What Students Want in School Design

In November 2008, AAF will release Student Voices, the ground-breaking results of the most significant national study to date on student attitudes about school design and their vision for how schools should be designed in the future. This new information provides fresh insights and adds the perspective of high school students to the national discussion about school design.

In 2007, AAF, in partnership with Target, launched the largest national school design competition open to high school students in the United States. With over 5,000 registrants and nearly 250 final completed entries, the Redesign Your School Contest produced inspired and creative representations of learning spaces for the 21^st century. Each student was required to submit a 1000 word essay along with their design concepts. In 2008, AAF has returned to those entries in an exhaustive effort to research and identify trends and determine what students seek in the design of the places they learn and play.

Working with architects, scholars and educators, the each student’s entry was studied to identify repeated themes and insights, which were identified and organized. Green design and technology were universal themes in the essays; however, some of the other themes that came to light were a visual and physical connection with the outdoors, the necessity for social spaces, a desire for a connection with the community, and a need for emotional comfort in school.

In order to transform the students’ often fanciful visions into architectural drawings and concepts that can be more easily understood by education leaders and architects, AAF organized a design Charrette in September 2008 bringing together design leaders, educational architects, educators, and students. Together, they visually investigated the design themes most common in the student entries. All of the Charrette teams discovered that the students were far more sophisticated about how a school could work than most give them credit for. The results of this Charrette are an integral part of Student Voices and will be featured in Architectural Record’s supplement, “Schools of the 21^st Century,” due out in January 2009. Working with the AAF team on this project are the members of AIA Committee on Architecture for Education, the publishers of Architectural Record Magazine, and the Chicago Architecture firm, O/WPP.

Great Schools by Design (GSbD) is a national initiative of the American Architectural Foundation that seeks to improve the quality of America’s schools and the communities they serve by promoting collaboration, excellence and innovation in school design. Following the 2006 National Summit on School Design, AAF has conducted forums to gather concepts, current perspectives, and best practices on a number of topics recommended by the Summit participants. AAF appreciates the continuing support of Great Schools by Design’s presenting sponsor Target.

Click here to learn more about Great Schools by Design.