Six Keys to Useful Outdoor Spaces

As outdoor learning spaces become more and more incorporated in school design, one can’t help but ask, what needs to be considered when designing them to ensure that they’re useful? The experts have several thoughts.

1. Ownership
Two pieces of creating successful outdoor learning spaces that are often ignored are: 1) engaging the maintenance staff, parents and teachers in the planning process; and 2) providing teachers with support, resources and training to know how to adequately use the space and, therefore, help the children use it.

2. Maintenance
Having a maintenance plan is extremely important and should be discussed from the beginning, because everything requires maintenance: asphalt, concrete, plant materials, etc.

3. Community
Connect the outdoor learning spaces to the community. Recruit parents who know a lot about plant materials who are willing to contribute, or the Boy Scouts, a local garden club or the Lions Club can make a contribution.

4. Shade
Provide protection from the elements. The use of shade trees can protect people from the sun and provide a covering from the rain.

5. Storage and Connection
There are going to be materials that the teachers and students will need, and they should be stored next to the area where they will be used. Outdoor learning space won’t be used if it is not located close to the building. It Is important to look at outdoor and indoor learning spaces as connected, rather than segregated.

6. Variety
A successful outdoor learning space includes a lot of different resources, like as a play area, a gathering/teaching space and free space.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • i-PRO, NovoTrax Partner for New School Emergency Response Solution

    i-PRO Americas, Inc., which manufactures edge computing cameras, recently announced a partnership with NovoTrax, provider of end-to-end life safety and mass notification solutions, to address gaps in emergency response workflows at K–12 schools, according to a news release.

  • Ancient Resilience: How Indigenous Intelligence Shapes the 4Roots Education Building

    As climate change intensifies, educational spaces must evolve beyond basic sustainability toward true resilience – we must design environments that can adapt, respond, and thrive amid shifting, and intensifying, climate hazards. Drawing on indigenous wisdom and nature-based strategies, integrating resilient design offers a path to create learning environments that are not only functional but deeply in tune with their natural surroundings.

  • K–12 Safety Trends Report Reveals Reliance on Training, Technology

    Wearable safety technology provider CENTEGIX recently released its 2025 School Safety Trends Report, according to a news release. The report is based on more than 265,000 incidents during the 2024–25 school year as reported through the CENTEGIX Safety Platform, used by more than 800 school districts across the U.S.

  • Key Considerations for Office-to-Higher-Education Facility Conversions

    Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, office-to-alternative-use conversions have become a recurring subject of urban development discourse. Office utilization rates across major U.S. cities remain below 50%, with vacancy rates exceeding 27% in San Francisco and 16% in New York. Higher education facilities present programmatic and spatial use cases that align readily with the typical characteristics of commercial office buildings.

Digital Edition