Swiss educators give architects look into the future.

The schools children will attend in the future may resemble the flexible office buildings of the dot-com era more than traditional classrooms.

Large open spaces will facilitate multiple activities, promoting project collaboration between classes. Furniture on wheels, amorphous lounge chairs, and computer stations perched on high coffee bar-like counters are among the items that will likely succeed the rigid layout of desks and seats oriented toward teacher and blackboard. Ideas about education are changing and so are the spaces that house them.

With a progressive reordering of their educational system currently underway, Zurich, Switzerland provides a glimpse into how US schools might evolve. As Swiss pedagogy progresses, so have attitudes toward building spaces appropriate for a new education.

At a recent symposium hosted by the AIANY Chapter's Center for Architecture, educators and administrators from Zurich and New York joined together to discuss the challenges the European city has faced during its most recent boom in school construction. The symposium accompanied the exhibition School Buildings--The State of Affairs: A New Architecture for a New Education (on view through March 24).

What both the symposium and exhibition reveal is that much of what has been observed in the classrooms of Zurich holds true for New York schools. New approaches to integrating technology into education are straining classroom and library layouts.

Parents' workdays are extended, so children arrive at school earlier and leave later, increasing the hours that school buildings are in use. Specialization and team teaching are replacing more traditional models of education, demanding communication between classrooms.

Textbooks are being supplanted by more interactive classroom activities, which means that spaces must be able to reconfigure themselves dependant upon activity. Zurich Professor of Teacher Education Manuela Keller-Schneider noted that formerly, "what occurred in the classroom remained secret. The traditional classroom is now opening up."

School buildings are also expected to stretch beyond strictly educational demands, accommodating larger public functions on evenings and weekends. Increasingly, schools are acting as around-the-clock neighborhood hubs, rather than just centers for learning.

Schools provide communities with a physical identity. "Good architecture is important for the children and learning environment, but also for the communities around them," said Daniel Kurz, architectural historian for the Zurich Building Department.

In assembling the exhibition, Kurz was surprised to find that Switzerland wasn't the only country prototyping new school designs. Other European countries, like Austria, Finland and Germany, are also rethinking traditional plans. Examples from each of these nations are included in the exhibition, showing striking similarities--like the design of specialized classrooms clustered around a shared open space.

Nine progressive models of new US schools are on view as part of Schools of the Future--US Case Studies (also at the Center for Architecture). Two of the schools displayed are local--The Bronx Charter School for the Arts and Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn.

Currently, New York is tasked with housing over 1 million students and has plans to add 63,000 seats to their existing school portfolio within the next five years. The New York School Construction Authority controls costs, in part, by prescribing a comprehensive set of room planning standards, specifications, and standard details for each new school project.

While new school construction charges on, the larger question remains of how existing schools might keep pace. In New York, the average age of school facilities is over 60 years old, with 200 buildings over 90 years old. While important decisions are being made about design of the future "new" schools, a generation is now being educated in older buildings. Designers and educators are rising to face current challenges by retrofitting classrooms to meet existing needs.

Said one panelist, "Schools change constantly, while the school buildings stay built," reminding designers that school buildings must be adaptable, above all else.

By Carolyn Sponza, AIA, vice president for Professional Development AIA New Yorx Chapter, New York, NY