Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings

This paper presents a system for participatory appraisal and idea generation by a school’s users to enable interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and architects, producing school designs appropriate to the needs of the school at the time and into the future. Our uses of this system in two...

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Main Authors: Pamela Woolner, Paula Cardellino
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-10-01
Series:Buildings
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/11/496
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author Pamela Woolner
Paula Cardellino
author_facet Pamela Woolner
Paula Cardellino
author_sort Pamela Woolner
collection DOAJ
description This paper presents a system for participatory appraisal and idea generation by a school’s users to enable interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and architects, producing school designs appropriate to the needs of the school at the time and into the future. Our uses of this system in two contrasting educational settings in England and in Uruguay are described. We show how the visual-spatial activities supported the educators to consider education in spatial terms, build a shared understanding and produce representations that could be used to convey ideas to architects and designers. Given that participation and cross-disciplinary collaboration in school design is known to be challenging, but vital, we consider the features of our approach that enabled its success and make it viable on each and every occasion of school design or redesign. Further, addressing the critiques of attempted international transfer of architectural designs, educational policies, practices and buildings, we argue that our system avoids these problems through seeking to transfer not a project but the means to enable participation in a project.
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spelling doaj.art-77844287c5f84e56a77ca2b74f8017f92023-11-22T22:39:20ZengMDPI AGBuildings2075-53092021-10-01111149610.3390/buildings11110496Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting SettingsPamela Woolner0Paula Cardellino1School of Education Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UKFacultad de Arquitectura, Universidad ORT Uruguay, Montevideo 11300, UruguayThis paper presents a system for participatory appraisal and idea generation by a school’s users to enable interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and architects, producing school designs appropriate to the needs of the school at the time and into the future. Our uses of this system in two contrasting educational settings in England and in Uruguay are described. We show how the visual-spatial activities supported the educators to consider education in spatial terms, build a shared understanding and produce representations that could be used to convey ideas to architects and designers. Given that participation and cross-disciplinary collaboration in school design is known to be challenging, but vital, we consider the features of our approach that enabled its success and make it viable on each and every occasion of school design or redesign. Further, addressing the critiques of attempted international transfer of architectural designs, educational policies, practices and buildings, we argue that our system avoids these problems through seeking to transfer not a project but the means to enable participation in a project.https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/11/496school designparticipatory designknowledge transfereducationarchitecture
spellingShingle Pamela Woolner
Paula Cardellino
Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings
Buildings
school design
participatory design
knowledge transfer
education
architecture
title Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings
title_full Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings
title_fullStr Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings
title_full_unstemmed Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings
title_short Crossing Contexts: Applying a System for Collaborative Investigation of School Space to Inform Design Decisions in Contrasting Settings
title_sort crossing contexts applying a system for collaborative investigation of school space to inform design decisions in contrasting settings
topic school design
participatory design
knowledge transfer
education
architecture
url https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/11/496
work_keys_str_mv AT pamelawoolner crossingcontextsapplyingasystemforcollaborativeinvestigationofschoolspacetoinformdesigndecisionsincontrastingsettings
AT paulacardellino crossingcontextsapplyingasystemforcollaborativeinvestigationofschoolspacetoinformdesigndecisionsincontrastingsettings