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Future Proofing Schools: strategies and implementation
Part 2 in an on-going series on the future of schools
By: Frank M. Locker, PhD, AIA, REFP - Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Source:
Last month I outlined my concept that a future-proof facility anticipates changes in education by being flexible in multiple ways, and that the most important step in future-proofing was that first one of changing attitudes. This month I'll cover some user friendly future-proofing strategies to be implemented now that can 'fit' in two different educational worlds: present practice and anticipated future.
The biggest challenge for those in school management and leadership who grasp the long view to the future is how to make a convincing case for concepts and components that may have little perceived value to others who only hold a present day, traditional understanding of educational delivery. The key to acceptability is to make future-proofing decisions in a manner that still supports current practice well enough, although not necessarily perfectly. If new designs perfectly serve only today's methods of instruction, the future will be shortchanged. If schools are planned solely for the kind of schools we will have in 2040, present users won't be comfortable. Viable future-proofing requires finding that balance between serving current practice and supporting a different kind of future. Some new concept components may be potential energy only, and not get used for years. Others may prove to expedite the evolution of educational delivery in your school by providing opportunities for more innovative and effective teaching.
In this last regard your facilities can become critical components of your "learning organization." This concept, outlined very eloquently by Peter Senge et al in Schools That Learn, argues that schools that serve students best are those that are constantly engaged in learning as an organization. One might ask, "How much does your facility contribute to your organization's learning?"
The isolated self-contained classroom, once the ideal for educational delivery, is now the biggest limitation we have for education in the future. Teaching is becoming less isolated and more collaborative. Learning is becoming more personal with lap tops for all and personal learning plans, and more cooperative, experiential, and project based. The new classroom needs to allow interconnection, varied student group sizes, and multiple simultaneous student activities. It needs to offer variety.
In the future a suite of varied learning spaces will replace the row of classrooms we all know so well. Realistically, however, most educators are not yet ready to give up the turf or the familiarity of their individual classrooms. Accepting this, current classrooms can be future-proofed by creating connections and adding variety. Classroom connections facilitate teaming, sharing, interdisciplinary learning, and project-based learning. They allow a teacher in one room to supervise students in another. Variety within and among spaces facilitates different learning styles and teaching practices.
 Create connections with windows between rooms. For student and teacher movement, add doors. Doing so will facilitate correlation of complimentary subjects, supporting for example, math-science and English-social studies related curriculums. Single doors are basic; double doors are better. Sliding doors may be better yet. Concerned about the loss of teaching wall space with additional doors? Cover the doors with marker board, as Flansburgh Associates did for the Ipswich, MA, Middle/High School.
Doors such as these are much more cost effective and functional than traditional folding walls. The folding wall is a twentieth century concept, perfect for converting isolated single classrooms into isolated double sized classes, but little else. No surprise most of them never seem to get opened. They do not offer hourly flexibility or support smaller group sizes in the manner smaller doors do. If you must have a folding wall, install it to cut a standard classroom in half, since the trend is toward smaller class sizes and schools never seem to have enough seminar-sized spaces.
 The key variable in planning facilities that supplement the classroom is the circulation space. Often comprising 25 percent of total building area, this 'no man’s land' in traditional school buildings can be the bonus learning space of future oriented facilities. Future-proof school planning captures and converts circulation space into student learning space. Good future-proof design will place generous windows between the classrooms and the circulation space to allow it to act as 'breakout' space, extending the learning zone for students working independently or in groups, still  under the observation of nearby teachers. We developed such spaces at Cedar Springs Middle School, Cedar Springs, MI (DeJONG Educational Planners, BetaDesign Architects). They call them "yards." As the plan shows they take up little more space than a typical corridor. And, as the images show, they offer tremendous functionality in service to the classroom teachers.
 Rethinking furniture and casework use presents some of the most effective future-proofing choices. Reduce built-in casework and cabinets to the minimum. Instead, put them on wheels. Movable storage can then be relocated to where it is needed by school users as subjects or delivery methods change. In the downtown K-12 School, Minneapolis, Cuningham Group Architects used rolling casework for everything from bookcases to student lockers (and rolling desks as well). Theirs was custom built, but rolling casework is readily available from many manufacturers. The science demo desk on wheels is my favorite. It might be seen as an ad hoc expedient for a poorly serviced building, but it is really the poster child of future-proofing flexibility. Freeing science up from the lab opens all sorts of possibilities for scheduling, integrated learning, and hands-on learning.
Good future proofing demands student furniture that can be arranged and rearranged in multiple groupings, allowing common work surfaces, individual work, and discussion groups. Never buy student seats with attached desktops. These 'one-armed bandits' represent the worst of twentieth century educational thinking: highly efficient, economical, not comfortable, and contrary to current research on effective learning. They support lecturing very well, but nothing else. And they are hard to sit in for extended periods. They seem to be indestructible, so buying them now creates a fifty-year problem of inappropriateness. Good future-proofing demands student furniture that can be  arranged and rearranged in multiple groupings, allowing common work surfaces, individual work, and discussion groups.
Less constrained classrooms and flexible furniture are not enough to future-proof our schools. Much has to be done in creating small learning communities, making learning spaces flexible for different subjects and activities, facilitating conversion from departmentally based school organizations to other organizations, preemptive planning to manage enrollment fluctuations. You'll hear more about these in next month's future-proofing installment, along with the renovation tactics I promised in the first installment in this series.
Know any good future-proofing examples? Have comments? E-mail them to me at fl@franklocker.com.
Dr. Frank M. Locker consults as an educational planner and school designer from a base in the greater Boston area. He was the 1999-2000 Planner of the Year of the Council of Educational Facilities Planners, International (CEFPI). This national award recognized his achievements over twenty-five years of educational planning, school design, and service to the profession. A frequent speaker at regional and national conferences, he was cited for his research in classroom design and participatory planning. Current projects are in Kent, England; Cayman Islands; Machias, ME; S. Burlington, VT; Battle Creek, MI; Middletown, RI; and Bethel, AK.
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