little meadows academy Improved Learning By Design: The Importance of Architecture in Schools
Classroom as a living room for learning. No hard boundaries exist between formal and informal learning environments- encouraging more seamless learning opportunities for children.
Little Meadows is a school where the physical space is the most important tool for educational development. It does not utilize classrooms which depend on a desk-and-chair setup and the classic double loaded corridor. Instead, classrooms are structured as living rooms for learning with flexible seating arrangements that provide opportunities for focusing on special themes and projects and also allow for many types of learning styles. Each classroom (left) looks out onto a vast recreational courtyard that is anchored by a corresponding set of classrooms to enhance surveillance and comfort within school grounds. Straight lines of sight are essential for navigating, keeping the peace, and maintaining safe areas of passage. The school is located in Boston, a place where two-thirds of city’s 132 school buildings were constructed before World War II, and 60 percent of participants in a recent city survey rated their facilities as “fair” or “poor.” While legacy is certainly an important aspect of these schools, my Master’s thesis argues that there is a great need for upgrading these facilities. Arguably because traditional classrooms make students more vulnerable because they create a captive audience behind closed walls. On the contrary, a totally open classroom environment - even spilling out to outdoor workspace - is less of a target. It is not enough to simply provide cutting-edge classrooms. There is a great need to invest in external context and landscape designwhich then allows for a much more holistic design response. Schools should be more than just functional spaces, they should inspire. They are communities after all, and if we need to improve these communities to provide the best education we can for our children and future generations. By balancing the educational priorities, common bonds, sense of purpose and shared understanding of what a school community holds dear, we can leverage this knowledge and use it to create great learning environments.
LITTLE MEADOWS ACADEMY 12