Architecture's Impact on Learning.

Integrate Facility and Curriculum for Greatest Effect, Architect Suggests

What are the components of a quality, successful educational program?

This topic has been discussed for decades, often with academia defining the sole requisite as a meaningful curriculum taught by dedicated, talented educators. That's not enough, suggests the environment- and human behavior-conscious architect.

The educational setting also is a critical element for success and can be much more than a sterile institutional backdrop. Quality school environments enhance, even improve programs, attitudes, and achievement. Recent studies support the premise that the built environment is a key element in the overall success of a school.

Obviously, facilities cannot make up for a poor program, but they can inspire students and teachers to higher achievement. When children look forward to attending school, their performance will improve. One school, Whitaker Elementary in El Paso, Texas, actually showed a 20 percent improvement in test scores in the first year they were in their new facility compared to the previous year in an older dilapidated facility.

It is human nature to feel better about yourself when your surroundings are pleasant and inspirational. Teachers also have attested that the environment changed the way they taught and even the way they dressed.

"When I taught in a dirty dingy school, I felt dirty and dingy. I dressed accordingly and taught with the same attitude," a teacher at Whitaker Elementary School, reported. "Now that I came to a new school, I didn't feel comfortable in my old clothes and I was inspired to give the students the best that I could."

Obviously, this is an isolated case, but it does point out that the environment can inspire change.

Since the time of Aristotle and our own Thomas Jefferson and his lawn at the University of Virginia, this argument has been countered by reasoning, suggesting that the environment doesn't matter. A good teacher can teach anywhere, it is said, whether it be a warehouse or underneath a tree.

Maybe this assumption is true, but it also leads one to ask whether you shop only according to cost with no concern for selection or the shopping setting? Could a corporate executive perform just as well in a warehouse as in posh corporate headquarters? Can an excellent speaker communicate as well in a train yard as in a well-equipped performing arts facility?

I suspect the answer to these questions would be that human beings can adapt to whatever stumbling blocks the environment places in their way. However, a quality environment enhances performances of dedicated individuals.

Living History

How can school buildings actually become part of the curriculum?

Coyote Canyon Elementary School in the Central Elementary School District in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., which opened in September 1992, was designed specifically to expose children to the rich and varied history of their community. Four themed courtyards are incorporated into the design to bring Rancho Cucamonga's early history to life. The design of each courtyard was the result of community input from parents, staff, local historians, and architects and represents four major periods in the history of the city.

A Native American courtyard, which is the focal point for the kindergarten and first grade classrooms, is an Indian village, complete with a wickiup and a dry river bed. Each year students learn about Indian culture, rebuild the wickiup, and have the opportunity to live as a Native American.

The Spanish/Mexican courtyard, which is surrounded by second and third grade classrooms, features a five-foot Aztec pyramid that doubles as a seating area, with adobe planters to accent the outdoor learning environment.

A third courtyard adjacent to the third and fourth grades represents California's Mission Period with mission-style focal points including an authentic wagon wheel and a mission bell that students ring gleefully.

The fourth courtyard reminds students that California's first vineyards were located within the city. The courtyard is accented with a grape arbor, and grape vines are beginning to provide a shaded seating area for students.

Each courtyard reflects the period of the social studies unit for its adjacent grade-level classes, allowing students to experience historic settings firsthand. A main hallway, the community spine, links the school's two entry towers. The spine doubles as a community history gallery with pictures of early residents and of various buildings and sites important to the area's development. It also houses interactive displays provided by local businesses illustrating career opportunities. It is gratifying to visit and observe children gaining a firsthand understanding of their heritage and the future.

One can only speculate how environments of the future will allow students to simulate firsthand other lifestyles of past, present, or future. Many schools now are creating historical environments through the enlargement of slides as full-scale representations of times past. Construction of virtual reality rooms is achievable today, to allow students to step out into bygone eras, similar to the "Time Traveller" or "Mr. Peabody." Headsets and goggles would allow each student to explore the culture of his or her choice.

Academic Clusters

High school design also can foster learning. High schools of the future will be subdivided into academic clusters or families of 200 to 500 students. Students and teachers will form an interdisciplinary team (similar to those in middle schools), allowing students and teachers to form personal relationships with perceptive feedback, caring, and trust. The impersonal 2000- to 4000-student "mega" high schools of the late 20th century will be subdivided into workable "schools within a school."

Santiago High School in the Corona Norco, Calif., Unified School District illustrates one district's vision of how cross-curricular clusters might be grouped into four buildings for 500 students each with each cluster for 250 students located on a separate floor. Two counselors and one assistant principal are housed in each building.

All classrooms at Santiago, including science and other specialized labs, will be distributed throughout the campus, giving each academic cluster convenient essential facilities. Clusters will have their own identity either through a defined area or building form. Such a sense of place will allow students to develop identification, tradition, and loyalty to their own cluster.

Architecture can help develop a sense of community among students and staff members. Well-equipped staff workspace and meeting areas will provide space for instructors to meet with students and parents concerning their personal learning plans. Meeting rooms will double as space for staff and volunteers to work on interdisciplinary projects and for cluster staff to develop scheduling options.

Each team will determine its own schedule, which will incorporate extended blocks of time for specific projects and in-depth instruction. The 50-minute passing bell will be a thing of the past. The hum of continuous activity will replace the traditionally fragmented school day.

With members of each curricular area dispersed around the campus, a means will be needed to verify that students are achieving similar high standards. Centrally located meeting areas will accommodate large groups of instructors from like curricular areas. Communication and collegiality will be encouraged in a centralized lunch facility and lounge for staff members. Discipline, counseling, and other special services will be provided within each cluster.

Future Potential

The environment can have a dramatic effect on education. For many years, we have squandered opportunities to truly support education through the facilities we have designed. Certainly we have created outstanding schools that are functional, aesthetically pleasing, and even foster community pride. We can, however, do so much more.

Educators need to develop strong educational goals that architects and planners inherently understand and work toward accomplishing through the environments they design. By working hand in hand, we can accomplish these goals.

Schools can help teach history by creating simulated and adaptable environments. They can help create a sense of community by breaking down the institutional structure and helping provide a loving, caring environment. This will encourage students and staff to develop meaningful relationships that inspire students to succeed.

Today we promote a thinking-based integrated curriculum based upon experiential learning, so the environment takes on added importance. As the only three-dimensional component of the educational program, it can become a teacher, helping students to explore educational concepts.

Students can learn about ecology by observing and interacting with the natural environment around the school. By the judicious selection of plant materials, landscape architects can create ecosystems for students to explore, study, and adapt. Structural engineers can create lessons in physics, geometry, and stress analysis, bringing to life plutonic principles in a meaningful way, allowing students to experience them physically and visually.

Principles of water and air pressure, reclamation, and energy-conscious design can be explored by the mechanical engineer. A combination of water piping, graphics, and technology can illustrate the water cycle by making water supply visible and and accessible. Students can study an experiment with air pressure and thermal dynamics when they are provided with an adaptable air conditioning system that allows them to modulate air pressure and air supply. The electrical engineer can illustrate light and color theory, polarity, and many other principles by allowing students to visibly see how electrical switches, lighting fixtures, and motors work.

Students also can experience energy conservation through the introduction of special metering systems that graphically display energy usage in different parts of the building. Certain portions of the building also can be tied into wind generators or photovoltaic cells creating sustainable environments, allowing students to understand the benefits and the compromises.

Unlimited Possibilities

These ideas illustrate only a few of the myriad of possibilities. When you consider every component of the built and natural environment, the potential becomes limitless.

By integrating the building and the educational program, students can explore educational ideas through observing and interacting with the three-dimensional environment. Students will be encouraged to explore issues further by accessing additional information available at the school and within the community or by tapping into educational networks around the world.

As long as we concentrate on providing the necessary resources to give every student an opportunity to succeed, we have a chance of making a difference.

We all need to focus on that elusive goal to create those special schools that encourage and inspire our youth.

Gaylaird Christopher serves as vice chairman on the American Institute of Architects' Committee on Architecture for Education and is a member of California's school design implications task force.

For Further Reading

If you would like to learn more about the connections between school design and student learning, here are a few resources suggested by Gaylaird Christopher, whose 72-person architectural firm specializes in educational design:

* "The Effect of Architecture on Education," a 1990 study prepared by the American Institute of Architects' Committee on Architecture for Education. Contact ALA at 1735 New York Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006-5292, or by calling Bob Feild at 202-626-7418.

* "The Interface Between Facilities and Learning," by Harold L. Hawkins and Beyyt Lightfoot Overbaugh, CEFP Journal, July-August 1988, pp.4-7. The entire issue deals with the relationship of the physical condition of facilities and student performance. Contact Council of Educational Facility Planners International, 8687 East Via tie Ventura, Suite 311, Scottsdale, Ariz. 852583347, or call 602-948-2337.

* "Effects of the Physical Environment of Schools on Students," a paper presented at the 65th international conference of the Council of Educational Facility Planners in October 1988. This study compared student success at newer versus older dilapidated facilities. Copies are available by writing Gaylaird Christopher, 10470 Foothill Blvd., Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. 91730-3754, or calling 909-987-0909.