How to design a good school?

Share the basic situation of school design in China from three aspects:

1 The basic problems faced by school design in China

2 In solving these problems, how should we recognize the future space of school education

3 When designing a good school, what kind of innovative thinking should be possessed, to better serve the design of the school

This is a couple of classroom drawings . As you can see, these classrooms are very familiar to us, and the layout and educational model of the school classroom from nearly 100 years ago on the left has not changed much. Except for the introduction of modern projectors, whiteboards and other equipment in today's classrooms, there is no essential difference between the classrooms of 100 years ago and those of today. In fact, there have been many changes in the goals of talent development, the philosophy of teaching in schools, the classroom model, and the specific ways in which students learn, including the technology behind it

There have been many changes in the layout of the classroom, or in the way it is organized, or in the way it is taught. But why hasn't the classroom layout, or the teaching space, changed much. Don't schools need to change? What is the reason for the lack of change? There are many questions that deserve to be explored in depth.

Personally, I think there are a lot of reasons why domestic schools haven't changed much today. Compared to schools abroad, especially after World War II, such as the United States, Britain, and Japan, the architectural space of schools in these countries has changed a lot. I attended a school construction conference in Beijing in January, and some scholars from developed regions abroad shared with me some of their thoughts on the design of school spaces in their countries, and it was clear that there are big differences between the educational spaces in other countries and ours.

No matter whether it is the United States or Japan, their school design is very much emphasized on the internal layout of a building and the specific teaching function of each space. The fact of the matter is that the focus is on the fa?ade, the general layout of the building. Personally, I think there is a big difference between the two, and behind this difference, there may also be a supporting theoretical foundation. This phenomenon may be linked to the concepts and behaviors of people at many different levels in the Chinese design community, the education community, the school infrastructure community, and so on. Personally, I don't think this is a single phenomenon, but a collective group **** knowledge. This **** knowledge, if compared with the major developed countries in the West, we can see the different concepts and differences between each other, but also see the distance between domestic and foreign. We can try to explore why China has such a problem from several aspects.

Human factors lead to irrational school construction

The reasons for the existence of school construction in China today may be manifold. One of the reasons, which I personally believe is due to human factors, is the issue of sites. A large percentage of schools in the planning and selection of site conditions are not suitable for the construction of schools. For example, building schools on earthquake fault zones and on toxic sites is a frequent occurrence.

The picture on the right is of a junior high school in an area where there is an economic development zone, which was planned to house businesses and schools. But after the school was built for several years, two polluting enterprises were introduced into this economic development zone. These two enterprises have a **** the same characteristics, that is, every 12 hours after the need to carry out an exhaust gas emissions, these gases have a strong irritating odor, directly leading to the school in the exhaust emissions phase can not be normal teaching.

Besides these, there may be some other problems. Such as the indicators are not set scientifically.

Case in point: I once took over the design of a kindergarten with 12 classes and not a large land area. Then the government gave the relevant indicators, such as the plot ratio requirement is not greater than 1.0, the building density requirement is not greater than 25%, the green space requirement is not less than 35%, the building height is not higher than 15 meters. I calculated based on the class size, and found that a very harsh situation is that such a kindergarten, to be deadlocked 25% of the building density of this target, and then the kindergarten built four floors in order to achieve the relevant building index requirements.

And in the domestic building code, the kindergarten is required to build no more than three floors, so how to utilize the space on the fourth floor? Obviously can not be used as an ordinary classroom, only to do some auxiliary rooms, but auxiliary rooms in the layout of the above picture is very unreasonable, which creates a great conflict.

I tried to solve this problem. For example, can the kindergarten design introduce a new design structure, like the loft structure to solve this difficulty, one of the advantages of this structure is that it can better solve the problem of insufficient floor space with the same building height, because the problem of teacher's office space can be solved on top of the loft. However, after adopting this structure, it is difficult to design a 3-story loft structure with a building height of 15 meters, and it would be better to solve the problem if it is 16m. But the local planning bureau stipulates that the building height cannot exceed 15 meters.

For school sites, there is also no good implementation of a key policy: prioritize the development of education. China in the early 1990s in the national policy level to put forward the priority development of education, education development should be placed in front of the macroeconomic development of the economy, including education-related inputs prioritized to ensure that the economic zone planning, including urban planning to prioritize school planning and so on. However, the actual situation is that primary and secondary school land is often some marginal land, rarely give the best land for education. The result is that there may be many irrational problems in the selection of school sites.

Inadequate or insufficient investment and external selection The vast majority of public schools in China are generally underinvested. The amount of investment in the school basically stays in the 20 or 30 years ago for the school area of the frame, and then according to the frame of the base, multiplied by the standard of capital construction funds (1600 or 1800 per square meter), as the total amount of investment in the school.

There are two problems with this approach: 1: the area is too dead, for the flexibility of the school space, building land or building space is not taken into account. 2: the unit cost per square meter is dead, many school buildings to do a good job, not only the design of the rough room and the funding issues, as well as the school's culture and interior design, but often due to insufficient funding and put on hold. So there may be a general under-investment in the total amount of investment.

I am also often invited, as a bid evaluation expert to help the A side of the school design evaluation, and have participated in some of the school's invitation to bid design myself. In the process of these experiences, you can often see, sometimes Party A invited some of the bid evaluation experts in the evaluation of school building design tend to be more pseudo-experts, the so-called pseudo-experts, that is, he has some architectural background but in the field of school design tend to know not too much, so that some of the experts in the evaluation of the school building tend to be based on their own past experience and understanding of the building, resulting in the final results of the selection of the often exist some gaps.

A major problem in the bid evaluation process is that the real users, such as schools, teachers are rarely able to participate in the bid evaluation process, resulting in some of the actual use of the Party A or the user's needs are often in the evaluation of bidding programs can not get a very reasonable expression.

The bigger problem in school design is the problem of domestic design capacity.

This issue is also a big and urgent problem in school design. School design is a complex thing and not simple. It manifests itself in how the needs of teaching and learning are rationally expressed in space. Churchill had a saying that we shape architecture and architecture in turn influences us. There are some schools that are well designed to reflect the function of education and have a great impact on the promotion of teaching and learning. But the problem is that the current understanding and cognition of the school space for the promotion and facilitation of education and teaching is not in place, the expression of reasonable educational concepts in the design of educational space is not in place, the designer for the school space, educational space, the understanding of the needs of teaching is also not in place.

From a simpler or more minimalist kind of basic cognition, it may be felt that, at present, the lack of good communication between the domestic education sector, the school design community, this lack makes the school in the design of a lot of problems

On the other hand, these architects and designers for the school building should be how to design, from their point of view to explore is not without value, but also very valuable. It is just that better results may be achieved by looking at the issue of school construction from the point of view of strengthening the cause of education and combining architectural expertise with that of education.

Through the school design, the architectural strength and pedagogical strength combined, *** with a good exchange and dialog on this issue, so that the future of the domestic school design may be designed a little better. Comparison from abroad to look at this issue, because individuals have read a lot of foreign literature, when going to read some of the theory of school construction abroad will suddenly found that a lot of theoretical scholars from abroad is not from the School of Architecture and Design is not to do the architectural design, a lot of education, architecture, but in the country, these are really very few.

The United States, for example, San Diego State University College of Education, Georgia State University College of Education, as well as Taiwan's National Chengchi University College of Education, where many professors of education in the study of school design. While in China, no matter teacher training or comprehensive institutions, few scholars to focus on this issue. Currently in education we need to reflect on the interdisciplinary exploration of architectural issues from the education sector is not strong enough, the theoretical foundation is still not solid enough.

On the current state of the country, how do we design good schools?

If any school is very attentive to school design, there must be a lot of concepts behind it, and a lot of needs are expressed through spatial design. What kind of school we build reflects not only what kind of material and technical conditions we actually have, but also what kind of educational concepts we uphold. The core of the design should express the concept of what kind of school we want to teach and what kind of learning space we want to create in the future under the premise of integrating contemporary technology. The design of a school is the construction of its unique pedagogical issues.

A month ago, I met a Japanese professor, Goh Nagasawa. He had published a very influential monograph in the field of school architecture in China. He shared with me the idea that a building stands on top of the land, while building a school is to stand the school on top of the idea.

I personally agree. Many other buildings, such as residential, commercial areas, office buildings, it only needs to stand the building on top of the land, make the floor area, and many facilities and functions can be optimized later in succession. But school construction is not. Schools have special needs from the very beginning of the design, need to do a lot of advance planning, behind the concepts involved in a lot of concepts, such as the concept of education, the concept of student learning, the concept of the curriculum, the concept of teaching technology, and so on a series of issues, so the school is really built on the concept of the above.

When the concept of education is put on top of the construction of the school, it involves another problem: what kind of concepts are needed in the construction of the school. Each school's conception varies, but there is some ****ty agreement at the macro level. I have some ideas to share with you on this issue.

Can today's classrooms disseminate yesterday's knowledge to solve tomorrow's problems

This question is well worth examining. Can our children really use yesterday's knowledge to solve tomorrow's problems? Personally, I believe that tomorrow's problems are still going to be solved by future technology. The future generation is going to solve the upcoming problems with technology that has not yet been discovered. For future children, the future is uncertain and full of challenges, for students now, the focus is not on how much knowledge they have mastered, but rather an ability to identify and analyze problems, creative problem solving skills, in general terms, the students' ability to learn is becoming increasingly important.

Today, in the planning and construction of learning space, we should change from how to better instill and disseminate knowledge to how to focus on the cultivation of students' learning ability. How to use reasonable space design to train students to find problems, analyze problems and solve problems.

I have four re-understandings to share with you.

Re-conceptualize students.

With the development of network technology today, their learning is more experience-heavy, communication-heavy, and dependent on the network, and these characteristics are very different for the educational theories behind the educational space, including the educational infrastructure compared to traditional education.

Re-conceptualizing teachers.

The teacher has always been the instigator, disseminator, and leader of teaching, but in fact, the role of the teacher in the future is going to undergo a certain transformation. A scholar at Beijing Normal University did a study. What exactly is going to happen to the role of the teacher in the next 2030. Proposed that in the dimension of guiding students, from the current proportion of about 20% to 30%, increased to 73%. The traditional dimension of the teacher in terms of imparting knowledge is going to drop from 80% today to 19%. This aspect of the teacher's role has undergone a major transformation, more from a teacher into a learning mentor for students.

The teacher becomes the leader and facilitator of student learning, and the evaluation of the teacher's teaching ability is slowly changing from how well he teaches to how well he helps students learn. Such an important shift means that the subject of the classroom is slowly being returned to the students. Teachers in education are more in activating students' desire to learn, so that they can take the initiative to learn, take the initiative to explore the world, and take the initiative to build their own knowledge. This leads to a big difference in learning resources such as classroom setup, table and chair arrangement, and a series of spatial planning

Re-conceptualizing learning.

Many designers believe that the school space is a lab or library, in addition to the regular classroom, and that there is no other way to learn. This is not the case. Today's education and teaching mode, teaching philosophy has changed a lot. More and more emphasis on the ability of students to independent cooperation and inquiry, more and more attention to the soft power of students, focusing on communication and cooperation and creative thinking. In this process, the way students learn is very different from the past, such as group-based, resource-based, theme-based, project-based, all of which put forward new needs for learning space, which need to be taken into account in the school's early space planning.

Re-conceptualizing the school.

School space is a formal learning space, informal learning space, and hybrid space including dialogue and communication in the middle of the integration, not a separate type, in the past, the school is divided into teaching areas, sports areas, logistics and living areas, now from the perspective of the learning space, how to structure the learning space with the creation of adaptable to the different needs has become increasingly important. Beautiful school construction of new thinking school design is not just a designer's thing, it is a multi-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary issues. Schools need to pay more and more attention to more disciplines and listen to the demands of different stakeholders in the creation of school space. In this regard, I would like to raise a few questions that need to be discussed with you***. Should we look for a designer right after we have a design plan for a school design? Personally, I don't think so. And because we should think, what kind of school we need, how we want to construct the space belonging to the school, need to think more about the school's unique thinking, unique positioning, unique educational concepts, the need for more exchanges, pre-pedagogical thinking, educational concepts, positioning and so on becomes very important. In the school design, design planning, before the project, the school's philosophy, what is the demand, before the A under the building task book, need to think seriously about these issues so that the school space design to put forward new needs. When I was designing a middle school in Hangzhou, we spent two months exploring the school's concept and came up with the idea that the school needed a STEM space. At the end of the design process, we were able to create a unique space for teaching and learning. The school will be completed in September next year. Although there was a lot of land constraints during the design and planning of the school, 5,000 square feet was allocated to create such a STEM space, and a variety of STEM education and communication spaces were planned, which is still of great significance to the future construction and planning of the school. It will also contribute to the development of future students' abilities and the formation of interdisciplinary and creative thinking.

Such a design approach and concept, in any school for the design of the school in the pre-design of some research and conceptual design, more and more recognized around the world, more and more schools to adopt this model for project promotion.

Does school design only mean building design?

School design is very complex, not only refers to architectural design, including the conceptual design of the early stage, architectural and interior design, campus culture design, the special design of the weak electricity and intelligence, and perhaps later on there will be more design, but at present the school design does not only refer to architectural design.

It's a pity that some education bureaus and parties are still stuck in architectural design, they need to change their traditional concepts and pay more attention to interior, campus culture and EMI design, which can help them create better campus construction solutions.

Codes are important as a guide to design, but they impose many constraints when it comes to actual design. How to look at specifications and go beyond them is becoming a growing concern these days.

How to comply with the norms on the basis of more consideration of the actual needs of education and teaching. To solve this problem, thinking should also be shifted from standards-based thinking to needs-based thinking. In the school space planning and design, if you can build the space from the perspective of demand, pedagogical psychology perspective campus concept of the perspective of a reasonable explanation, so that there is a good theoretical basis and demand support, the design also becomes reasonable. And many school spaces today, for why it is not a very reasonable explanation.

How to a greater range of innovative design

Future designers should pay attention to the study of educational technology, educational furniture and equipment, such as desks and chairs with the function of group cooperation, more conducive to the display of learning achievements of teachers and students and exchange of tapestry theme wall, tapestry, for example, has a better display, acoustic absorption, aesthetics and convenience, and so on, and many other advantages.