Committee on Architecture for Education

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Transparent design in schools

  • 1.  Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-16-2015 10:35 PM
    Hey Everybody!
       At some CAE conference presentations today, I realized a pattern; a lot of newer schools and classrooms have great transparent designs with lots of glass and windows, but it sounds like teachers usually just cover them up! I can infer some of their reasons for doing so, but since I'm a newcomer to school design and architecture, I'd like to hear YOUR perspectives, hence my discussion question:
      What are some of YOUR personal philosophies and rationales for designing classrooms and schools with more transparency (i.e. windows)? What design principles drive this? I'm just looking to get your insights, so if you could do me the honor, the knowledge would be much appreciated!

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    Daniel Lamoreaux
    3rd Year PhD Student, School Psychology program
    University of Arizona
    Tucson AZ
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  • 2.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-17-2015 06:19 PM
    Daniel,

    There are a number of good studies showing that human performance in general and cognitive development in particular is improved by generous exposure to natural light and exterior views. There is also a fairly durable cliché that educators do not like to have their students gazing out the window during class and cover up the windows to prevent this. In other cases, it is alleged that teachers (particularly in elementary schools) want to maximize art and educational material display space, so they use window space for that purpose. And since many of us have seen this first hand on one or two occasions (my favorite was an entire window wall completely covered in tin foil), the clichés endure. In reality, educators may be reacting primarily to problems like glare and heat gain, both of which are intuitively understood and shown by studies to be detrimental to human performance in general and cognitive development in particular. So the design of educational environments really needs to address together all the problems of natural light, views, distractions, display space, glare and heat gain in order to be effective, in my opinion.

    I also believe the instinct to use generous amounts of vision glass in educational environments frequently goes beyond the expected benefits of light and views and attempts to make the space a pleasant place to inhabit and to symbolically and perceptually integrate it with the environment or community in which it exists, rather than to isolate it.

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    Sean Catherall AIA
    Senior Project Manager
    DAVE ROBINSON ARCHITECTS
    Salt Lake City UT
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  • 3.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-20-2015 07:46 PM
    I read of a study a few years ago that stretched across five states, regarding daylight and learning. If I recall correctly, all five states were west of the Mississippi. The study concluded that exposure to daylight, ALONE, improved both comprehension and retention, when distributed among all students of all grades. Whether the daylight comes from windows, skylights, light tubes, or light shelves, the survey revealed improvement at all exposures.

    Regarding covering the school walls with displays, the IBC regulates the amount of wall that can be covered by combustible materials. In South Carolina the code is enforced by state education agency, and they will remove stuff from the walls.

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    Charles Graham AIA
    Architect
    O'Neal, Inc.
    Greenville SC
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  • 4.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-17-2015 08:38 PM
    Daniel, I'll give you one architect's opinion - though I am an architect who has worked a lot in the world of K-12 private schools.  I have been to the "School Building Expos" and gained from touring exemplary schools from around the country, "bringing home" the new ideas.  So, in maybe $32 million in new and rehab work, I always included the ideas and benefits of transparency.  With school security being such an important factor, I especially called for glass in places like all administrative offices, coaches' offices, conference rooms, places where people with any authority over students should "keep an eye on" what was happening in the hallways, gym and lobbies.  To address your comment, "security" was my predominant design principle.

    We were able to convince the schools to build these critical visual portals.  But here is what happened.  Not long after the buildings were completed, I would almost always find that someone had authorized window blinds for these same windows.  Repeatedly, the blinds were installed, and the blinds were turned to a closed position!  (Why did we spend the money for glass?!)  I would take issue with this when and as I could.  This would at times get the window blinds turned to an open position - for a while.  Then I would again find them closed and left that way. 

    Here is my bottom line opinion on why this happened, after living with it for years.  Good school security - in all its many facets - does not happen because it has been provided for architecturally.  It happens when and because the top administrator on campus (head of school, principal, etc.) requires it to happen.  In fact, I now believe it happens only when they require it of their faculty and staff.  Without that requirement being repeatedly reinforced in staff meetings, etc., over a small amount of time, those paid to be responsible for the safety of hundreds of children will favor their own personal privacy instead.  In my work I now specialize in school security.  And this is where I start - "at the top".  The architecture will reflect the commitment of the administrator.  I get it on the record that I'm recommending transparency.  After that, what happens, happens.

    I'm getting lengthy, but I will address one more comment about the classroom.  From my experience of direct interaction with teachers, I find they see a wall - any wall - as a place to post things.  This occurs no matter what the wall is made of - drywall, block, or even glass.  If it's a vertical surface, "cover it up!"  I think we can trace this problem to the programming phase.  During programming we will likely take note of what they teach.  So, we know how to outfit a Science room different from an Art room or an English room.  But we often do not get to learn and consider how they teach.  And this can vary from teacher to teacher, and be somewhat laborious to program.

    The problem may evidence itself more in the lower grades.  There are plenty of pedagogical reasons why the posting of students' work is important.  But when there are 20 to 30 students per class, and multiple classes may use the same room, wall space is at a premium.  It would be helpful, and perhaps help to preserve some transparency, if "wall display" were added to the program, right along with cabinetry, white boards, book shelves, and other wall-claiming classroom components.  
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    Warren Eck, AIA
    President
    Ecksperience, LLC
    Orlando FL
    www.ecksperience.com
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  • 5.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-18-2015 01:11 AM
    As with so many CAE members, and architects in general, I have strong opinions about this. Since the focal element in schools is the classroom, or what we at PDA call the teaching studio, I want to give feedback in terms of that environment. I say that because of course libraries/media centers, gymnasia, and other school components have different natural lighting needs. In terms of classrooms then, I think it is important to consider that especially for P-12 children (as opposed to higher ed), one size truly does not fit all. Counter to Modern notions of universality, where the windows in all classrooms would be the same (including famously the postwar trend toward strip windows or early curtain wall) the optimal visual environment for a five-year-old to learn in is markedly different from that for a teenager, or an 18-year-old who'll be in college next fall.

    Part of my approach has to do with the evolution of children's minds. The vast and diverse literature on child psychology nonetheless allows some generalizations that can be helpful to architects in this regard. With a simplistic architect's understanding of Piaget's work on the stages of children's cognitive development, for example, and the need, indeed often the struggle, for teachers to be able to maintain students' attention, it is clear that glazing in classrooms must be designed with relative attention spans in mind. Full-height glass in a roomful of young children is an invitation for them to wander over to the windows and look outside rather than at what the teacher wants them to pay attention to. Simply raising the window sills to above seated eye level can allow plenty of natural light while helping shepherd focus toward the teacher. There is almost an inverse relation, in this regard, between age and the optimal height or zone on the walls for windows.

    Younger children have multiple periods of recess, so it is not as though avoiding windows to look outside during class is depriving them of the ability to see nature or the environment around their school. In fact, an argument can be made that the optimal place for windows in a pre-kindergarten room is actually on the ceiling (skylights or light monitors). As children get older, as their cognitive and self-control abilities evolve, even children with asymmetrical development are progressively more able to handle a visual field that includes cars driving past the school without getting derailed from their studies.

    Short answer: One size definitely does not fit all when designing windows for classrooms.

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    Eric Davis
    President
    Public Design Architects LLC
    Oak Park IL
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  • 6.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-19-2015 01:40 PM
    Hi Dan

    It is a very common response from teachers. Teachers do not like feeling like they are in a fish bowl. The thought/concept is built on transparency. The all glass Classroom is generally about the Architect. The Classroom should have multiple teaching walls which are typically solid walls. The Collaboration spaces and similar function spaces can be all glass. We do need to maintain an ability to maintain a view into the classroom for safety and for transparency. Though there also needs to be positions in the classrooms for lock down situations to allow the kids to be shielded out of site. Judicious placement of glass should be about the education environment/pedagogy and not simply the aesthetic. If you are wanting to open up the edges of the box then clerestory windows and glass in the corners are great solutions. The other is providing space without walls or with nanawalls to allow flexibility. Another environment teachers hate is the all open floor plans. These were deemed failures for decades yet you see the concept repeated. I will note though that Prakash Nair and Randall Fielding have mastered the balance of open collaborative space with some enclosed space. See the Design Share website. It is rich with information for all architects to access.

    Thanks

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    David Henebry AIA CEFP
    Certified Education Facility Planner
    Dewberry Architects Inc.
    Peoria IL
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  • 7.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-20-2015 01:04 PM
    Daniel,
    This is an excellent question and an ongoing discussion between educators. In the schools that I attended, many years ago, there was an 8' wide corridor with classrooms lined up either side. One had to walk down the hallway and read the sign on the door to find Mrs. Smith's room. We assumed there was a class of 25 students and a teacher "teaching" them. Today the philosophy is to put learning on display, to collaborate not just within "your classroom" but within the greater school community. Collaboration spaces outside of the classroom can be utilized if the teacher can supervise students in small groups both inside and outside (adjacent to) the classroom. The other benefit to transparency is the see and be seen aspect, which provides a degree of safety and security from bullying and vandalism. The facility is easier to supervise and it's easier to keep an eye on all the students.
    We have designed elementary and secondary schools with total transparency and many have been operating for over 15 years. We always have some teachers that state "the kids are distracted" and cover up their windows. But, most of the teachers in our facilities do not. Teachers who "teach" in isolation are not helping their students "learn" how to deal with distraction in the workplace and how to collaborate with others.

    Boyd

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    Boyd McAllister AIA
    VCBO Architecture
    Salt Lake City UT
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  • 8.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-21-2015 05:39 PM
    Daniel-

    This is a great question, and the solution varies with each District/Client.  I'll add a bit to what Boyd's saying.

    From a design standpoint, there are several positives to the transparency that you're discussing.

    1. Daylight into corridors: especially in multiple story buildings, but even in single-story, it is difficult to get daylight into corridors.  By creating transparency in the wall between the corridor and classroom, it allows the daylight to filter through.
    2. The transparency from a collaboration standpoint that Boyd mentioned.  Visual connection to classrooms helps everyone feel like they're part of the same whole.
    3. Security from a figurative transparency sense- teachers and students are never alone in a room where they can't be seen.
    4. Inviting- Walking into a classroom with some transparency feels more inviting that opening a door that looks just like a closet.

    The challenges from teaching professionals of transparency I would list as follows:

    1. Distractions, also as Boyd mentioned.  Concern that students aren't focused on the front of the classroom.  We also see blinds drawn on exterior windows for this same reason.  
    2. Security- this time from an outside threat.  An armed intruder has easier ability to harm students and staff when they can see directly into a classroom.
    3. Teachers want as much wall space as possible.  The wall space is either requested for pinning material to the walls, or having adequate white-board space.  The wall space issue is exacerbated at the lower grade levels, where classrooms typically have more casework requirements.  

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    Travis Willson AIA
    Senior Architect
    Hollis & Miller Group, Inc.
    Lee's Summit MO
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  • 9.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 04-22-2015 06:34 PM
    I've been retired for 10 years so am an out of date responder, still I worked on about 113 projects in my career including 60 school projects. In the old days the code would have prohibited lots of classroom corridor wall glass. Not so now with the IBC controlling things. However in elementary classrooms corridor wall space used to be very valuable for teacher/student storage, toilets for kindergarten and first grade, visual displays, carrels and especially so since the only window wall was the classroom exterior wall (assuming a double loaded corridor). Maybe now with all the wireless iPod technology, teachers don't place so much emphasis on wall storage or white boards at the front and rear of classrooms so there can be more transparency back toward the corridor. But I don't entirely buy the comment that teachers should to be able to teach students how to focus with distractions. Even in elementary schools, students move much more during the school day than when some of us sat in one classroom for an entire day except for food and gym. So there are already plenty of distractions for students without opening the corridors to the classroom. And remember the confusion in the 70's when open plan schools did away with many corridors. I suspect one of the greatest challenges in the classroom today is for a teacher to be able to sit with 25-30 students, be able to focus with them on a lesson, keeping them focused until they all have a sense of the lesson and how it applies to their lives, how it is a stepping stone to their futures. I believe focus is the one thing holding us back as a nation from developing an educated youth, competitive with their highest achieving counterparts in the world. ------------------------------------------- Howard Partch AIAE Anacortes WA -------------------------------------------
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  • 10.  RE: Transparent design in schools

    Posted 05-04-2015 12:01 PM

    This has been (is!) a great discussion. Thanks for the question Daniel.

    Sorry for jumping in so late to the conversation. I have only two comments to add, as my experience very closely follows Boyd's insights and Travis's summary.

    Both of my comments have to do with how we frame our discussion about teachers and teaching.  It can be easy to drop them all in to a general category and refer to what teachers do or need, when the truth is that teachers range in their aspirations as widely as architects do.  Some are solid, back-to-the-basics instructors, while others are pushing the boundaries with every chance they get.  This range of teaching styles and pedagogy is a real challenge for us as we design schools.  To that end, I think it important that we pay attention to the innovators and push the boundaries ourselves, while still accommodating the needs of more traditional teaching methods.

    Without getting too in the weeds on this, the topic of transparency is an easy one for me.  Open things up as much as you possibly can, and then provide the ability for the teachers (or better yet, the students) to control this transparency and the degree to which they wish to embrace the world outside their classroom.  Like Boyd, I've seen this approach work many times, even serving as a catalyst for change in the culture of a school.

    My second comment is that whole "distraction" thing.  Educators' understanding of how students learn is rapidly evolving with advancements in the understanding of brain science.  This, coupled with an emphasis on providing students with the tools and skills needed to navigate a complex and unknowable future, has resulted in an evolving emphasis on authentic learning (real-world, inquiry-based, problem-based...).  This type of learning embraces collaboration, movement and creativity.  It also makes a connection between the student and the learning based on the student developing an inherent interest in the subject (and less often needing to be focused on the front of the classroom).  If this connection is strong, the discussion becomes less about how to keep students from being distracted, and more about how to provide the environment to support a students' engagement (or what I believe Montessori termed absorption) in their work.



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    David Van Galen AIA
    Design Principal
    Integrus Architecture
    Seattle WA
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