National Summit on School Design

American Architectural Foundation - Design for Learning 1

NationalSummit onSchool Design

REPORT FROM THE

A RESOURCE FOR EDUCATORS AND DESIGNERSConvened by the American Architectural Foundation | Design for Learning

2 National Summit on School Design Report

This report has been compiled by Design for Learning, an arm of the American Architectural Foundation.

740 15th Street NW, Suite 225Washington, DC 20005202.787.1001www.archfoundation.org


The 50th anniversary of the Crow Island School as a national and educational landmark offered the first opportunity to bring together a distinguished group of educators and architects. This three-day conference, sponsored by Winnetka

Public Schools, the American Institute of Architects, the Cranbrook Educational Community and the American Association of School Administrators, brought together over 100 educators, architects and facility planners.

Highlights of the conference included the recognition that there was a need for a common language and a better understanding of what was known and not known about children’s learning and the built environment. The conference also examined the current condition of the nation’s school facilities, including the inequality of funding formulas and the emergence of new actors around school facilities, including the National Governors’ Association, National Academy of Sciences and the nation’s business community.

In the years that followed this first national summit, school districts across the country would be hard hit by the economic recession of the early 1990s, which required them to reduce their capital budgets and defer billions of dollars in maintenance. What they did not see coming their way was the rapid spike in school enrollment, deemed the Baby Boom Echo by then U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. In 1996, the nation’s school enrollment record was dramatically broken as 51.7 million children surged into school districts all across the nation.3 The rise of enrollment would continue for well over a decade. Secretary Riley estimated a need for 6,000 new facilities and 190,000 new teachers by 2006 to meet the growing enrollment. 4

History of National Summits on School Design

The celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Crow Island School gave AAF the opportunity to recognize Perkins+Will’s extraordinary body of work over the decades, including the Crow Island School, which remains a national model of a great design and was designated a national historical landmark in 1990. Over time, Perkins+Will would go on to become one of the leading architecture firms in the nation, building over 500 school facilities including such recent groundbreaking schools as the recent Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies in Overland Park, Kansas.

Honoring Perkins + Will

Photo left to right: John Syvertsen, FAIA, LEED AP, Chair, AAF Board of Regents; Steve Turckes, AIA, CEFP, LEED AP, Perkins+Will; Ron Bogle, Hon. AIA, AAF President & CEO

“The facts of the Baby Boom Echo speak for themselves.

The 1996-97 school year represents only the mid-point of a 20-year trend

of rising school enrollments. By the year 2006, America’s schools will have to

educate 54.6 million children – almost 3 million more than today.”5

Richard Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education, August 1996


Secretary Riley continued to issue annual reports on the surging enrollment, successfully secured new funding to modernize old inner cities schools, and launched the National Clearinghouse on Educational Facilities (NCEF). In 1998, Secretary Riley and Vice President Al Gore, with the support of the AIA Committee on Education, organized the second National Summit, which articulated six design principles for 21st century learning and placed a strong focus on designing schools as centers of community.

Seven years later, in 2005, AAF and the KnowledgeWorks Foundation brought together over 200 architects, educators, tech experts and citizens to continue the dialogue on modernizing school facilities. The report from this third Summit highlighted changing learning styles, the need to integrate technology, the development of flexible learning spaces, encouraging a small school culture, designing schools as centers of community, active citizen engagement in the design process, the use of non-traditional space and the increasing need for healthy and environmentally sustainable school facilities.

History of National Summits on School Design

“As with most new languages, we will begin with

a few simple phrases, but in order to discover the

depth of the learning experience, a more concerted

effort will be required by all concerned. Students,

parents, professional educators and the community

– the ultimate stakeholders- will have to learn a new

language..... and by working together, the opportunity

for a new paradigm of learning will be

allowed to emerge.”2

Steven Bingler, AIAChildren, Learning & School Design: A First National Invitational Conference for Architects and Educators, November, 1990


6 Introduction: Ron Bogle, Hon. AIA, President & CEO AAF

9 Executive Summary

13 Organizing the Summit

15 Architects, Educators and Design Thinkers Who Attended

21 Special Supplement: White House Summit: Next Gen High Schools

26 Memo from the Future 29 How Might We Re-invent Secondary Schools?

32 The Places in Between

35 Transformation of Teaching and Learning

39 Changing the Design Process

44 Advancing Co-Design

48 Equity

51 Empowerment by Design

55 Next Gen Learning Environments ties as Learning Eco-systems

62 Growing and Nurturing the Learning Ecosystem

67 Impact of New Learning Technologies

71 Driving Innovation from Start to Finish

74 Overcoming Obstacles to Innovation & Great Design

79 AAF’s Design for Learning Process

82 Next Steps: Advancing the National Agenda

84 75th Anniversary of Crow Island

87 About the Author

88 National Summit Planning Committee

89 National Summit Sponsors and Partners

Table of Contents


IntroductionBy Ron Bogle, Hon. AIA, President & CEO of AAF


IntroductionIntroduction

The American Architectural Foundation is pleased to present the findings from the fourth National Summit on School Design, held in Chicago, Illinois. November 6-8, 2015. Fittingly, the 75 architects, educators and design

thinkers came to Chicago as part of the 75th anniversary of the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois.

For two days, architects worked with teachers and education leaders to develop a deeper understanding of this transformational moment in American education. The way we teach children and young people is fundamentally changing. A century old concept of design thinking rooted in the “form follows function” mantra is giving way to a new understanding that “form follows learning.” The rigid boundaries of 20th century education – what many call the old industrial model of education – is being replaced by a growing recognition that there is a great need to rethink school, time, and space to create new 21st century learning centers. It was highly appropriate that we held this 4th annual summit at the Crow Island School, the site of the first national conference of architects and educators in 1990. To visit the Crow Island School, in Winnetka, Illinois is to see excellence first hand. Designated a national historical landmark in 1990 the Crow Island school was designed to be child-centered and fully reflective of John Dewey’s progressive educational philosophy. School Superintendent Carleton Washburne collaborated with the newly formed architecture firm of Perkins, Wheeler and Will and well-known architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen to design the school, which opened in 1940.

Our Summit was also one of a series of closely aligned national engagements that culminated with the first White House Summit on Next Generation High Schools which was held on Tuesday, November 10, 2015. I was fortunate to be one of the 250 delegates invited to the White House Summit, and was one of a select group of presenters. I believe my participation marked the first time that design thinking had a “voice” at a White House event dedicated to the transformation of American education..

The timing of our Design Summit so close to the White House Summit gave us the opportunity to bring design into the national discussion on education during a time of great forward movement. Building on the work of the White House Summit and Laurene Powell Job’s recent launch of the XQ Super School Project, we have included a special supplement in this report on next gen high schools, which offers specific examples of how creative co-design can reimagine the use of space, foster excellence and help to achieve equity in America’s public schools. This Summit builds on AAF’s decade of work promoting design thinking among educators. Through its Great Schools by Design program, AAF has collaborated with school districts in every major American city and many


smaller communities as well, bringing education leaders, civic leaders, and design innovators together to improve learning environments and student outcomes. AAF also convened three national summits during this time: the third National Summit on School Design in 2005, a National Design Summit for STEM Education in 2010, and the National Green Schools Design Summit in 2012 that brought together leading thinkers and stakeholders in design, education, policy and industry to energize and advance a dialogue on green school design.

The Fourth National Summit also gave us a platform to update participants on AAF’s current work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After years of working with numerous school districts on one school project at a time, we sought the opportunity to transform the thinking of entire school districts. We came to realize that medium-sized school districts with transformational leaders offer the best opportunity to make this change happen. And in 2015, the Gates Foundation partnered with AAF’s Design for Learning initiative, which

provides design leadership and technical assistance to educators, with six school districts to do just that. Our work in Design for Learning and the Gates Foundation districts supports the transformation of all of their schools into spaces that will better support personalized learning. We remain committed to supporting the work of progressive leaders in education who seek to educate a more diverse student body, and are willing to create new institutions to fit our times. Through our design work, we seek to give these educators the additional tools they need to cultivate change more rapidly. The National Summit on School Design was planned with support from Design for Learning’s Knowledge Partners; Perkins+Will, FGM Architects, JCJ Architecture, DLR Group, Steelcase Education, Cuningham Group Architecture, Inc. Addional support was provided by VS America and Winnetka Public Schools. AAF is deeply thankful to our sponsors for allowing us to organize this Summit and to the many participants who with great energy, passion and thought provided us with great insight on how we can co-design a new generation of schools and learning centers for the children and young people of America. A special thanks is also owed to Beth Hebert, the former principal at Crow Island, who has been a driving force in telling the story of the Crow Island School and how it became, and remains, a national landmark that defines architectural and educational excellence. Sincerely,

Ronald E. Bogle, Hon. AIA President and CEO, American Architectural Foundation

We know how to design great schools,but our challenge is cultivating change more rapidly and bringing it to scale to help overcome the deep inequities in American public education.

Ron Bogle, President & CEO of the AAF


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Executive Summary Key Issues and Recommendations


Over the Summit’s two days of discussions, conference participants came to a clear recognition that architects and educators must continue to develop a common language, a concern first raised 25 years ago at the first National

Summit in 1990. Again and again, participants came back to this primary concern: the need to develop a common language and understanding of each other’s design objectives. RJ Webber, Ed.D. and an Assistant Superintendent for Novi Community School District in Detroit, Michigan, pointedly summed up the issue: “Why is it that Crow Island is still considered the epitome of great school design yet 75 years later so few schools meet that standard – what is the disconnect?”

The key issues and recommendations from the Summit include:

Creating a common language: We must develop a common language and a better understanding between architects and educators to support the co-design of new learning environments. Creating a shared language is key to developing a collaborative community of practice to support the next generation of learning spaces. At present, both communities often are talking past each other. As one participant noted, “We use the same words but have entirely different meaning.” Participants acknowledged that AAF’s Design for Learning has done much to bridge the gap between educators and design thinkers, but much work remains to expand its reach.

Overcoming skepticism: Educators are rarely asked their opinion about school design, and may come to any engagement with architects with a significant amount of skepticism. Teachers need design tools. Collegiate coursework in architecture and education should be encouraged to collaborate between the two disciplines, and to spark a dialogue on how good design can enhance learning. School districts also need bridge-builders, and should be encouraged to create design specialist positions to help educators engage their superintendents, teachers, students and the broader community.

Reconceptualizing pedagogy: The 19th and 20th century teacher-centric model of education, in which form follows function, has given way to a more student-centered learning model in which form follows learning. This reconceptualization has profound implications on how space is used and from whom students learn.

Adding school design to the education reform dialogue: Architects are typically viewed as builders, and need to significantly redefine their role to join this ongoing national conversation. Educators, on the other hand, often overlook how space can influence student learning, and too often lack the language that allows them to articulate what they want to achieve. Architects can provide both the verbal and visual language to help teachers and students understand emerging 21st century learning environments.

Executive Summary


Executive Summary

Pam Loffelman, FAIA

How were educators and architects to talk to each other? Why, we didn’t even speak the same language.1

Anne Meek - Children, Learning & School Design Report of the First National Invitational Conference for Architects and Educators. November, 1990

Valuing equity: Participants were gravely concerned about the issue of equity and access in public education. Many high-poverty school districts lack the tax base to design new schools or modernize old ones, and most states offer little financial support to offset this ongoing inequity. The economic impact of the Great Recession has been severe on these school districts nationwide. Many high-poverty school districts need additional resources and even different spaces to address the unique and multiple challenges that their students face each school day. Participants felt that Design for Learning should continue to have a strong focus on supporting comprehensive reform in high-poverty school districts.

Emphasizing personalized learning: Educators at the summit believe that the emergence of more personalized and project-based learning, coupled with the growth of the Makerspace movement, will require new ways of thinking about how space is used to advance learning. As one participant suggested, “Kids now have the tools to personalize their learning.” However, there is no common and shared definition of personalized learning, and there is growing concern that the concept is being misused.

Meeting students where they are: Many participants at the Summit welcomed the fact that the rigid boundaries of 20th century education were rapidly giving way to a growing recognition that schools have to meet students where they are. Today, many educators recognize that the learning space is not just the classroom or the building, but the city and the globe. The connectivity of today’s students and their ability to learn inside and outside of school was seen as a great opportunity to extend the learning environment. At the same time, there was significant recognition that school as a place still provided that important space for the social and emotional development of students. Educators at the Summit expressed the need for design to address these issues so that school remained a “magical place to learn,” as one participant expressed.

Creating Next Gen High Schools: Participants agreed that a radical shift in thinking about the American high school as an institution was an imperative; that the traditional American high school rooted in Carnegie units and an industrial model of education could no longer be fixed. There is a great need to create a brand new institution in which form follows


Ron Bogle & Gina Burkhardt

Executive Summary

I design learning pathways in high schoolsand community colleges and, until today,it had not occurred to me to put an architect, who thinks about design in an entirely different way from me, on my pathways design team. Going forward, it makes a lot of sense to do just that.

Gina Burkhardt, CEO, Jobs for the Future

learning; where school is much more than just a place, but a series of relationships inside the school and outside in the community. Creating new institutions like these is one way to address the issue of equity in public education.

Building Innovation Zones: State and local regulations sometimes limit the ability to innovate in school design. One key recommendation to overcome this challenge might be the creation of innovation zones, or iZones, which allow educators, architects, and community stakeholders to collaboratively co-design the next generation of schools. Six states have passed legislation allowing the creation of such zones that give schools greater autonomy in designing the school’s curriculum, daily schedules, etc. Several such innovation zones have already been established in Syracuse, New York; Denver, Colorado; Memphis, Tennessee; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; and New York, New York.

Expanding Design Support: As part of its commitment to the White House Summit, AAF President and CEO Ron Bogle previewed two commitments he would make on the behalf of AAF and the broader design community at the White House. First, AAF would commit to engaging an additional 100 forward-leaning urban school districts by the end of 2018. Second, based on AAF’s successful model engaging mayors and other civic leaders in city design, AAF would work to create a new Design for Learning Leadership Institute. As Bogle noted, “Design is a powerful asset for guiding the change we seek in creating a new generation of high schools.”


Organizing the Summit


The majority of the two-day Summit was organized around three rounds of five-minute rapid

fire presentations followed by breakout sessions for more in-depth discussions on each presentation topic.

To provide a framework for the discussions, participants were asked to consider how architects and educators might work together to transform the 115,000 existing public schools into 21st century community-based learning spaces. School districts around the country currently spend $12.9 billion in 2015 on school renovation, repair and construction, but few of these renovations keep the pace with today’s innovative teaching practices.6 The consensus among participants was that these funds could better leveraged if the architecture community could identify more models of excellence and show educators the power of design thinking.

Organizing the Summit

Topics covered were:

The Transformation of Teaching and Learning

Disruption: New Design Thinking for a New Learning Culture

Advancing the Co-Design Concept

Empowerment by Design

Next Gen Learning Environments

Cities as Learning Eco-systems

Impacts of New Learning Technologies

Driving Innovation from Start to Finish

Responding to Regulatory Policy and Practice

School districts around the country currently spend $14 billion annually on school renovation, repair and construction, but few of these renovations are keeping pace with today’s innovative and changing teaching practices.


Attendee Photo from November 8, 2015

Architects, Educators and Design Thinkers Who Attended


Summit Attendees

Henry BeattyHigh School SeniorNew Trier High SchoolWinnetka, IL Christopher BastenPrincipalMadison Elementary SchoolSkokie, [email protected]

Terra Bennett Brown, M.A., M.P.P.Planning ManagerCaldwell Flores Winters, Inc.Emeryville, CA [email protected]

Stephen D. BonnerAAF Board Of DirectorsChairman of the Board - Cancer Centers of AmericaSchaumburg, IL [email protected]

Raymond Bordwell, FAIA, LEED AP Global Facilities Officer Avenues World SchoolNew York, NY [email protected]

Susie BossJournalist Edutopia Portland, OR [email protected]

Peter Brown, AIA PrincipalPeter Brown ArchitectsDallas, TX [email protected]

Ashley Bryan EducatorDallas Independent Schools DistrictDallas, TX [email protected]

Anne Bryant, CAE Executive Director Emeritus/AAF Board of DirectorsNational School Boards AssociationWashington, DC [email protected]

Gina BurkhardtCEOJobs for the FutureBoston, MA [email protected]

Lynn Carmen Day Chief Academic OfficerRiverside Unified School DistrictRiverside, CA [email protected]

Tom G. Carroll, PhD Senior AdvisorAmerican Architectural FoundationWashington, DC [email protected]

Deirdre ChurchillTeacher Wolcott School Elmhurst, IL [email protected]

Sean CorcorranGeneral ManagerSteelcase EducationGreater Grand Rapids, MI [email protected]

Jimmy Crimmins High School SeniorNew Trier High School Winnetka, IL

Barbara Crum, LEED AP K-12 Education Market Leader Perkins+Will Atlanta, GA [email protected]

Tim Default, AIA, NCARB, LEED® APPrincipal | President, Chief Executive Officer Cuningham GroupMinneapolis, MN [email protected]


Jacqueline DeGramoEd ConsultantHilliard JeaneCanton, OH [email protected]

Michael DemakosChief Digital Officer New Mountain LearningChicago, IL [email protected]

Michael Denz, AIASenior Associate FGM Architects Oak Brook, IL [email protected]

Aimee Eckmann, AIA, CEFP, LEED AP BD+CAssociate Principal, K-12 Education LeaderPerkins+Will Chicago, IL [email protected]

Mindy Faber, MFA Co-Director, Convergence Academies Center for Community Arts PartnershipsChicago, IL [email protected]

Todd FinnPrincipalHampton High SchoolMcDonough, [email protected] Jim French, AIA National Educational LeaderDLR Group Overland Park, KS [email protected]

Emily FusileroCPS Intern Chicago Public Schools Chicago, [email protected]

Patrick Glenn, AIA, REFP, LEED AP K-12 Regional Practice Leader, Texas Perkins+Will Dallas, TX [email protected]

Mark GoodmanPublisher Learning by DesignCleveland, OH [email protected]

Lucy GrayApple Distinguished EducatorLucy Gray ConsultingNothbrook, IL [email protected]

David GreenbergVice Chancellor - Institutional Partnerships University Denver Denver, CO [email protected]

Roxana HadadDirector of Math, Science, and TechnologyNortheastern Illinois University Chicago, IL [email protected]

Monica Hartman Regional Sales ManagerVS America Charlotte, NC [email protected]

Beth HebertBoard Member, Crow Island School Winnetka Public Schools Winnetka, IL [email protected]


JoAnn Hindmarsh Wilcox, AIA LEED AP Associate Principal Mahlum | Architects Inc. Seattle, WA [email protected]

Peggy Hoffman, IIDA, LEED AP ID+C, REFPPRINCIPAL, LEAD INTERIOR DESIGNER | PK–12 EDUCATION FGM Architects Oak Brook, IL [email protected]

Cindy Hopper Director of Operations North Shore Day School Chicago, IL [email protected]

Judy Hoskins, REFP, LEED® AP Principal Cuningham Group Minneapolis, MN [email protected]

Mark Jolicoeur, AIA, LEED AP Principal Perkins+Will Chicago, IL [email protected]

Lynda KaleInstructional CoachFairfax County SchoolsFairfax, [email protected]

Penny Lanphier former School Board Member Winnetka Public Schools Winnetka, IL [email protected]

Jim LaPosta Jr., FAIA, LEED AP Principal / Chief Architectural Officer JCJ Architecture Hartford, CT [email protected]

Chris Lehmann Founder Science Leadership Academy Philadelphia, PA [email protected]

Kerry Leonard, AIA PrincipalFGM Architects Chicago, IL [email protected]

Pam Loeffelman, FAIA, LEED AP Principal DLR Group Denver, CO [email protected]

Gabrielle Lyon, PhD VP Education and Experience Chicago Architecture Foundation Chicago, IL [email protected]

Kathleen MooreDeputy Director UC Berkley - Center for Cities and Schools Berkeley, CA [email protected]

Mary Mumbrue Member of Stewardship Group Crow Island School Winnetka, IL [email protected]

Ashley “Oz” Ozburn, AIA Design Team Member Studio Gang Chicago, IL [email protected]

Summit Attendees


Audra Parker Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development George Mason UniversityFairfax, VA [email protected]

Bryce Pearsall, FAIA, LEED AP Chairman Emeritus DLR Group Phoenix, AZ [email protected]

Lauren Penny Doctoral Candidate | Learning Sciences Northwestern University Chicago, IL [email protected]

Laurie Peterson Crow Island Historian Crow Island School Winnetka, IL [email protected]

John Pfluger, AIA, LEED® AP Design Principal Cuningham Group Minneapolis, MN [email protected]

Robin Randall, AIA, LEED AP BD+C Educational Planner & Programmer Legat Architects Chicago, IL [email protected]

Claudius Reckord CEO VS America Charlotte, NC [email protected]

Elroy RoznerFounder and PrincipalUncommon Classrooms Chicago, IL [email protected]

Karina Ruiz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C Senior Principal - Global Education PracticeDOWA - IBI Group Portland, OR

[email protected]

Robbie Schaefer Founder & President OneVoice Vienna, VA [email protected]

Steve Slifka Leader: A+D Education Steelcase Education Murrells Inlet, SC [email protected]

Cameron Smith CEO & Co-Founder Bennett Day School Chicago, IL [email protected]

Dina Sorensen Assoc. AIA, LEED AP BD+C PROJECT DESIGNER | DESIGN RESEARCHVMDO Architects Charlottesville, VA [email protected]

Tony Streit Senior Project Director | Director, Chicago OfficeEducation Development Center, Inc. Chicago, IL [email protected]

John Syvertsen, FAIA, LEED-AP Chairman American Architectural Foundation Chicago, IL [email protected]


Eva Tarini Crow Island Teacher Crow Island School Winnetka, IL [email protected]

Brooke Travis Market Sector Leader, Associate Principal Perkins+Will Boston, MA [email protected]

Steve Turckes, AIA, CEFP, LEED AP PreK-12 Practice Leader, Principal Perkins+Will Chicago, IL [email protected]

Kelly WalshElementary 2 Classroom Teacher Chicago Public Schools at Drummond MontessoriChicago, IL [email protected]

Dr. RJ Webber Educational Planning Consultant Fielding Nair International Royal Oak, MI [email protected]

Cheryl Williams Executive Director Learning First Alliance Arlington, VA [email protected]

G. Craig Wilson Director, Market Development Steelcase Education Greater Grand Rapids, MI [email protected]

Teri Wright, AIA, LEED AP Project Manager FGM Architects Oak Brook, IL [email protected]

Rick Young, AIA, LEED AP Project Manager, Associate Perkins+Will Chicago, IL [email protected]

Summit Attendees

Amy Yurko, AIA Founder BrainSpaces Chicago, IL [email protected]

Kristien Zenkov, PhD Associate Professor of Literacy Education George Mason University Fairfax, VA [email protected]

Contributors Pamela R. Moran, Ed.D.Superintendent Albemarle County Public Schools 401 McIntire Road Charlottesville, VA [email protected] Jeff Vincent Deputy DirectorCenter For Cities + SchoolsInstitute Of Urban + Regional DevelopmentUniversity Of California, Berkeley316 Wurster Hall #1870Berkeley, Ca [email protected] Steven B. BinglerConcordia LLCPrincipal2016 Oretha Castle Haley BoulevardNew Orleans, LA [email protected] Carole WaceyVice President of the Education at WNETNew York Public Media825 Eighth AvenueNew York, NY [email protected] Don BuckleyCo-Founder | Executive DirectorTools at Schools http://www.tools-at-schools.com/[email protected]


The White House Summit:

Next Gen High Schools


The White House Summit: Next Gen High Schools

3.3 million students are expected to

graduate from high school in 2016

The American high school is one of the most traditional of Americans institutions, rooted in a structure, organization and curriculum first laid out by the National Education Association’s Committee of Ten in 1894. Except for the

dramatic change in dress code and the enormous new emphasis on athletics, a time traveler from 1916 or 1956 or 1976 for that matter who walked the halls of an American high school today would be hard-pressed to see the difference between his or her school and today’s public high schools.

The organization, curriculum and rituals of the American high school seem timeless – and that is precisely the problem. Our nation’s high schools have not adapted to our 21st century economy, society or culture, and have been slow to adapt quickly to new understandings of how students learn. Progress is incremental, and often painfully slow, even as America’s high schools confront issues around equity, re-segregation, and the influx of millions of immigrant young people. America’s melting pot is, more often than not, an urban American high hallway full of students speaking numerous languages and representing a multitude of nationalities.

About 3.3 million students are expected to graduate from high school in 2016, with 68% going directly to college, based on recent data released in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Education. American high schools have had some success in chipping away at the historically high dropout rate. In the 1990s, researchers categorized over 2,000 American high schools as dropout factories. Since 2000, the high school dropout rate has declined from 10.9 % to 6.8 percent or about 744,193 students a year—still far too high, but going in the right direction.

AAF saw the opportunity to align its Crow Island Summit with the White House’s first Summit on Next Generation High Schools, which was held on November 10, 2015. AAF President and CEO Ron Bogle was among the 150 delegates invited to the White House Summit, and was one of a select group of presenters. Bogle’s participation marked the first time the design community has had a voice at such a high-level White House event.

“The timing of our Design Summit being so close to the White House Summit gave AAF the opportunity to bring design into the national education discussion at the highest level. We were most grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the conversation with White House policy-makers and some of the nation’s most influential leaders,” said Bogle. “There is a lot of momentum building, given the recent launch by Laurene Powell Jobs of the new $50 million XQ Super School Project.” Bogle also attended the National Science Foundation’s Next Generation STEM Learning for All forum as well.

Bogle’s White House presentation focused on how school design can enhance student achievement. His talk incorporated recommendations and strategies generated at AAF’s National Summit at Crow


Island, including ways to accelerate the transformation of today’s classrooms into 21st century learning environments that support and advance STEM education and personalized learning.

The White House announced a total of $375 million in new commitments for Next Generation High Schools, including the award of over $20 million in federal grants through its Investing in Innovation (i3) grant program specifically to support the reform and redesign of high schools that serve a high percentage of low-income students.

Other commitments from foundations and non-profits included:

Commitments to develop and launch 100 next-generation schools serving more than 50,000 students over the next five years, including IBM’s commitment to support an additional 25 P-TECH schools (in addition to the 125 in development) over three years, the New Tech Network expanding to an additional 50 schools, Silicon Schools Fund investing $40 million to launch 40 more schools, EDWorks’ new campaign to seed 12 early-college high schools in southern states, and the Institute for Student Achievement tripling the number of high school students they serve from 25,000 students to 75,000 students.

More than $225 million from education foundations in support of next-generation high schools, including up to $200 million from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation to accelerate student-centered approaches to learning in New England, $25 million by Carnegie Corporation of New York, a longstanding funder of new school design, and a new funder collaborative led by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation that will provide support for more than 1,000 school leaders across 50 states to redesign their schools with leadership from IDEO and the Stanford d.school.

Giving more than 600,000 students access to rigorous courses and career pathways, with $100 million in new investments from the National Math and Science Initiative to expand access to AP courses to 300 additional high schools and 450,000 additional students, Linked Learning committed to serve an additional 160,000 students in their career pathways model, and a coalition of organizations committing to expand dual enrollment and early college high school experiences to 10,000 low-income high school students through the Department of Education’s recently announced experimental-site authority.

Expanding the opportunities for engaging STEM and Maker Space learning, with a commitment for a collective 14,000 days-equivalent of volunteer hours by STEM professionals from fourteen Change the Equation companies, and the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh partnering with museums and libraries to bring high-quality maker education to 75 schools across the country.

Expanding on the momentum from the Summit, the Alliance for Excellent Education will launch the Better High Schools for All initiative to continue to build momentum for next-generation high schools by translating significant research activities into actionable recommendations and building connections across organizations and sectors.


The White House Summit: Next Gen High Schools

Remarks: Ron Bogle at the White House Summit There are 115,000 existing public school buildings in the United States, many build over 50 years ago and more than a few built over a 100 years ago. These schools were built for a different time, economy, culture and population. It’s time for a new model. But we can’t simply tear these buildings down and start all over. So, it is an objective of the American Architectural Foundation to demonstrate that 20th century school buildings can be successfully transformed into 21st century centers of learning.

I’m Ron Bogle, the CEO of the American Architectural Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization based here in DC. AAF’s many national programs engage civic and education leaders to help them understand the power of design. Since 2003, AAF has worked closely with educators, policymakers, technologists, and architects to convene design and sustainability workshops, forums, and other intensive collaborations aimed at rebuilding American schools for personalized learning and STEM education.

With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, AAF is currently working in six school districts across the country. These districts are committed to a complete transformation of their schools into communities of personalized learning. Through our design engagements, we have the happy responsibility to help them maximize their success. Through this work with the Gates Foundation, and our years of experience in school design AAF has developed and tested new methods for engaging educators to develop new strategies to support change within the often risk-averse environments of public school districts. I have just come from Chicago, where AAF convened the fourth National Summit on School Design. It was a rousing success. There, we assembled design and education thought leaders who focused their attention for two days on how we can contribute to

In an effort to continue the conversation started at the White House, AAF has created a special supplement asking several distinguished educators, design thinkers and architects to put forward their creative ideas on the transformation of the American high school. We have also included models of excellence in design thinking (a group of new high schools) designed by several of our Knowledge Partners that exemplify a new and deeper understanding how creative design can enhance learning in the 21st century.


the national mandate that we redesign American high schools. The United States currently spends $14 billion a year on new school facilities that, too often, are perfect models of 20th century learning. We can do better.

Our first commitment is to engage with 30 additional school districts over the next 24 months. To achieve this, we need new knowledge partners and funding partners. We also need your recommendations. We need your help in identifying 30 districts with the leadership, culture and true desire for change.

Our second commitment is to develop a new Design for Learning Leadership Institute to bring our ideas to scale. If we can help to transform the design of over 1,000 cities, surely we can have the same positive impact in reshaping design thinking in hundreds of school districts across the country.

In conclusion, we are committed to working with the White House in the follow-up to today’s Summit to demonstrate how design thinking can improve STEM Education and advance the growing maker movement. With your support, AAF’s Design for Learning will continue as the catalyst for innovative design thinking and transformation through collaborations with architects, educators, and community stakeholders who will help America’s teachers design the learning spaces needed to prepare our children for our new economy.

...we are committed to working with the White House in the follow-up to today’s Summit to demonstrate how design thinking can improve STEM Education and advance the growing maker movement.

It is an objective of the American Architectural Foundation to demonstrate that 20th century school buildings can be successfully transformed into 21st century centers of learning.


By Gabrielle H. Lyon, PhD, Vice President, Education and Experience, Chicago Architecture Foundation

Memo from the Future:

School is not a Building


By Gabrielle H. Lyon, PhD, Vice President, Education and Experience, Chicago Architecture Foundation

By Gabrielle H. Lyon, Ph.D., Vice President, Education and Experience, Chicago Architecture Foundation | [email protected] | @LyonGabrielle

If 21st century learning can take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and motivated students can pursue interests in lieu of - or in some cases in spite of - a teacher in a classroom, what is a school? The January 2016 issue of Architectural

Record, which highlights nearly a dozen “Schools of the 21st Century,” provides some possible responses. Featured schools preserve the rainforest, integrate school with affordable housing in Harlem, and return dignity to girls disenfranchised from education in Afghanistan. These buildings are well lit, colorful, constructed of local and sustainable materials. They are almost always designed with input from the community and often the students themselves.

Look past the shapes, room configurations, colors and glass and what do we see in the photos of these future-facing schools? Images from a century ago. Desks are in rows. The “front” of the classroom is identifiable by both the location of teacher and the blackboard cum whiteboard. Bulletin boards post a schedule, aspirational college paraphernalia. There is little student work to be found. Students have their eyes on the teacher.

Twenty-first century school buildings, if we assume the Architectural Record sample represents current innovations, manifest little in the way of an educational revolution. Plans are defined by the ages and grades of the students they will serve; investments in multifunction rooms belie skeletons of traditional math, science, humanities, and sports disciplines. Anticipated school populations call

for 600+ elementary students and 1000+ high schoolers, defying research that demonstrates elementary schools of 300 and high schools of 600 students are most strongly poised to ensure students are “known” and supported to be academically successful.

Even in schools like Intrinsic in Chicago – which is actively testing progressive ideas about how to manipulate student/teacher ratios in “oversize” classrooms by designing spaces that include 60 students per class and pull out areas for extra support time - the newest architectural endeavors do not address the fundamental challenges of schooling in our time: the need for students to undertake meaningful

Memo from the Future: School is not a Building


1 Changing the Outcomes: School Design Principles for the Next Generation of Chicago's Learners, Lyon. July 2015. architecture.org/schooldesign

work; the importance of bringing the outside “real” world into the school and for young people to get outside of school in order to learn about the world and how to be part of it.

In 2015, the Chicago Architecture Foundation undertook a series of community conversations to inform a basic question: Given limited resources and shifting urban demographics, how can school buildings best be designed to foster personalized, intellectually challenging interactions among teachers and students that equip young people to be 21st century citizens?

Stakeholders’ recommendations included the following design principles:

Personalized curricula that enable students to develop skills through interest-driven projects.

Engagement of meaningful work alongside- and under the mentorship of professionals

Integration of out of school experiences with academic expectations

Use of the surrounding neighborhood as an extension of the school campus

Free and easy access to public transportation

These recommendations imply we should see fundamentally different elements in 21st century schools. For example, we ought to expect robust multipurpose workshop spaces, materials libraries, and display and archiving areas for student work; co-working spaces for professionals within a school building; entrances to schools that align to public transportation; regular experiences that take place away from the school with ways to check in with home base teachers through something like a Skype station.

These kinds of approaches have enormous implications for the ways the built environment could and should enable adults as well as students. They also suggest something else: school is not a building. Rather, school is what facilitates the set of relationships amongst students and adults engaged in learning and making together.

What if we embraced the idea that school is not a building? What questions would we need to consider? Here are a few: How do programs delivered by multiple organizations become collectively, and profoundly, student focused? How do we support individual students along a 12-or 20-year-educational pathway built upon a portfolio of experiences and expected competencies? How might we move from an individual school to an entire, equitable system, which enables young people to become citizens in a 21st century democracy?

If we must build schools let us build structures that support powerful, long-term relationships between and amongst teachers and students as collaborators in teaching and learning in - as well as out - of school. But if school is not a building let us reimagine the ways we engineer relationships to ensure that young people’s talents, skills and possibilities are at the center of what we design.

Memo from the Future: School is not a Building


Pamela R. Moran, Ed.D., Superintendent, and Ira David Socol, Assistant Director for Innovation and Education Technology, Albemarle County Public Schools

How might we

Re-invent, Re-imagine, Re-construct Secondary Schools?


In Albemarle County Public Schools, the path runs through viewing the wider world. While innovative secondary school designs exist, we are far more likely to seek inspiration in urban design, park design, restaurants and coffee shops, museums

and exhibits, libraries, and college campuses. When we watch adolescents gather, communicate, and learn without defined educational spaces, we begin seeing answers to our questions.

Zero-Based Design

Isn’t it time, per Larry Cuban [an education professor at Stanford], to stop “tinkering towards utopia?” Tinkering around edges of educational change is not enough when we live in the most revolutionary moment in human communication and learning design since the 1840s (when affordable newspapers, the telegraph, the steamship, and the railroad all arrived). School must change radically or it will cease to have value in society. The educational form can’t change without the physical form changing, and vise-versa. So architects and educators must together re-invent, re-imagine, and re-construct the entire idea of how we move adolescents toward adulthood.

“I watch our kids spread across our building and campus at lunch,” a high school principal said recently, “making their own choices of how to gather, work, be together. Then, the bell rings, and we lock them back into little boxes.”

We cannot do that anymore, and yet, we cannot afford to throw out our 26 schools and start over. So our re-imagining must include far more restructuring for re-use than new construction, a massive design challenge to create contemporary learning spaces. With than end in mind, we ask every architect who works with us to understand our Design Imperatives - Transparency, Sustainability, Flexibility, Mobility/Interactivity, Multiage, Student Crafted Learning Environments, Making Everywhere, Project-Problem-Passion Supporting Spaces, Choice and Comfort, Inside/Outside Learning, and the generalized idea that every space is a Space for Learning. We ask architects to meet our children where they are – kindergartens should rise out of the chaotic, rapid learning of infancy, high schools must work for children who’ve had the freedom of large, unscheduled, multiage elementary school environments.

Each of these imperatives and meeting points challenges past practices. How does architectural design prevent adults dividing children by age, current capabilities, or adult expectations? How does every space allow both maximum flexibility and maximum student agency? How does society’s security needs still allow student freedom and inside/outside learning? How will students always be able to see and interact with each other, and yet find places to gather in smaller, more focused, groups? How does every corridor, every cafeteria, every office area, every fitness space support these goals?

How might we re-invent, re-imagine, re-construct secondary schools?


Our work so far.

In our schools, we have worked to pursue these imperatives in a variety of ways:

A new six-classroom addition to an elementary school has instead become a learning pavilion for 120 K-5 students and six teachers. The space is multifaceted with large gathering areas, hiding places, a full kitchen, many windows, no walls and no formal schedule.

Four rooms in a 1953 high school were converted into two large learning studios for the most at-risk ninth graders. In these spaces, with five different seating options and no fixed projection area, four teachers work off bell schedule for half a day every day, integrating core curricula with media and maker work, supporting students to earn five credits for the year, yet leaving an afternoon free to pursue electives that weren’t available with traditional double-blocked remedial classes.

A middle school cafeteria was reimagined and reconstructed by students in a two-week iterative human-centered design process. Two eight by eight by sixteen-feet high treehouses – yes, tree trunks are included – were added to the space, with a swing, rope ladders, and even a space for a wheelchair to fit. They rest on heavy-duty casters so they can move

High school hallways have been reimagined as we remove unused lockers, creating lounges in one school, charging bars and benches in another, and gathering spaces outside of classrooms in both.

Our libraries have been re-invented as learning commons, student-filled and student-determined spaces with music studios, genius (tech invention) bars, 3D printers, power tools, hand tools, hacker-spaces, poets’ cafes, even a laser cutter. These are our central gathering spots where contagious creativity spreads.

This is simply a beginning. We are now proposing to smash the walls of both time and space. Conceiving of high schools fully embedded in the community that empower students at every level, in every way. This is how we will help our children grow into the adults they need to be – not with control, but with guided freedom that supports and scaffolds whenever necessary. We believe architects and educators must co-create to educate young people for life, not school. That’s pedagogy + design.


By James LaPosta Jr., FAIA Chief Architectural Officer, JCJ Architecture

The Places in Between:

Designing the Next Generation High School


By James LaPosta Jr., FAIA Chief Architectural Officer, JCJ Architecture

Speak to anyone who attended high school in the 20th century about their building and chances are the conversation will turn to hallways lined with lockers and classrooms filled with desks. Without question, the designated

place of learning was a set of boxes connected by long tubes designed to expedite travel. That physical model of discrete spaces and experiences cannot adequately support the integrated and student-centered approach of the Next Generation High School. While there remains a need for classrooms and other specialized environments, the key to supporting a shift in teaching and learning may lie in the space that connects them. These shifts provide an opportunity to create schools that are far more active and responsive to students’ evolving needs. Developing these places in between classrooms creates more dynamic and responsive learning environments.

An outgrowth of what was once called break-out space, the place in between is more immediate, accessible and rich in experience. These places merge and blur the lines between traditional classrooms, media centers, computer labs, hallways and even school grounds. Overall, the concept provides an educational format that is more appropriate for the skills today’s students require to leave high school ready for work or college. This new format facilitates flexible instruction, allowing students to work seamlessly in a variety of situations including group projects and self-directed study.Two recent examples that make the most of their places in between are Marine Science Magnet High School of Southeastern Connecticut and Fairchild Wheeler Multi Magnet Campus in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The Marine Science Magnet High School (MSMHS) is set on a narrow parcel of land within walking distance of the Connecticut shoreline. The school’s design maximizes its use of space to create a seamless learning environment. The 65,000-square foot building contains only one traditional corridor – all other areas of circulation are blended into the learning environment. While typical school buildings have 20% of their overall space devoted to circulation, MSMHS has only three percent. This puts as much of the building as possible into the hands of students and teachers. This technique is best represented on the school’s second floor, in an area known as home base. While students in typical schools walk down corridors with classrooms on each side, MSMHS’s home base provides an open space that is essentially a supersized corridor.

This area combines an open, learning commons, technology lab and assembly area into one versatile space creating the social and functional heart of the school. Learning studios (classrooms), teacher workrooms and the media center border the gently subdivided space. Spatial cues, such as half-height walls, skylights, ceiling structures, and fixed and flexible furniture also create subtle divisions in the space. Home base combines a large open layout with a perimeter of private meeting, work and

The Places in Between: Designing the Next Generation High School


seminar rooms. Formal instruction and lecture generally begin in the learning studio. From there, students and teachers have the option to move into any of the three smaller zones, including an area with tables, chairs and monitors for the students to share their work electronically; an open space with lounge furniture and writeable surfaces; and a space that can accommodate larger groups.So how does the place in between impact students? For MSMHS, students move freely from classroom to home base, engaging in independent research or working on a group project. When students have more freedom and choice in how and where they work, they have more pride of ownership, creating a better overall experience. The feedback from teachers and students is that they’ve all become more productive and energized in the new space.

Set at the edge of a former state park, Fairchild Wheeler Multi Magnet Campus serves students from the urban school district of Bridgeport, Conn. with three different magnet high schools; Information Technology and Software Engineering, Engineering and Aerospace, and Zoological Science and Biotechnology. Each school blurs the line between classroom, laboratory, and corridor by providing operable glass walls and “touchdown zones.” This combination allows learning to spill freely between spaces and the high-top tables in the touchdown zones support casual and quick collaboration. Each floor is anchored by an open office-like area where students get their own workstation and project storage unit.

Finally, this LEED Gold school extends learning to places outside the building as it takes advantage of its park setting. Exterior walkways and informal instructional areas wind among preserved wetlands and forest. Water collected from the rooftop gardens on each wing filter into the wetlands. These rooftop gardens are fully accessible for instruction and integrated in student project work and curriculum. It is common to see students in lab coats carrying scientific gear around the school grounds as they put theory into practice.

The school building models of the past are no longer adequate to support today’s learners. We need to move away from boxes designed for discrete experiences to a blended environment providing a range of places that support learning in the Next Generation High School.

The Places in Between: Designing the Next Generation High School

While there remains a need for classrooms and other specialized environments, the key to supporting a shift in teaching and learning may lie in the space that connects them.

Developing these places in between classrooms creates more dynamic and

responsive learning environments.


Transformation: Form Follows Learning



In the last 10 years, the pace of change has accelerated dramatically (new learning styles, changing demographics, student centered and personalized learning, advances in technology, demand for greater equity, etc.). Is the design community

responding to the needs of progressive educators and if not, why not? How can we change the design process to accelerate and help to create transformational learning spaces?

Tom Carroll, Ph.D. and President Emeritus of the National Council on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF), framed the opening discussion by describing what he called a moment of transformation in American education: the shift from a teacher-centric model of education, which has long dominated American education, to a new student-centric learning model which increasingly recognizes that there are no boundaries to how students learn, when they learn and where they learn – be it the classroom, the city, or the Internet.

As Carroll noted, the old established architectural mantra that form follows function is giving way to a new mantra in which form follows learning. He suggested that educators must make a fundamental shift in design thinking, moving away from schools “organized and built for educators to manage efficient instruction to schools co-created with educators to support effective learning.” AAF’s Design for Learning was created in large part, Carroll explained, to accelerate this transformation, and give educators a new way to think about design in developing 21st century learning spaces. He drove home the point that the shift from designing for teaching to designing for learning is not a fad and is, in fact, sustained by core ideas about how to drive change:

To remain competitive in a global innovation economy, every child must not only learn more, but learn how to do more and create more with what is learned.

In a complex world and diverse society, every child must have an opportunity to prepare for college, careers, and life as constructive citizens, which ultimately is about equity, the moral imperative that is at the root of American education.

The fact that we live in a digitally networked global community with knowledge at our fingertips allows our teachers and students to live and work in a world that immerses them in a more powerful learning environment than any school in history.

Modern learning theory is replacing industrial-era teaching theory. Student-centric space will be flexible, more controlled and modified by learners, and with a greater focus on team and collaborative learning.

Carroll cautioned, however, that the shift from teacher-focused design to learning-focused design is hampered by the hidden curriculum of industrial era schools, which dictates that the primary learning activity is knowledge transfer by direct instruction from one generation to the next (rather than learning as knowledge discovery, application, and creation). The values of this system are control,


hierarchy, discipline and passive students – teachers decide what when, and how students learn. Education, he said, is still defined by a hierarchical management system, which limits teachers, students and even education leaders when it comes to innovation and adapting to different learning styles and curriculum. Carroll suggested that the hidden curriculum makes change exceedingly difficult because everyone at every level feel like they have little power to changes things.

“Students do not control their learning activities, teachers do not control what is taught, the work of school leaders is regulated by state and federal policies, and the ability of state and federal policy makers to improve education is limited by “local control” of schools in states and districts, it’s the Catch 22 of Education.”

Tom Carroll, PhD, President Emeritus of the National Council on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF)

Tom Carroll, PhD, President Emeritus of the National Council on Teaching and America’s

Future (NCTAF)


Teaching Institutions are Designed to Support

Stand-and-deliver instruction in presentation spaces, with a teacher at the front of a classroom or auditorium and students sitting side-by-side in rows facing the teacher. The teacher is supported by one-way presentation technologies (blackboards, projection screens, etc.) that focus students’ attention on content delivered by the teacher.

The seating and room configuration enables one-to-one interaction (question and answer exchanges) between the teacher and individual students, and it limits student-to-student interaction and collaboration by design, which facilitates classroom control.

One-size-fits all text-based instruction, in which uniform content is delivered to all students in age-graded classrooms on a predefined schedule based on a single learning model.

Technology is a presentation tool – it is also used to augment text-based instruction by bringing more content into the classroom.

Students are batch-processed, moving from activity to activity in groups, which requires space designed to accommodate periodic controlled movement of large numbers of students throughout the building.

The space is designed to the teacher’s management and control of student work.

The school is the learning place, with teaching and learning bounded by resources and activities that take place within the building and time defined school schedule.

Multiple learning modes that balance instruction with discovery and exploration activities enabling students to actively engage in hands-on learning projects. This also leads to more robust self-directed student learning and greater student collaboration,

Space is configured to support small group collaboration among students, with several teachers or other adults moving from group to group. The space enables these groups to easily form and reform as they move from task to task.Personalized learning activities are tailored to the learning needs and styles of individual students who move from space to space in the building to accommodate their personal learning pathways.

Technology is an active learning tool used by students and teachers to apply and create knowledge. The school provides Internet access and encourages digital learning.

Students move individually and continuously throughout the learning space to accommodate their learning activities and needs.

The space is designed to support teacher facilitation of self-directed student learning.

The school is a place to learn in an open learning ecosystem. In a borderless environment, the school is configured to take advantage of all learning resources in a community and on the web. There is no longer any limit on where you learn and how much time you invest in learning.

Learning Organizations are Designed to Support



Changingthe Design Process


Over the years, through its Great Schools by Design program, AAF has successfully collaborated with hundreds of school districts across the country bringing education leaders, civic leaders, and design innovators together

by convening design and sustainability workshops, forums, and other intensive collaborations. AAF also convened two national summits, a National Summit on School Design in 2005 and a National Design Summit for STEM Education in 2010 that brought together leading thinkers and stakeholders in design, education, policy, and industry to energize and advance a dialogue on school design. Through these activities, we recognized that a more comprehensive approach was needed to address school design to help educators realize the full potential of their new approaches to learning.

As a result, we launched our Design for Learning initiative in 2013 building on a decade of experience in school design transformation.

Changing the Design Process

How do we help educators and architects to change their thinking about the problem? The goal is not to make a better school, but a different school. Not a school to support better teaching, but a school to support deeper learning (designed to support what we know about how people learn).


Design for Learning’s strategy is based on three guiding principles:

1) Educators must be open to new ways of thinking, to be open to a depature from their traditional processes.

2) Our commitment to co-design encourages educators to see themselves as co-creators, allowing for ongoing, in-depth collaboration with architects.

3) The process only succeeds if the project is finished through to completion and utilizes change management strategies that ensure lasting results.

AAF’s goal is help educators and architects create the common language they need to design new learning spaces that fit our modern 21st century economy, society and culture. Design for Learning employs a design-thinking approach to address and transform 20th century schools into 21st century learning environments. As educators embrace new education models based with an increasing focus on personalized learning, connected learning and STEM education, they are challenged to break free from a perspective that is dominated by the limitations of industrial-era school facilities. Design for Learning guides these educators and other stakeholders through exploratory processes, forum discussions, design charrettes and, most recently, the Summit to envision physical spaces that optimize the success of the learning culture they seek to create.

During the Summit, participants suggested a range of ways to improve the design process, including a greater commitment to more interactive public engagement, the development of more sophisticated research so education data can better inform design, a greater willingness to model the school environment on the workplace environment and a recognition that education is about transitions, which necessitate flexibility in use of space rather than standardization.

Educators can benefit a great deal by using the design thinking process to rethink how to use space creatively. As one participant noted, “Good design gets one’s brain into a different place.” Participants believed that creating a common understanding and language was the first goal of the design process and that along with data from credible sources and showcase examples of how design thinking successfully changed the use of space.

The design thinking process needed to be highly visual and interactive to facilitate “Aha!” moments of inspiration that enables educators to explore new ground. Many participants were strong advocates for show-and-tell visits to facilitate successful beta projects for redesigned schools and strategies on how to help teachers understand the value of design. As well, several participants suggested that a design class addressing its role in education should be developed in undergraduate education curriculum. A panel discussion ensued over lunch, which brought together the team from Galtier Community School in Saint Paul, Minnesota – the first school district to complete the AAF’s Design for Learning process.


Design for Learning Case Study: Galtier Community School To open the discussion, Ron Bogle addressed the need and importance of having respected community leaders engage and validate the project and act as the convenors. For example, Target Corporation (headquartered in Minneapolis and well-known for their history of supporting education) held a similar position as a validator and convener for the Galtier project. Bogle emphasized that the process could only be successful with approval and enthusiasm from district leaders. If they embraced the project and believed in its success, other school leaders from the district could be enabled and empowered to think in entirely new ways. Cuningham Architecture Group acted as the lead architecture firm for this project, with support from Kerry Leonard, AIA, Design for Learning’s Architectural Advisor and the AIA’s Senior Fellow. Among the chief concerns among Galtier staff: understanding how to utilize the new space to support their teaching activities and learning goals. The participants discussed a variety of design tools that loosely formed their agenda for the upcoming discussion at the school, including creating a site map, re-naming space, and understanding which spaces were used most frequently and actively. Participants spoke with great enthusiasm about how the design process enabled teachers to co-manage working with large groups of children and individual students who needed additional support simultaneously.

In June 2013, AAF team spent five days in Saint Paul. The project commenced with a two-day boot camp facilitated by Target to introduce design thinking as a way to understand potential users, reframe

the challenge, quickly visualize and test potential options and determine strategic solutions. A two-day design charrette for Galtier staff followed the boot camp to address specific challenges of the space and propose new solutions; district leaders convened at a design leadership institute during that time to discuss goals for learning and design’s role in that vision.



AAF staff and resource team members returned to Saint Paul in August to present the results of the charrette and institute to the Superintendent, and returned in September to meet with the architect tasked with Galtier’s redesign. The plan was to turn core learning areas into 21st century learning spaces and to transform the current library into a multipurpose space that could function as a library, an active space for problem-based learning and project work, and a presentation and performance area. AAF’s resource team consulted regularly with the architect and school district throughout the construction phase until its completion. Building on the success of the Galtier design initiative several architects from the Cuningham Group including Judy Hoskens and John Pfluger organized a similar design initiative for North Park Elementary School in Findley, Minnesota the following year. The K-5 school has a very diverse student population with a student population speaking a total of 32 different languages with 80% of the students eligible for free and reduced lunch. The goal of the design initiative was to create three open learning studio’s for 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades.7 The sketch plan below showcases the transformation of the school.

The result was a merger of “several traditional classrooms into larger, open spaces through the removal of existing interior walls and the integration of flexible furniture, digital learning equipment, and technology-embedded partitions.”8 Follow up research on the project suggested that the “outcome has fostered a complete transformation of the school’s approach to teaching which encourages active, student-initiated, and self-directed learning.” 9

The 2nd grade studio, for example, was designed for small, personalized breakout sessions, a large central area to accommodate big groups of students, space for a standard size classroom and interior demountable walls. A total of 8 teachers including 3 teaching assistants used the new space to rethink their teaching approach and philosophy which according to a follow-up evaluation “allowed teachers to reclaim ownership over their environments and general curriculum.10

By fostering collaboration among teachers and providing the opportunity for visually observing each other; teachers were often found “teaming up” and engaging with students more on a 1:1 basis which also allowed the teachers to be “more comfortable giving their students choices and opportunities to take ownership over their learning.”11



AdvancingCo-Design


Advancing Co-Design

One of the central themes to emerge at the Summit was the need to find a common language between architects, educators and design thinkers as a way to encourage co-design. This is not a new idea; indeed, participants at

the first national summit in 1990 identified it as a central goal. As Gina Burkhardt, CEO of Jobs for the Future, noted, architects are viewed as builders, not participants in the national education reform conversation. Demonstrating their commitment to innovative design in education more actively is a critical step in bridging this gap in understanding. Judy Hoskens, REFP, LEED AP, Principal of Education at Cuningham Group, led the talk, and suggested that to advance the concept of co-design, architects have to be even more inclusive when it comes to bringing new voices into the conversation, including students as well as city and business leaders. The architect’s role can be catalytic, and should aim to spark curiosity and interest in school design from city, business and community leaders and get them to ask, “What are we doing with this design and why?”

JoAnn Wilcox, AIA, Associate Principal at Mahlum Architects, suggested that architects offer a new “verbal and visual language” to better contextualize design’s place in helping educators meet their curriculum and learning goals. Wilcox went on to note that teachers often come to these discussions with a certain degree of skepticism and uncertainty, and may not understand the architect’s role as an educational ally and advocate. “Teachers rarely have the opportunity to have these conversations,” she said, “and there is almost a basic fear that they will have to relearn what they do” if change ensues. Wilcox shared:

“Architects and educators really need to take an equally deep dive into educational pedagogy, in an effort to understand what is working and what is not. The balance is crucial. While we recognize that our role as architects will be to bring together the varied voices of experts, educators, neighbors, and students into a vision for a learning environment that realizes the full potential of the spatial parameters; it is also our task to understand educational best practices, brain research and multiple intelligences to help districts create schools that supports learning for all.

Judy Hoskens, of the Cuningham Group, who led the initial Lightening Talk on this topic suggested that to advance the concept of co-design architects have to be even more inclusive when it comes to bringing new voices into the conversation including students as well as city and business leaders. The architect should be the “spark” to get others “curious” enough to ask the question “what are we doing with this design and why?”

Judy Hoskens, REFP, LEED AP, Principal, Cuningham Group; Jim LaPosta, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal and CAO, JCJ Architecture


Advancing Co-Design

We know that the achievement gap will not be resolved by space or architecture alone, we have learned that design of schools can directly aid a district’s ability to offer successful differentiated learning; nourish cultural sensitivity; develop inclusivity in the student community; create safe, positive places to learn; build learning environments that help adolescents discover and sustain the joy of learning; make school a place teenagers like to be; and even influence a student’s perception of self-worth by reflecting the worth the community places in their success.”

Jeff Vincent, Ph.D., Deputy Director of U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools, echoed Wilcox’s concern in a phone interview. He said, “One reason teachers seldom think creatively about space and design is that they rarely have the luxury to do so; there is rarely the possibility of a newly rebuilt or reconfigured and updated school because of the lack of funding, especially in high poverty school districts.”

He suggested that there is also a common belief that physical space has no effect on pedagogy, citing the adage that a “great teacher can teach in a shoe box.” Vincent continued, “And architects can struggle to get a coherent response from principals of what they want; educators too often do not have

the background to articulate what they want so planning often becomes more focused on capacity rather than curriculum.” Gabrielle Lyon, Vice President of Education and Experiences at the Chicago Architectural Foundation, offered another perspective: the search for a common language is not limited to educators and architects. In fact, all professions must face to this challenge. Educators and architects must make the time to have those conversations that lead to a baseline understanding of the relationship between well-structured design process, the creative use of spaces, and achieving curriculum goals.


Lyon went to assert that teachers at all levels are already aware about the space they have in their classrooms and seek to make maximum use of it. The reality is that the large, spacious L-shaped classroom of Crow Island, each with its own workspace and bathroom, is simply out of reach to the vast majority of America’s teachers.

Joann Wilcox, Mahlum Architects

Advancing Co-Design

...architects can struggle to

get a coherent response

from principals of what they

want; educators too often do

not have the background to

articulate what they want so

planning often becomes more

focused on capacity rather than

curriculum.”

Jeff Vincent, Ph.D., Deputy Director of U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools

Jeff Vincent


Equity


Equity

Improving equity and access in public education emerged as one of the dominant themes during the two days of discussion. Understanding learning trends and different uses of space can help to address the deep-seated inequality in our

nation’s public schools. A common refrain heard during the conference was the idea that equity should not be defined by a child’s zip code, and that architects and design thinkers have a responsibility, and the capacity to find equitable solutions.

Carroll shared, “The hidden curriculum defined by the values of control, hierarchy, discipline, top down thinking and passive learning still remains the great challenge to improving quality and equity in education. We do have wonderful and standout examples of great schools that make a difference, but the issue is: how do we scale up? We need to rethink the concept of school and create many different learning environments. Expanding innovation zones might be one approach.”

Summit contributor, Gina Burkhardt, added, “The lack of innovation in how we teach and use space in neighborhoods of need is a big concern. We continue to offer the 20% at the bottom the most rigid and traditional form of education, when maybe they need the most innovative and personalized learning. But it’s also expensive. The other issue is that there is still a stigma on those kids who get ready for careers instead of going on to college. We need to change that type of thinking and make the transition from high school to community college as seamless as possible. Career academies and the Maker Movement can help break down the stigma associated with hands on learning. The work being done by IBM’s P-Tech Academies is also very impressive.”

“...The lack of innovation in how we teach and use space in neighborhoods of need is a big concern.”


Several participants spoke in favor of designing schools as centers of community and leveraging the community as part of a larger learning eco-system. There was a clear recognition that schools designed as community centers had different costs and space needs, and usually found success by partnering with local community groups such as the YMCA, local hospitals and after school programs.

Mindy Faber, Director of the Convergence Design Lab with the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College in Chicago, added, “Too often, formal learning strips out everything that is social and compelling. We need to design classrooms so kids feel they own it and want to learn in it and recognize that learning outside the classroom can be deeply compelling. Schools need to be a bit more like airport malls – where you are offered many more opportunities and different ways to learn.”

On inequity in education, JoAnn Wilcox shared, “The reality is that a disproportionate number of students of color are over-represented in special education and discipline, while being underrepresented in advance learning programs. On the surface, this seems like a curricular issue. But as practice, it moves away from direct instruction and towards project-based learning, or as assessment moves away from testing towards presentation or portfolio evaluation, space becomes implicated in the solution, and creativity becomes paramount especially when a good portion of the learning environment must be contained within an existing or historic double-loaded structure.”

Jeff Vincent shared some news on financial inequity in education that the Center for Cities and Schools had recently released. He said, “The disparity in school financing is the great challenge in low-income tax districts; they just don’t have the tax base and the impact of the Great Recession has only made the inequity worse. It’s a national problem.” The Center’s November 2015 policy report on California school facilities, highlighted the following:

The majority of schools underspend on facilities and almost 80% of students attend districts that fail to meet minimum industry standards for facility maintenance and operations spending, capital renewal spending, or both.

Wealthy districts spend more on facilities, especially on the capital side. Districts with more taxable property value (assessed value) per student raise, on average, more capital funds for facility needs than districts with less taxable property value per student.12

Districts serving low-incoming students disproportionately spend more per student on maintenance and operations (M&O) from their operating budgets to fund facilities. A new national report released by The Center for Green Schools and entitled “The State of Our Schools, 2016” confirmed Vincent’s findings on a national scale. It noted that construction costs are overwhelmingly funded by local taxpayers, “perpetuating inequity in school facility conditions.”13

Equity

National Summit on School Design

Documents

Transcript of National Summit on School Design