The Power of Well-Designed Learning Environments

When Claire Latané’s children were still in school, she visited a classroom that had no windows. The walls were bare, without even a clock, and students sat at their desks in regimented rows on hard, plastic chairs.

Within five minutes, she was ready to run.
 
“I thought I was going to explode,” says the landscape architecture professor at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. “Children were being taught in the kind of bleak environments that were nothing like home or even workplaces.”
 
The impact of the physical environment on mood, engagement, and concentration levels is well documented. Latané, the author of Schools That Heal: Design with Mental Health in Mind, cites ample research demonstrating how surroundings can affect children’s wellbeing.
 
One study of high schools suggests views from classrooms and school cafeterias with greater quantities of trees and shrubs are linked to better test scores. Another study found similar results. 
 
“Students of all ages are calmer, kinder, and more creative in nature-filled school settings,” says Latané. “It is not just the exterior that’s important, although that is a space that can be easier to change, but the interior too.”
 
Mike Alete, head of campus design at Nord Anglia Education, agrees. He says innovative use of space and carefully chosen materials can reduce stress, encourage communication, collaboration, independence, and ease the transition to higher education and the professional world. 
 
The architect has helped design brand-new schools, as well as reconfigure existing buildings, across the world in very different settings. His primary focus? The needs of the child, he says, including safety, wellbeing, creativity and inclusivity.
 
Some of the innovations include learning studios rather than traditional “square classrooms with a corridor down the middle”; spaces that encourage communities of learning and independence; and more fluid designs incorporating nature. 
 
“Children might need to be in rows facing forward sometimes, but can we make it flexible to enable group work?” he asks. “Can we create a facility to allow a teaching assistant to work with a smaller group nearby but in their own space, rather than huddled in a corner? Does a corridor have to be a narrow walkway, or can we make it a bit wider to allow for work and social spaces? Can we bring the outside in with greenery, natural light, and natural materials?”
 
The answer can be a resounding yes. 

Going beyond aesthetics to unlock learning

“We know if it is dark and you never see nature, it affects your mood and motivation,” says Frances Morton, principal at Northbridge International School in Cambodia. “Our grounds really are stunning, and unusual in dusty Phnom Penh where there aren’t many green areas,” she said.
 
All lower floor classrooms open onto the lush, green, 20-acre campus, and upper floors lead onto covered verandas. Play areas with natural, sensory materials are an extension of the classroom for the Early Years and infant classes. Recently erected sails in natural fabrics protect children from the sun.
 
The ongoing revamp of the school’s buildings aims to make the interior equally inviting. 1970s-style lino floors have been replaced with light-hued wood to add brightness. New modular furniture can be configured for different activities. Hard chairs have been replaced with seating that has flex and movement. 
 
Designers and school Principals work to make spaces inclusive as well as beautiful. Standing tables with stools mean students who may find it difficult to remain seated can stand and work. New soundproofing on walls to aid acoustics doubles up as a pin board, while natural wood furniture make classrooms feel brighter and cleaner.
 
“At the end of the day, what we want to do is get children to focus, but it is getting harder to do that because of modern life,” says Morton. “If you can mix up their learning environments and make them really inviting places, you will captivate more students.”

The science of learning environments

Dr Helen Bunn, programme director of educational and child psychology at the University of East London and a British Psychological Society division chair, says while overstimulation can hamper learning, so can the opposite.

“Understimulation is a risk,” she says. “A lack of windows is claustrophobic, views towards busy roads are not as effective as views towards greenery, good air quality helps concentration, and movement is necessary for wellbeing. The advice to workers is not to sit in the same position for more than 30 minutes, but what about children in lessons?”
 
Her recommendation is to incorporate places where children can relax. Equally important are social spaces where young people can be with their peers in a less formal setting.
 
Alete, Nord Anglia’s head of design, balances ideas such as “communities of learning” alongside providing ways for students to be independent while always safe. 
 
“A glass door or internal window allows teachers to have a visual connection to spaces outside the classroom,” he says.

“Teachers can see students and know they are safe, but the supervision is passive. This gives young people more control and choice about where and how they learn.”
 
Eton School, an expanding Nord Anglia school in Mexico City, recently acquired a group of buildings next door and is now remodelling them. Classrooms for 15- to 18-year-olds have already been completed, while a new Middle School, Early Years centre, and covered gymnasium are set to follow. 
 
Internal walls in the new building were torn down and replaced with glass to provide “lines of sight” into a central corridor leading to an atrium. Breakout spaces were created, bathed in natural light. 
 
“On each floor, where you have an office or meeting room, you can see all the great things the kids are doing,” says Head of School, John Miller. “The space also creates a different expectation about what learning is, which is more aligned with what our young people will see when they move on to university and workplaces.”
 
Bringing students out of closed classrooms and into “communities of learning” was a driving force behind the creation of an arts centre for GCSE and A-level students at d’Overbroeck’s, a Nord Anglia school in Oxford, England.

There’s open-plan, studio-style arrangements with partitions, which allows students at different levels of study — and doing different courses such as fine art and architecture — to see what others are working on.
 
“It has really expanded students’ horizons and exposed them to a lot more options,” says Head of Art, Kamar Finn. “They’ll see a fellow student developing something and say ‘Wow, can I do that?’”
 
When visiting artists run workshops, students see them and ask to join in. Having an open studio encourages students to do ambitious work. “We are seeing beautiful two-by-three-metre paintings and talented students moving beyond their comfort zone,” says Finn.
 
For Alete, the d’Overbroeck's example is proof that thoughtful design can make a tangible, positive difference to learning.

“Good design that focuses on the needs of the child can create spaces where students move more freely while still feeling secure and supported,” he says. “And it is great to see the creativity this can inspire.”