IMAGE CREDIT: Angus McKenzie
Constructing Flexible and Adaptable Education Spaces
Leveraging modular prefab to promote change and build a more responsive school.
How do you learn best? Do you like to read? Do you learn by doing? There’s probably as many different answers as there are people. So, how do you create an effective learning environment that works for everyone when everyone is so different? This is a question education facility planner Nick Salmon thinks about a lot.
“There's probably 10 different ways to run elementary school,” says Salmon. “Teachers working alone, with aids, in teams, linked to some powerful learning concept like project-based learning or the sustainable development goals. Each one of those things drives a slightly different way of using the building.”
“Maybe we can't make a school meet all 10 of those, but I bet if we make it support five, we're in a much better position. And we will know that the building can be adapted in many ways.”
But in a lot of cases, adaptation is easier said than done. This is double true in the world of construction. The amount of work required to change a space is so great, even when it isn’t serving users, people keep things the way they are. Creating meaningful space needs a new way of thinking and a new way of building.
Nick Salmon, president of the Collaborative Learning Network
IMAGE CREDIT: Joanne McPike
A space that can flex
“Years ago, I got to see Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd on Broadway. One of the cool things… was that there were all these people who were like lying around as though they were just living on the streets of London,” he says. “But every time there was a change of scene, they just stood up and moved the furniture…. The scene just moved with them and flowed into the next thing… And so that's been on my mind for a long time - what ways could environment just flow with us?”
You see kids do it all the time. Throwing a blanket over a table or building a pillow fort when they need a fortress of solitude. But making a space flexible can be that easy when it designed properly. With the correct considerations, classroom space can be agile to support teachers and empower students.
Leaf Folding Walls transform a space in seconds
IMAGE CREDIT: Upper Left Photography
“It's really important that young people can change the configuration in the room within seconds,” says Salmon. “If everybody knows what they're doing, they can change over room and make it work in a very different way. Ideally the bigger things like walls and doors… or accordion walls - those also ought to be almost a seamless thing. Hey, we're going to celebration-of-learning mode in a kid knows, ‘Oh, I go and flip this lock on that accordion wall system and park it on the opposite side.’ Or there's a pivoting door that pivots, and it's a big wide one that's maybe three meters in length or something, you know, and it pivots in such a way that it opens one space to another while also creating another little nook.”
arge Pivot Doors allow users to open up the space
IMAGE CREDIT: © Creative Sources Photography / Rion Rizzo / Collins Cooper Carusi Architects, Inc.
The next step
That raises the question of how space is allocated in education. When you think of primary schools, the image called to mind is that of several similarly sized classrooms. According to Salmon, that dated approach doesn’t support modern learning models.”
“The thing that's been missing most significantly is variety,” he says. “Everybody gets 90 square meters. What about the 10 square meters spaces? What about the space is big enough for 150 people to come together?”
In aging schools there’s no way to make a change to accommodate that. Building conventionally with drywall, classroom sizes are static even if we don’t need them to be. But building spaces using layered modularity offers versatility. Agile construction systems can quickly be taken apart and reconfigured without mess and downtime that usually puts the brakes on education construction project. Small changes can happen over the course of a weekend. More comprehensive evolution can happen over spring break or summer vacation. The interior gets an update, students get a more functional space, and no educational time is lost.
How can you create a space to offer variety
IMAGE CREDIT: Puskaric Huang Photography
A building should fit more like a mitten than a glove. We ought to be able to wiggle our fingers around in the building over time. If it fits like a glove, it's probably obsolete the day we move into it because it's been so customized to meet one way of doing things. But probably in those intermediate five years, you've already moved beyond that need. The building ought to be adaptable over time.
Nick Salmon, president of the Collaborative Learning Network
IMAGE CREDIT: Puskaric Huang Photography
Evolving over time
That idea was top of mind for the faculty of CAST Tech High School in San Antonio, Texas. Their student population was growing and their technology-focused campus needed to remain up to date for years to come. Using DIRTT allowed them to create a student-centric space that could evolve with them when they needed to make a change.
“To see that kind of flexibility and those possibilities was exciting,” says Melissa Acala, the principal of CAST at the time. “It just helped promote innovation. The facility can adapt to the needs of the student body and the city as we continue to grow a program.”
Flexibility promotes innovation at CAST Tech High School
IMAGE CREDIT: Ray Briggs, Okushi Photography
So, while the project delivered on acoustic requirements, and created distinct spaces to serve students and faculty, it also allows for easy maintenance and renovation. And considering the funding gap related to keeping US schools in good repair continues to grow by the billions, ensuring schools stay relevant is more important than ever.
“This isn't just about square meters of space that were requiring or renovating or whatever it may be,” says Salmon.” This is about creating the best alliance between education and the facility.”
Easy maintenance and renovation helps close the funding gap in education
IMAGE CREDIT: Ray Briggs, Okushi Photography
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