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Outdoor Learning Spaces
We've all heard it a million times. "Go outside and get some fresh air." Well, Mom was right, and not just about being bored on a summer afternoon. There’s solid research that shows taking the classroom outside can be a game-changer, especially when it is introduced early to our youngest learners.
07/02/2024
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Universal Design for Learning
Approximately 15 percent of children in U.S. public schools receive special education support or services—with some states reporting numbers over 20 percent—and these figures are rapidly increasing. When considering English language learners, the numbers climb even higher. As school districts prioritize the inclusion of all learners, school design teams can support district initiatives by integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into the fabric of educational environments.
06/11/2024
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Evidence-Based Design
As design professionals, we know the impact our physical surroundings can have on occupants – open spaces can inspire a sense of grandiosity but create a lot of noise, certain colors feel calming while others build excitement, curved lines soften a space while straight lines add intensity. These are all well-known tenants of design, but only in the past few decades have we used science to support these claims.
05/28/2024
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Classroom Design
Color selection for classrooms must rely on evidence-based design and principles to enhance engagement and, more importantly, support both teachers and the students in the desired outcomes for their time within classrooms and learning spaces.
05/28/2024
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Learning Space Design
Spaces4Learning recently convened a panel of ed tech experts to discuss how technology and design can help create a better learning experience for all students — and how institutions can plan, design, and assess their own vision for the classroom of the future.
04/03/2024
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Predictions & Trends
We asked our readership to send us their predictions for 2024 trends in educational facilities. Across K–12 and higher-education campuses both, we asked for opinions on topics like technology, flexible learning spaces, campus safety & security, disaster response, and more. This article is the third in a three-part series compiling responses from educational professionals and vendors.
02/08/2024
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Predictions & Trends
We asked our readership to send us their predictions for 2024 trends in educational facilities. Across K–12 and higher-education campuses both, we asked for opinions on topics like technology, flexible learning spaces, campus safety & security, disaster response, and more. This article is the first in a three-part series compiling responses from educational professionals and vendors.
02/01/2024
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Healthy Schools
Incorporating sensory movement pathways in schools can offer several benefits for students' physical, cognitive, and emotional development. These pathways are designed to engage multiple senses and provide students with a structured way to engage in physical movement throughout the day. Sensory movement pathways, also known as sensory pathways or sensory trails, have gained attention for their potential benefits in promoting children's physical, cognitive, and emotional development.
12/05/2023
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Building Blueprints
“Your voice matters” defined the Upper Arlington, Ohio, High School master planning and design process, and it was the catalyst behind the project to improve aging facilities in this high-performing district.
11/28/2023
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Designing for SEL
While these design goals sought to balance the various needs of a school, they also supported social-emotional learning (SEL), which focuses on fostering social and emotional skills within school curricula. SEL can take many forms, but it generally adheres to five central competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.
11/14/2023
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Campus Design
Creating successful spaces to spark curiosity, collaboration and confidence for students starts with several key programming and design considerations.
11/08/2023
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Building Blueprints
The client was Grover Cleveland Charter High School, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District in Los Angeles, Calif. The challenge, modernizing a 1960s-era, single-story school to double its square footage to accommodate additional students and to follow biophilic design goals that would benefit students and foster collaboration and social interaction.
06/20/2023
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Active Learning Spaces
What if you could apply crucial STEAM concepts in a way that engages students like never before?
05/30/2023
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Learning Space Design
Generation Alpha is the class of digital natives born after 2010—currently learning, exploring, and growing in PK–12 environments. What makes them different than past generations of learners? Technology has been ingrained into them as part of their childhoods.
05/23/2023
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Facility Focus
The Francis Tuttle Technology Center, one of the premier career training schools in Oklahoma, enlisted architecture and design firm Bockus Payne in the creation of the Francis Tuttle Danforth Campus in Edmond, Okla.
02/22/2023
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05/01/2021
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Design Guidelines
05/01/2021
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PODCAST
Ishita Banerjii, project architect at Hollis + Miller, discusses Kansas State University’s new multicultural student center. The building, dedicated to advance student diversity, features various gathering spaces like dance studios, huddle rooms, and a commercial kitchen.
12/08/2020
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Adaptive Reuse
As the education industry assimilates to a new and uncertain future, we can take one lesson from 2020 with us: we must embrace innovative solutions and have the courage to try new things as we plan for the future. Adaptive reuse can support this endeavor.
11/16/2020
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PODCAST
In this episode of Schools In Focus, Turan Duda and Jeff Paine, founding principals of Duda|Paine Architects, discuss how architectural design is shifting to better address the mental and physical health needs of students.
11/10/2020
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Classroom Spaces
With a curriculum centered on connection to nature and environmental stewardship, Linden Waldorf School's vision for the pavilions were to move all classes completely outdoors where students get to be in nature throughout the whole school day.
11/06/2020
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Planning
At the onset of a project, the design team and the district must unite to develop the appropriate “Visioning Process” to gain input from teachers, administrators, parents, students, and members of the public. This typically takes the form of in-person workshops or on virtual platforms as we encountered this past spring. The architect can then use that feedback to develop a customized school design that meets the district’s goals and expectations.
09/09/2020
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Episode 5
Stu Rothenberger, Principal at DLR Group, discusses flexibility on a campus scale, the need for long-term resiliency plans, tackling equity issues, and creating smaller interaction spaces in a post-COVID19 learning environment.
08/12/2020
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Planning
Here are five ways that K-12 school districts can keep their learning space design projects on track in a world where social distancing rules and shutdowns interfere with normal operations.
07/22/2020
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Design-Build
The academic sector is the perfect use case for exploring how design-build is the best delivery system for mitigating risk, increasing the speed of delivery, lowering costs, and delivering great design – all through a simpler, more collaborative process.
07/01/2020
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Sensory Rooms
The stimulating environment of a sensory room may heighten awareness, provide a sense of security and comfort, improve creativity, promote mental and physical relaxation, and even decrease aggressive behaviors.
07/01/2020
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When students finally return to school after months of learning from home, there will be dramatic changes. Even when K-12 leaders are allowed to reopen their facilities, doing so safely and responsibly will require everyone to maintain proper distancing while they’re at school, experts agree — at least until there is a working vaccine for the COVID-19 virus.
07/01/2020
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Planning and Design
How can higher education institutions incorporate student success in their resilience planning process as they consider future impacts on campuses? And how can design professionals use their knowledge and skills to support this effort?
06/23/2020
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Facilities
They are the first generation to be immersed in technology since birth, experiencing it as an extension of daily life. As future Gen Zers progress through our learning institutions, their characteristics, wants and needs will further shape K-12 education environments, university campuses and future workplaces.
05/25/2020
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Reopening Schools
We asked designers and architects from across the country what they anticipate classrooms will look like in the fall if they were to reopen, how the coronavirus will impact school design in the long-term, and suggestions on design concepts schools can implement right away to help with social distancing in facilities. Their answers offer insight to available design options and possibilities that can help school leaders plan and make the best decisions for their students and staff.
05/18/2020
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COVID-19
With COVID-19 changing the educational landscape each day, school and college decision makers need all the help they can get during this global crisis. Here are some resources on everything schools and colleges need to consider regarding educational facilities, construction, design and planning of new facilities, maintenance, managing employees and much more. (Updated 5/13)
05/13/2020
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Reopening Schools
The fall of 2020 will be different. Nobody knows for sure what it will look like, but most would agree that it will be different, which raises many questions for those of us involved in the construction and design of academic facilities.
05/01/2020
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STEM
When students return to school at Richardson Independent School District near Dallas, Texas, they will be able to utilize a brand-new state-of-the-art STEM facility that is open to all K-12 students in the district. Designed by Perkins and Will, the Berkner STEM Exploration Center was created for students of all ages.
04/01/2020
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Expert Viewpoint
Teaching and learning are undergoing significant transformation, but, by and large, the design of classrooms has not transformed at the same rate. Here are six key elements of a modern and highly engaging learning space that both supports and encourages 21st century learning: choice, comfort, versatility, connection, stimulation and technology.
04/01/2020
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facilities
Learning is no longer restricted to the classroom or the library. Increasing the use and appeal of the space in between classrooms and other traditional learning environments can play a key role in teaching and learning.
03/30/2020
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Interior Design
In Bothell, Washington, Dykeman, Inc. worked with the Northshore School District to create a flexible, innovative learning center for 1,600 students centered on collaboration. They incorporated state-of-the-art interior single leaf sliding doors and hardware into eight "collaboration cubes" to pave the way for project-based and problem-based group learning, without compromising design.
03/25/2020
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Episode 2
In this episode, Todd Ferking of DLR Group talks about education design that is geared toward the future.
03/04/2020
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facilities
Some common strategies and parallel considerations are at play in all master planning for the outdoors. Each campus must first be approached on its own terms, free of predispositions on planning.
03/02/2020
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Planning & Design
Just as Winston Churchill once said, “we shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us,” designers must consider how education environments of the next decade will shape student behavior.
02/26/2020
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STEM & STEAM
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics are crucial parts of today's curriculum. When it comes to maximizing learning outcomes, many schools focus on the equipment and technology available. However, design also has a significant impact.
02/19/2020
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Episode 1
Spaces4Learning recently launched a podcast focused on K-12 school design, planning and management.
01/27/2020
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Facilities
Increasingly, leading institutions are recognizing that the time is now to focus on workspaces that allow their faculty members to perform research and other academic activities effectively while simultaneously nurturing meaningful relationships with their students.
11/21/2019
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Facilities
A people-centered focus of the design of lab spaces can encourage engagement and place more emphasis on the purpose of the lab, leading to success for the institution.
11/06/2019
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Interiors
Creating an adaptable space is only one component of the agile classroom. What we teach and how we teach are just as important.
11/01/2019
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Space Planning
Colleges and universities are rethinking the traditional use of space, taking innovative approaches, and using analytics and advanced scheduling technologies to optimize their existing resources.
10/07/2019
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Facilities (Campus Spaces)
With careful planning and craft, architecturally significant buildings can take on new life through interior renovations that create up-to-date spaces while retaining historic integrity.
10/01/2019
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10/01/2019
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Interiors
10/01/2019
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Construction Methods
In recent years, the International Building Code has mandated that all new construction for K–12 schools in most of the Midwest and South Central United States include a community storm shelter. This article will explain the requirements of storm shelter design and explore best practices for planning and construction.
09/01/2019
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Facilities (Campus Spaces)
Students need space and time for quiet study, reflection, mediation, and stillness. Here’s a look at what goes into the design of quiet spaces in order to make them both welcoming and effective.
09/01/2019