ARCH5131A

Topical Studies in Design Theory - Residual Primary School Spaces

Target Students BSSc 2, BSSc 3, BSSc 4, MArch 1, MArch 2

Course Term 1

Course Type Elective

Teacher(s) HO, Jimmy

Acquisition of 21st-century skills has been widely discussed in recent educational movements as education “being regulated to fulfil the needs of the workforce in the industry and economy-oriented occupational fields”. As opposed to the conveyor-belt model of schooling in the era of industrialisation, paradigm shifts have been observed in 21st-century learning, including from passive to active learning, from convergent to divergent thinking, and from rectification to promotion of well-being. Active learning involves the change from instruction-based teaching to inquiry-based learning, from individual to collaborative assignments, and from summative to formative assessment. Divergent thinking consists of discussing multiple intelligences, interdisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship. The promotion of well-being involves the application of positive psychology in education for effective learning. Nonetheless, most public schools, as a standardized mass product of industrialization, lacks the capability to support the dramatic changes above.

There are several key ideas or architectural approaches for designing educational spaces after the modernist movement in the 19th century that are still relevant today. Waldorf education from Germany promotes “anthroposophy” and emphasises the importance of art and nature throughout the curriculum and physical space. Montessori education from Italy proposes child-centred learning in a “prepared environment” and encourages independence. Reggio Emilia's education, also from Italy, focuses on creativity and a sense of community and regards the environment as “the third teacher”. Although user involvement is common to the three approaches, there is still a lack of systematic framework for investigating and redesigning public schools.

While designing schools for the 21st century and how learning environments are associated with learning behaviours have been widely and constantly discussed (refer to pioneering works by Pamela Woolner), redesigning learning environments is still a growing field of research in the recent five years, often with the elements of participatory design (Hall, 2017; Woolner, 2018; Mäkelä and Leinonen, 2021). Most studies on redesigning learning spaces refer to curriculum and pedagogical designs instead of physical, architectural spaces. In the UK, Leiringer and Cardellino (2011) started the redesign discussion by looking at the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Programme, which aimed to refurbish or rebuild up to 3,500 deteriorating English secondary schools and half of the 17,000 primary schools. In 2016, the Royal Institute of Architects published a design report on what a “good design” of schools should be, using the most extensive collection of post-occupancy evaluations on UK schools (Plotka, 2016). In 2019, Taiwan Design Research Institute (TDRI) organized the Design Movement on Campus to initiate “campus aesthetic reform”. Meanwhile in Shenzhen, a campaign namely Nanshan-ing - 100 Campus Renewal Plan in Shenzhen was initiated in 2022 to improve 100 school spaces. Both schemes demonstrated a highly collaborative effort between educational practitioners, architects and the government.

In Hong Kong, discussions on redesigning better learning environments are rare in academia and industry. Back in 2001, the Department of Architecture published a design guidebook to discuss “innovative design parameters” for schools in the 21st century. In 2006, the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA) Journal exclusively reviewed the development of public school design over the past 50 years. In 2015, the Architectural Services Department (ArchSD) studied how to design public schools better to address the systemic change brought by the “site-specific and sponsor-oriented design approach”. While the design-research investigations were made around the compartmentalised spaces, the concept of “break-out spaces” – the connections of functional rooms and outdoor spaces for “enhancing students’ interaction, improving circulation and spatial quality” – was first introduced as the official design parameter. It is argued that such “break-out spaces”, or equivalently the in-between spaces, could also be created in old school buildings with proper redesign strategies – which comes to the formulation of this elective course – the investigation of residual, underused spaces in public primary school buildings.