figure 1. The progression of St Catherine Labouré's built environment (JDH Architects, 2017)
The architect's point of view
In working with the school to establish its educational brief, my team and I were guided by the research of Kenn Fisher and Kim Dovey. The aim was to better understand the school’s aspirations for learning, and how their old, tired classrooms could be refurbished to support new ways to teach and learn. Dovey and Fisher (2014) draw on the theory of Constructivism, which emphasises that learners “construct” or build their understanding in the learning environment:
A zone (at once social, spatial and informational) within which existing skills and knowledge can be connected with those that might be learned next. The school environment ... [is thus] seen as “scaffolding”: a temporary framework that enables the social construction of knowledge to take place and then be removed as students become autonomous learners.
Constructivism posits that learning happens primarily through social interaction with others; however, the classrooms at St Catherine Labouré were originally built in opposition to social interaction, and designed to support a passive approach to learning dictated solely by the teacher. One prominent social constructivist, Lev Vygotsky (1978), founded the concept of the zone of proximal development, defined as the area where learning activities should be focussed, lying between what the learner can achieve independently and with expert guidance. Drawing from this knowledge as architects, our guiding questions were:
What are the key environmental factors that support learning that is explicit, modelled, guided and independent?
How do we make spaces reflective and social, sustainable, didactic and purposeful for both the school and the wider community?
How do we refurbish traditional “cells-and-bells”-type learning spaces, give them the desired qualities, and make innovation not just an outcome of learning but also an attribute?
David Thornburg’s (2018) well-known work of identifying three archetypal learning spaces – the campfire, cave and watering hole – was another source of inspiration to bridging the gap between the learning outcomes required (teacher speak) and the types of spaces and places required (architect speak) (see Figure 2).
The terms “cave”, “campfire” and “watering hole” create a visual image; but when we look further into Thornburg’s work, the definitions speak not just of learning but of relationships and interactions. Architects understand relationships. We understand how spaces make us feel, how they inspire and direct us. Using Thornburg’s typologies, we were able to work with the school and code the different pedagogies they wanted to understand how best to refurbish the space:
Cave – A cave is a reflective space. In physical terms it is quiet, free from stimulation, a space into which a student can withdraw. Reflective spaces allow students (and even teachers) to gather their thoughts. It is a space that does not exist in a traditional classroom setting where students’ needs are accommodated in the same way for every student. The refurbishment of the old learning space at St Catherine Labouré included the removal of walls to utilise circulation space for learning. In doing so, we were able to build in cave (withdrawal) areas, which were strategically positioned to be shared between the three kindy classes. The idea of the cave is a powerful concept when it comes to both the relationships we have with learning as well as the relationships we have in a space where reflectivity occurs. At St Catherine Labouré, several cave areas were created. These were designated not just by built structure, but also by the floor coverings, furniture and soft furnishings such as cushioning and curtains. Cave spaces are intentionally separated from the hustle and bustle of the classroom, but for students it was deemed important to maintain passive surveillance adjacent learning areas using glass walls and partitions.
Campfire – A campfire is a space where expertise is delivered. This can either be via teacher-to-class or student-to-class. Think of the storyteller or elder and a transfixed audience. The qualities of the campfire space speak almost of performance or at least powerful delivery. Today’s campfire spaces need to consider multiple modes of delivery and the use of technology. It is an area to broadcast in both the most ancient and the most modern of ways. The campfire space at St Catherine Labouré has been created through the allocation of walls between learning areas and circulation space. These insets provide acoustic separation for the classrooms, while still maintaining a visual connection. The infill walls were demolished and reconfigured to create intimate areas in the former circulation space. An amphitheatre was then created with furniture that could be easily removed to allow for a variety of different presentation methods and group sizes. We found that the school needed multiple areas for campfires, which could allow for diverse ways to communicate and collaborate as well as for alternate modes of usage. The traditional learning area has been redesigned to be student-centric, student-focused and multi-model.
Watering hole – The watering hole is a space where ideas collide. Think of the elephant drinking alongside the giraffe. This is a creative space wherein ideas can be shared, challenged, built and broken, thus inspiring innovation. For me, this is a messy space. The concept of the watering hole is one that we, as architects, enjoyed creating as it best mirrors the learning and working space of our own practice. It is noisy, collaborative and (dis)organised to support groups of varying sizes. In removing the walls and replacing them with glass sliding doors, multiple windows, coloured glass and pinboards, students are invited to engage with their learning in different ways.
Figure 2. Thornburg's three archetypal learning spaces (JDH Architects, 2017)
Instead of using vinyl for wet areas, aqua carpet was used so there would be no physical definition in the learning space, thus breaking down the silos formed in learning activities. The social aspect of the space is supported by flexible furniture, designed to bring students together and encourage conversation. Soft furnishings, carpet and acoustic ceilings and walls soften the impact of potentially noisy socialisation, allowing for ideas to flow and grow between students naturally and noisily!
The school's point of view
In consultant with the architects, St Catherine Labouré’s educational vision for the learning space refurbishment included the following:
Provide designs that are appraised in terms of how noise is managed.
Develop a high-quality design that inspires everyone (both teachers and students) to learn.
Develop an environment where learning horizontally and vertically can occur – relationships are fostered among students themselves as well as students and staff.
Utilise a sustainable approach to design, construction and environmental servicing.
Utilise internal spaces that are well proportioned, fit for purpose, and meet the needs of the curriculum.
The successful outcomes achieved through the collaborative process of reimagining and redefining learning spaces are keenly felt by Principal Jodie McKay, who shares:
The design and refurbishment responds to our pedagogical needs in so many ways. We are already seeing behavioural change from both the teachers and the students. Everyone is engaged and enabled to learn in the new spaces. Flexible transparent walls respond and contribute positively to current acoustic challenges, while still providing areas of solid wall for learning. The glazing, portholes and openings in the walls allow for teacher and student collaboration, passively supervised break-out, and most importantly create wonderful corners for our children to play, learn and be creative. The spaces are now able to provide the day-to-day flexibility we need to accommodate different group structures and pedagogies. We have an environment where students and staff feel valued, safe and motivated, and learning spaces that are well proportioned and work!
Conclusion
Breathing new life into old school buildings is a sustainable way of re-energising the way you think, teach and learn in your school. It is a pragmatic, inventive, and sometimes surprisingly successful way of making significant inroads to the betterment of teaching and learning. Small interventions can have a big impact on the engagement, morale and learning outcomes for both students and teachers. Refurbishing an existing school building can shift the learning landscape of your school; and while not every building is suitable for refurbishment, those that are deliver not only great built and learning outcomes but also the added bonus of ensuring environmental sustainability.
References
Barrett, P. S., Zhang, Y., Davies, F. & Barrett, L. C. (2015). Clever classrooms: Summary report of the HEAD project. Retrieved from https://d7d3e509-a9ca-48ba-90a9-4167b5689991.filesusr.com/ ugd/902e4a_6aa724a74ba04b46b716e528b92ad7fc.pdf
Dovey, K. & Fisher, K. (2014). Designing for adaptation: The school as sociospatial assemblage. Journal of Architecture, 19(1), 43-63.
Thornburg, D. (2018). From the campfire to the holodeck. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
United Nations Environmental Programme (2019). 2019 Global status report for buildings and construction sector. Retrieved from the UN Environment Programme website: fromhttps://www.unenvironment.org/resources/ publication/2019-global-status-report-buildings-and-construction-sector
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. Readings on the development of children, 23(3), 34-41.