A Space of Choice: Exploring New Patterns of Common Student Spaces (original) (raw)

Designing Spaces and Services: an Experimental Project for Students’ Dorms. Collective Experiences, Connected Lives and Linked Places

2018

This paper describes an experimental teaching project for a student dormitory building in Milan, Italy; and through this applied project the paper presents possible relationships between spatial (environment and experience design) and service design. A human-centered design process was used, exploring the potential of creativity and design thinking while cocreating with the actual people involved in the project – the dormitory students, staff, and the local community members. The process and the methodology used were very important, especially the co-design activities: the dorm, in fact, was designed by the PSSD students in the studio for the students and with the students of the dorm. The dormitory, as a part, like most university campuses and schools, as a whole, can be considered an urban hub through which synergistic relations take place between the structure of the dorm and the neighbourhood and vice versa. Six interesting scenarios designed by students that explore the sense o...

Designing spaces and services. An experimental project for student dormitories: Collective experiences, connected lives and linked places

2018

This paper describes an experimental teaching project for a student dormitory building in Milan, Italy; and through this applied project the paper presents possible relationships between spatial (environment and experience design) and service design. A human-centered design process was used, exploring the potential of creativity and design thinking while co- creating with the actual people involved in the project – the dormitory students, staff, and the local community members. The process and the methodology used were very important, especially the co-design activities: the dorm, in fact, was designed by the PSSD students in the studio for the students and with the students of the dorm. The dormitory, as a part, like most university campuses and schools, as a whole, can be considered an urban hub through which synergistic relations take place between the structure of the dorm and the neighbourhood and vice versa. Six interesting scenarios designed by students that explore the sense of community hub and a place of social cohesion are included.

Disciplinary dilemmas: learning spaces as a discussion between designers and educators

2009

As an architect and academic, I have been attempting to engage in conversations outside my discipline around the theme of education with a particular focus on how space can support learning. Currently undertaking a Doctorate of Education as the only non-cognate student, I am struck by the different languages that the disciplines of architecture and education use. We each have our own shorthand for capturing and communicating complex ideas. Architects and educators come from different tribes with different ways of viewing the world. These different languages support effective communication when we are working within an academic discipline but can alienate and confuse when we are attempting to work in interdisciplinary ways. The context of this paper is a research project called 'Smart Green Schools' funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) as part of their Linkage Grant program. The aim of the Smart Green Schools research is to investigate the relationships between ped...

Space and service design into educational practice

ServDes2018. Service Design Proof of Concept, Proceedings of the ServDes.2018 Conference, 18-20 June, Milano, Italy, 2018

Contemporary global challenges such as social inequalities, ageing, food crises, nature disasters have encouraged designers worldwide to scrutinise their new role in these matters and to respond with design solutions. Through purposeful sampling, this paper describes how an interior design course has shifted from a more traditional spatial emphasis in the design projects to an approach focalizing on social-cultural challenges and therefore equally addressing the intangible context of design projects. In the new pedagogical strategy the design of spaces goes hand-in-hand with the design of public services and customer experiences. The educational approach leads to new design skills, knowledge and attitudes in the interior design discipline. Finally, the paper illustrates these insights by the live project Design for Education. Aspirant interior designers respond to the challenge of creating new learning and teaching environments for socially disadvantaged districts and interact with stakeholders in order to develop better user experiences.

Architecture design studio culture and learning spaces: a holistic approach to the design and planning of learning facilities

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2011

Defining a culture is never an easy task, more so to define the culture of a design studio make out of individualistic and dynamic mind. It is through the students, that each architecture school and architecture program developed their distinct culture. In Malaysia, like other country, the discipline of architecture takes great pride in the diversity of its program and teaching pedagogies. The studio model has its own culture and values that are as influential in a student's education as the actual projects they complete. In many cases, the habits and patterns exhibited in this culture are not the intentional product, but a by-product. These by-products can be very positive, but they can also produce harmful results. Many scholars, like Thomas Dutton and Kathryn Anthony, have called the consequences of this culture the “hidden curriculum” of studio learning. In simple terms, the hidden curriculum refers to those unstated values, attitudes, and norms that stem from the social relations of the school and classroom as well as the content of the course (Dutton, 1991). Academically, architecture is in fact itself pedagogy and each building have their own embedded hidden curriculum that can greatly influence and affect learning process. However, the problem is teaching has been wrongly assumed to take place in buildings and neglected the other experience in which learning can be experienced. The built environment and the landscape can be a powerful tool of learning, in this regard the campus as a whole should be regarded as a place where learning occurs. This paper reviewed the studies of the possible design approach in planning and design architecture design studio learning spaces.

Development of a supportive tool for participatory learning space design

2015

All learning occurs within a space, whether this space is physical or virtual, but we have limited knowledge of how learning and teaching relate to it, particularly after a learning space’s users engage and adapt with it. A learning space is seen as a third teacher, but there is limited guidance for teachers on how to adapt designed elements of learning spaces. Therefore, this research aimed to empower teachers’ use of learning space without directly involving designers. It did so by sharing redesign opportunities for learning spaces that facilitate learning and teaching. There were three phases to this research: 1) Contextual review using literature review and observation; 2) Understanding learning space use and potential by investigating classroom space through student drawings, social network data, semi structured interviews, classroom photographs, and teachers’ planning books; and 3) Tool and Exemplar development of a supportive tool formed from structured sets of cards for guid...

Survey on Student School Spaces: An Inclusive Design Tool for a Better School

Buildings

This paper presents interdisciplinary research focused on the collaborative redesign in schools, in which an inclusive design tool was created for assessing student feedback on their school spaces and considering it as input for creating a better learning environment. It was developed by a research team using a participatory approach in schools drawn from architecture, geography, and educational sciences, to provide a comprehensive and intertwined approach to school spaces, communities and learning activities. The “Survey on Student School Spaces” (S3S) tool and its methodology are described here, which is a combination of two procedures: a questionnaire and a walkthrough. The first engages a far-reaching sample of participants and makes use of an online platform, while the latter details and justifies those outputs and involves visiting the school with the participants. The S3S pilot study was implemented in two partner schools, which act as the first project case studies. The data...

Affordances of the Spatial Design of School Buildings for Student Interactions and Student Self-Directed Learning Activities

Proceedings of the 13th Space Syntax Symposium, 2022

The importance of school buildings is rooted in the vitality of education for societal development. Literature perceives learning as a social process, enriched by student interactions and self-directed activities, and the school design should afford those learning practices. The term afford refers to spatial affordances which are defined, in this paper, as the set of possibilities for activities offered by the spatial design to students. Therefore, research on school buildings requires a broad investigation of the spatial design, to uncover the design potentiality and explore the actuality of school operation, in terms of the occurring student interactions and self-directed activities (as representations of social learning). This investigation outlines the research scope, while more attention is drawn towards informal learning spaces outside classrooms, including corridors, open-plan studios and social spaces. This paper focuses on the affordances of the spatial design of secondary school buildings. It presents the outcome of quantitative spatial analysis (using Space Syntax tools) on eleven UK schools, designed by three architecture firms, supported by qualitative interviews with the architects of those schools. This data set explores the school design potentiality for possible learning practices. The paper, thereafter, presents quantitative recording of student interactions and self-directed activities in two of the eleven schools, supported by qualitative interviews with the school managements and teachers; and student questionnaires. This data set explains the actuality of student interactions and self-directed activities, relative to operational managerial schemes and student preferences. Findings discuss the influence of functionalities allocation and configurational accessibility on student interactions, activity types and distribution. This is portrayed through the example of school corridors which afford interactive learning if being highly accessible and connected to open learning spaces. Nevertheless, operational managerial schemes and student preferences still influence the occurring activities. The research outcome explains the school actual operations, and how they correspond to (or divert from) the original design potentiality. This outcome contributes to the existing knowledge on the student social life in schools, and how the spatial design and school rules impact activity types across informal spaces. This possibly links to future work on interactive design processes that include architects, teachers and school managements to reduce the gap between school design intentions and operation.