SCHOOL DESIGN MATTERS

Presenting qualitative and quantative findings from the unique, multi-disciplinary project, Design Matters?,
this timely book explores the complex relationship between school design and practice to consider how
environmental aspects impact on the day-to-day perceptions, actions and behaviours of pupils, teachers,
leaders and professionals within the school community.
Exploring debates and issues from a number of different professional and academic perspectives, School
Design Matters results from a rich collaboration between schools, architects, engineers, educationalists and
policymakers to consider what an inspiring teaching and learning environment might look like. Case
studies and first-hand student and teacher experience allow analysis of the ways in which environmental
factors might transform pedagogy, shape patterns of leadership, improve student engagement and enhance
social interactions within and beyond the school community. Experts in their fields, authors acknowledge
the significance of sociocultural contexts, reference relevant policy, and tackle the tensions, dilemmas and
contradictions which frequently arise as schools and professionals in the design and construction sectors
collaborate in the creation of buildings which fulfil the needs of diverse, invested parties.
Offering a uniquely holistic approach to understanding the ways in which design may contribute, shape
and mediate teaching and learning, this comprehensive text will be essential reading for educationalists,
architects, policymakers and professionals involved in the design, construction and use of school buildings.

Harry Daniels is Professor of Education in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK.

Andrew Stables is Professor Emeritus at the University of Roehampton and a Senior Researcher with the
International Semiotics Institute.

Hau Ming Tse is a Research Fellow in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK.

Sarah Cox is a Researcher in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, UK.
SCHOOL DESIGN MATTERS
How School Design Relates to the
Practice and Experience of Schooling

Harry Daniels, Andrew Stables, Hau Ming Tse

and Sarah Cox
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Harry Daniels, Andrew Stables, Hau Ming Tse and Sarah Cox
The right of Harry Daniels, Andrew Stables, Hau Ming Tse and Sarah Cox to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-28010-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-28011-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27241-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS

List of figures vi
List of tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
About the authors x
Foreword: design obviously matters xi
Peter Clegg
Foreword xiii
Pamela Woolner

1 Introduction: school design matters? 1

2 School design: what do we know? 7

3 The aims, scope and method of the Design Matters? project 33

4 Design as a social practice 59

5 Design and practice 89

6 The experience of new-build schools 119

7 Changing schools 139

8 What matters about design? 167

Appendix: School connectedness questionnaire 186

Index 187
FIGURES

1.1 Overall schema of Design Matters? 2

2.1 BSF case study school 8
2.2 Wider consultation 9
2.3 BSF case study school 10
2.4 Control options 11
2.5 Traditional classroom 15
2.6 Teaching and learning environment with a mixed economy of space 15
2.7 Example of open-plan space with ICT 19
2.8 Floorplan of radical BSF design 20
2.9 Special needs school with central atrium space 24
3.1 School display work 37
3.2 School display work 38
3.3 School display work 38
3.4 School display work 39
3.5 School display work 39
3.6 School display work 40
3.7 Overlapping semiotic codes of schooling 43
3.8 Design Matters? methodology 47
3.9 Case study school 48
3.10 Case study school 49
3.11 Case study school 49
3.12 Case study school 50
3.13 Case study school 50
4.1 The general structure of coordination 63
4.2 The general structure of cooperation 63
4.3 The general structure of communication 63
4.4 Historical forms of work 64
4.5 Educational model for new learning spaces 71
4.6 School C4 concept exterior 75
 Figures vii

4.7 School C4 learning zone sectional perspective 78

4.8 School C4 concept plan 79
5.1 Bexley Academy 91
5.2 Perspective view of initial design concept 92
5.3 Perspective view of typical village cluster 93
5.4 Locality C, Schools C1–C4 and Comparator School CC1 94
5.5 School C1 design concept 98
5.6 School C1 design concept 99
5.7 School C1 design in practice 100
5.8 School C1 design in practice 100
5.9 School C2 design concept 102
5.10 School C2 design concept 103
5.11 School C2 design in practice – time point 1 104
5.12 School C3 design concept 106
5.13 School C3 design concept 107
5.14 School C3 design in practice 108
5.15 School C3 design in practice 108
5.16 School C4 design concept 110
5.17 School C4 design concept 110
5.18 School C4 design in practice 111
5.19 School C4 design in practice 111
5.20 School C4 design in practice 112
5.21 The production and deployment of the building as an artefact 114
5.22 Diagram of sustainability 115
5.23 Waddington’s depiction of an epigenetic landscape 116
5.24 The flexible underpinning structure in Waddington’s epigenetic landscape 117
6.1 Design Matters? methodology 123
6.2 Time point 1: Proportion of primary students that referred to each category, by type
of school when asked ‘What do you think will be different about your new school?’ 124
6.3 Time point 2: Proportion of secondary students that referred to each category, by type
of school when asked ‘List in order of priority, the most important spaces to you?’ 125
6.4 Time point 1-3: How secondary students’ responses to preferences for categories
changed through time in School B1 125
6.5 Time point 1-3: How secondary students’ responses to preferences for categories
changed through time in School D1 126
6.6 Time point 1-4: How secondary students’ responses to preferences for categories
changed through time in School A1 as the design and educational practices changed 127
7.1 Overall, connectedness by measurement occasion 150
7.2 School connectedness scores by measurement occasion and secondary school 151
7.3 School connectedness scores by measurement occasion and type of secondary school 152
7.4 School connectedness scores by measurement occasion and school modality group 153
7.5 Connectedness scores in relation to design/practice alignment/conflict 154
7.6 Jane’s mean school connectedness score over time 158
7.7 John’s mean school connectedness score over time 160
8.1 Concept diagram of case study school 178
8.2 Concept drawing of special school 181
TABLES

4.1 Vision through to occupancy: stage model. Example: Locality C 67

4.2 Summary of main points for each stage of the vision/design/build process 82
7.1 Examples of elements of the coding frame for classification of spaces as designed
and framing over use of space as envisaged in the design 146
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/J019924/1) for their funding
and support. We have had the pleasure of collaborating with a large number of schools, educators, design
professionals, engineers and academics who have all been exceptionally generous with their time. Most
importantly, students from all over the country have been highly engaged with our research and have
willingly shared their views and concerns that have been central to this research.
This project has lasted five years and over that time we have had the privilege of working with talented
researchers, including Susannah Learoyd-Smith, Lorena Ortega Ferrand, Rebecca Tracz, Sarah Roper,
Victoria Read, Grace Murkett, Irem Alici, Emma Powell, Eszter Saghy and Zening Yang. We would par-
ticularly like to thank Adolfo Tanzi Neto for his special contribution to our research project. We would
also like to thank our steering committee – Gert Biesta, Phil Blinston, Alison Clark, Peter Clegg, Ian
Grosvenor, Rob Hannan and John Jenkins – for their insightful guidance.

Cover image credits:

Top left: © BAM Construction Ltd
Top right: © HKS
Middle right: © Martine Hamilton Knight
Bottom right: © HKS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Professor Harry Daniels is Professor of Education in the Department of Education, University of Oxford
and holds Professorships at The Australian Catholic University, Griffith University, Moscow State University
and Kansai University. He specialises in the development of post-Vygotskian and activity theories and studies
learning across a wide range of domains from these perspectives. His current research focuses on the relation-
ship between design and practice and exclusion from school.

Professor Andrew Stables is Emeritus Professor of Education and Philosophy at the University of Roehamp-
ton, London, having previously worked at the universities of Bath and Swansea and with visiting positions at
Ghent, Chaiyi (Taiwan) and Oxford. He is particularly interested in the implications of semiotic philosophy
for understanding educational and other social practices.

Hau Ming Tse is a Research Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, invited
expert for the Department of Education, UK and member of the Technical Advisory Group for the OECD
Centre for Effective Learning Environments. She was an Associate Director at David Chipperfield Architects
until 2007. Selected projects include the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield and the Headquarters of BBC Scotland,
Glasgow. Her current research focuses on productive points of interaction and innovation between theory and
practice in learning environments. Design Matters? funded by the AHRC examined the complex relationship
between design and pedagogic practice in some of the most challenging secondary schools in the UK

Sarah Cox is a researcher in the Department of Education, University of Oxford and has supported many
educational research projects. She was an integral member of the AHRC funded Design Matters? team and
contributed to all aspects of the project.
FOREWORD: DESIGN OBVIOUSLY MATTERS
Peter Clegg

Design obviously matters. My biased view comes as an architect with 25 years experience in the design
of secondary schools. We simply would not be in this business if we did not think we could have a pro-
found impact on the support of a school’s social structure and pedagogical ambitions. But this enquiry
has made us think profoundly, and has allowed us time for reflection on what has worked and what has
caused problems.
Recently we have lived through the third major phase of school building in just over a century. The
first one emerged from the 1902 Education Act, which made provision for secondary education to the
age of 14.The second one responded to the 1944 Act and also the post-war baby boom. And the third
responded to a further rise in the school age population, combined with a recognition that much of the
original post-war buildings were in a dire state of repair.
Added to this was the political motivation from the Blair/Brown/Blunkett government at the turn of
the century that education needed social and economic transformation in a way that had not been seen
for more than half a century. So began, first, the Academies Programme and, in 2004, the £55bn 15-year
Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme to transform every school in the country. The extraor-
dinary ambitions of this programme were cut short by a combination of the 2008 financial crash and the
incoming Conservative government in 2010. The pendulum swung in a completely opposite direction
with minimal expenditure on only those schools in desperate need, plus new Free schools promoted by
those with individual curricular ambitions to supposedly generate greater choice for the parent-consumer.
Whatever side of the political football game of school design you support, it is extraordinary that
more research has not been done into one of the great social experiments of the twenty-first century.
This study goes a long way to filling that gap. BSF was introduced with a requirement that there should
be continuous learning through post-occupancy evaluation, but very little of any substance took place,
and if it did, it was confined to measurable data on issues such as energy performance or attainment and
attendance. Daniels, Stables and Tse bring to the table a much broader range of evaluation techniques
from semiotics and spatial psychology. They use in-depth studies to analyse the way pupils and teachers
have responded to the new spaces they have been given. They show how different approaches to man-
agement and leadership result in very different uses and often costly adaptation of buildings. They talk of
schools as ‘activity systems’ and develop a concept of ‘school connectedness’ when talking, in particular,
about the dramatic change from primary to secondary environment that is so often accompanied by a
xii Foreword: design obviously matters

reduction in performance, attainment and social well-being. And perhaps most importantly they high-
light the successes when the ambitions of the headteacher and the designers are aligned, and the pitfalls
of misalignment.
BSF was very consciously an invitation to the professions of educators and architects to re-examine in
detail the very nature of a school. The goal was nothing less than the transformation of education. There
is no doubt that the breadth and indulgence of the enquiry lead to inefficiency and may have encour-
aged architectural arrogance. But the very process of enquiry resulted in much higher standards gener-
ally. Improved acoustical performance, ventilation rates, better equipped kitchens and larger dining areas,
increased space standards, a very different approach to WC provision, improved energy performance and
of course more extensive use of IT. In many cases these standards have been reduced again as the pen-
dulum swung and austerity kicked in, but many have are still with us and have changed the nature of a
school compared to 20 years ago.
Fourteen years after BSF we are left trying to build schools to budgets which are less than 50 per cent
of what they were 10 years ago, and to space standards which take us back to where we were 20 years
ago. And the 2017 National Audit Office study, in words that could be a repeat of what was being said 20
years earlier talks of the ‘parlous state of the school building estate’ compounded by problems with rising
demand for places (again at record levels) and problems with the delivery of capital projects.
Some of the more interesting lessons learned from this research come in the form of ‘notings’ in the
final chapter. These provide a commentary on how things have changed over the last 20 years in ways
we might not have noticed. Dramatic increase in security, rapid changes in technology infrastructure,
observations on a necessary sense of belonging and engagement, all make the incidental learning from
this study valuable to future building designers. We need to learn from this very comprehensive piece of
research how we can face the next challenge in the provision of better school places.
FOREWORD
Pamela Woolner

The publication of the results of the Design Matters? project comes at a time of increasing international
recognition of the educational importance of the physical environment. School design certainly matters,
in the UK and beyond.
This interest in school space plays out differently across the world. In the global south, the overarch-
ing concern is the provision of sufficient adequate facilities. However, many industrialising nations are
also trying to adapt school designs to accommodate their particular climatic and cultural needs. In the
United States, research from a perspective of educational equity centres on assessing the negative impact of
inadequate buildings, which are disproportionately found in poor neighbourhoods. For the last ten years,
the Australian government has been funding a flurry of school-building, intended to enable ‘innovation’,
but also to support the construction industry through the global economic downturn. Meanwhile, many
European countries are building new schools to accommodate future global citizens, but while holding
onto local variations and national idiosyncrasies.
School design in the UK, on which the project centred, has seen particularly dramatic developments
since the beginning of the century. Building Schools for the Future (BSF), running from 2004 to 2011,
was a government programme explicitly concerned to ‘transform’ education through the provision of
individually designed premises, tailored to the particular needs and aspirations of the school community.
Discontinued after a change of government, it has been replaced, amid much rhetoric and polemic, by
the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP). This programme aims at rebuilding schools, not trans-
forming education, with schools built rapidly to standardised designs, based on corridors and enclosed
classrooms (although toilet design has stayed innovative).
Yet, even as subsequent British governments have derided BSF as wastefully expensive, they have
completely accepted that some schools are not physically fit for purpose and require rebuilding. And, in
schools, people are talking about teaching and learning space in a way that didn’t happen when I was a
student in the 1970s and 1980s, or in the 1990s when I was teaching. Even as I began researching school
buildings in the early years of BSF, the excitement about the physical learning environment didn’t extend
to educational researchers. Many seemed bemused by my interest, despite the research, then expanding
rapidly, into the virtual learning environment. In contrast, there is now an awareness of the built environ-
ment of education that extends across policymakers, researchers, school staff, students and parents.
xiv Foreword

However, the next step is to move from awareness of school space to build understandings of the com-
plex relationships that develop between physical setting and educational aims, processes and outcomes.
This will enable research to inform policy and practice into the future, countering the rhetoric that often
dominates discussion of school buildings. We have (mostly) moved beyond the question that I was always
being asked in the early years of the last decade – ‘Does the building affect learning?’ Now it is mainly
recognised that appropriate questions concern how the physical space relates to the values, intentions and
practices of the inhabitants; that education is more than learning; and that we require ideas from a range
of perspectives to develop our educational spaces and use them well.
This book, reporting research conducted at a key moment in UK school design, is an important contri-
bution to the discussion. Whether you come to this volume for an introduction to this exciting field or for
the next instalment in the expanding interdisciplinary conversation, there is much to interest and inform.
Credit: © Martine Hamilton Knight
1
INTRODUCTION
School design matters?

The Design Matters? project investigated the relationships between design, practice and experience of sec-
ondary schools built in England in the early 2000s under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative
and the Academies Programme (see facing page for an example). We studied a sample of these new-build
schools within a decade of their inception, alongside comparator schools in the same locality. Our interest
was in the ways in which design influenced the day-to-day experiences of school communities, with a
particular emphasis on the transitions between different learning environments.
Design Matters? was a unique multi-disciplinary collaboration between schools, architects, engineers,
educationalists and policymakers. The history and methodology of the project will be described more
fully in Chapter 2. In brief, our aim was to extend beyond typical approaches to post-occupancy evalu-
ation conducted on the performance of new buildings in order to gain insights into the effects of new
designs on the lived experiences of members of school communities. We had a particular interest in the
effects of design on pupils transferring from primary school as shown in Figure 1.1. We followed cohorts
of students from Year 6 (ages 10–11), the final year of primary school in England, to the end of Year 8
(ages 12–13) through whatever changes in pedagogic approach and leadership took place. We developed
a range of innovative, non-directive approaches to data capture, in order to arrive at the richest possible
account through a range of first person (‘I/We’) and third person (‘She/He/They’) perspectives in these
successive occupations.
The theoretical perspectives we brought to bear were inevitably influenced by the lead investigators’
previous work, particularly Daniels’ work on schools as cultural historical activity systems, and Stables’
work on education and semiotics.
A central issue in the Design Matters? project was that of the relationship between the school context
and perceptions and actions of the individuals who study and teach within it. The field abounds with
descriptors such as ‘sociocultural psychology’, ‘cultural historical activity theory’, each of which has been
defined with great care. However, confusions persist alongside what still appear to be genuine differences
of emphasis. As Wertsch et al. (1995: 11) argue, they all attempt to explicate the ‘relationships between
human action, on the one hand, and the cultural, institutional, and historical situations in which this
action occurs on the other’. Our challenge brought questions about the nature of context into focus. A
key figure in the development of cultural historical activity theory is Michael Cole (1996) who distin-
guishes between two understandings of the word ‘context’. The first is roughly equivalent to the term
2 Introduction: school design matters?

Design Matters? Design Vision

Primary School vision pedagogical vision

user’s expectations user’s perceptions occupation I
Primary School experience transition pedagogical practice

pedagogical vision
user’s perceptions occupation II
pedagogical practice

user’s perceptions pedagogical vision

occupation III...
pedagogical practice

FIGURE 1.1 Overall schema of Design Matters?

‘environment‘ and refers to a set of circumstances, separate from the individual, with which the indi-
vidual interacts and which are said to influence the individual in various ways (Cole, 2003). Use of this
understanding can lead to studies of how a context, in our case a school design context, influences action
within a school. In the second, understanding individual and context are seen as mutually constitutive.
In the words of the Oxford English Dictionary, context is ‘the connected whole that gives coherence to its
parts’, a definition which has strong affinities to the Latin term ‘contextere’, or to weave together. When
used in this way, the ability to segment child and the context is problematic, but an analytic distinction
that depends upon a large, perhaps unaccountably large, set of factors operating in bi-directionally over
time in an active process of framing that can be unravelled in an instant (Cole, 2003). It is this second
understanding of context which underpins the various approaches to the study of human activity that
have been derived from the work of the Russian social theorist, L.S. Vygotsky. This notion of context
is important in our work because it renders the tactic of parsing independent variables and identifying
single factor effects (such as school design) problematic.
In activity-oriented approaches, conceptual isolations between individual, objective world and activity
are avoided. Vygotsky (1987) offers a dynamic and wide-ranging model that explains the process of inter-
nalisation of semiotically mediated social forces. Even apparently the most individual and autonomous
actions are situated in a context which must itself be viewed as an active participant in the structuring of
their activities. This understanding of the active making of context in which design provided the tools
for the active construction of school context was a key understanding at the inception of the project.
Stables has also long been interested in semiotic mediation in schooling, focusing on perspectives from
the history of semiotics. From this he has, through a series of publications, attempted to develop a distinc-
tive ‘edusemiotic’ perspective (e.g. Stables, 2016: Stables et al., 2018).
From this semiotic perspective, our surroundings do not determine how we respond to them. Consider
how the agoraphobe or the claustrophobe would react to a small dark room or an open field. Each of us
 Introduction: school design matters? 3

is predisposed to attach certain significances to certain aspects of the places in which we find ourselves.
This is not merely a matter of psychological or emotional trauma, our assumptions about social class and
individual identity are also important. Each of us is strongly impelled by considerations of what ‘people
like us’ and ‘people like me’ do and where we belong. For example, this is witnessed in one school context
in the statement of a young student who when interviewed about his newly built school stated that ‘this
school is too posh for us’.
Living is semiotic engagement (Stables, 2006), a process of engaging with signs, each of which has a
different significance for us. Signs operate in space and time, and when spaces are occupied and used at
particular times they become places. We are always in places: places are the sites for the events that consti-
tute our lives. The environment is a collection of significations not merely a mass of entities to which we
are indifferent. Selection and values lie behind what we notice, find important, and like or dislike about
where we are. This is not merely true of the human world: consider that the same blade of grass in a field
may be a snack for a cow but a pathway for an ant. Semioticians refer to the environment of any organ-
ism as its umwelt. Each organism has its way of negotiating its environment: its innenwelt. Two other
semiotic concepts that are relevant to a discussion of the role of school design are those of lebenswelt (the
human cultural world: a term not exclusive to semiotics) and semiosphere, the totality of all significations
(Lotman, 2005). On this account, a school is a particular umwelt located within a particular lebenswelt
(by calling the place a school, we are giving it particular cultural meaning), to which all relevant actors –
teacher, students, parents, ancillary staff, even visitors – react according to their particular innenwelt. In
this sense, the innenwelt may be compared to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus: the set of disposi-
tions that collectively determine how we respond to a particular situation, or, in Bourdieu’s terms, locate
ourselves within a particular ‘field’ (Bourdieu, 1993). The semiotic account only differs from Bourdieu’s
in being less explicitly sociological, though it does not deny the value of sociological categories, and in
taking a strongly organic view of the individual and their response to their environment, that renders a
structural account as always less than complete. For example, social class might be understood as a powerful
influence, but even studying the intersection of class with other structural factors such as gender, age or
ethnicity falls short of a complete understanding of an individual’s life world.
Taken together, these sets of perspectives provided the analytical framework for Design Matters?
Overall, as the project progressed, we came to agree that one issue above all was predominating: that
of the relationship of design to practice. This is both complex and at times difficult to understand, as we
found some of our sample schools underwent several changes of occupation, and that different occupiers
interacted with the design in different ways. What seems beyond doubt, however, is that design influences
practice, but it does not simply determine or ‘cause’ it.
Design Matters? would not have been possible without the invaluable support of many schools, teach-
ers and students and others in the architectural and educational professions, and of other academics with
similar interests to ourselves. Above all, we wish to thank the AHRC for supporting the project with
grant AH/J011924/1.

References
Bourdieu, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cole, M. (1996) Culture in Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cole, M. (2003) Vygotsky and context. Where did the connection come from and what difference does it make?
Paper prepared for the biennial conferences of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology, Istanbul,
Turkey, 22–7 June.
Lotman, J. (2005; first published 1984 in Russian) On the semiosphere (trans. W. Clark), Sign Systems Studies, 33(1):
205–29.
4 Introduction: school design matters?

Stables, A. (2006) Living and Learning as Semiotic Engagement. New York: Mellen.
Stables, A. (2016) Education as process semiotics: Towards a new model of semiotics for teaching and learning.
Semiotica, 212: 45–58.
Stables, A., Nöth, W., Olteanu, A., Pesce, S. and Pikkarainen, E. (2018) Semiotic Theory of Learning: New Perspectives in
Philosophy of Education. London: Routledge.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of General Psychology, Including the Volume
Thinking and Speech, ed. R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, trans. N. Minick. New York: Plenum Press.
Wertsch, J.V., del Rio, P. and Alvarez, A. (1995) Sociocultural studies: History, action and mediation, in J.V. Wertsch,
P. del Rio and A. Alvarez (eds.), Sociocultural Studies of Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–34.
26 School design: what do we know?

building to match educational theory is implausible. Research on the participation of school users has
focused on commissioning and design. Woolner et al. (2005) caution that the history of school building
programmes is littered with supposedly innovatory design which subsequently becomes unfit for future
purpose. They stress the importance of user engagement in defining and solving design problems, so that
successful solutions come to be seen as flexible and adaptable to new learners and teachers, curriculum
demands and challenges (Woolner et al. 2007: 64). This emphasis on user engagement in design processes
is taken up by Clark (2010) who refined the ‘Mosiac’ approach (Clark and Moss, 2005) as a method for
listening to and collecting data from children. Thus approaches to user involvement have been developed.
The extent to which they are deployed in commercial POE is another matter.

Conclusion
We have not discussed all the literature that we have accessed in the course of Design Matters? We made
decisions about relevance and have presented an account of what we take as the key issues. On the basis
of this exercise we identified a number of key issues which we took forward into the main body of the
research
The overriding issue is the relationship between design and practice. This calls for a thorough exami-
nation of both components. With respect to the processes of design and construction there is a need to
understand the nature and effects of the consultations that took place including accounts of children’s
experience. There is also a need to understand the relationships between key stakeholders in the design
and construction process and the extent to which learning from the perspective of others and from past
experience was a part of professional practice. This will also require an understanding of the tensions and
dilemmas that arose at particular stages and over the entire time span of the process.
In the practices of occupation we were minded to consider the extent to which educational practice
was personalised and innovatory pedagogy was developed. The way in which space was used and the
experience of using space, including differentials by factors such as gender, in that experience were also
matters of importance. The use of space within lesson time as well at social times was considered a prior-
ity. Alongside this use of space issue is the use of ICT concern. The overall impact on well-being as well
as academic achievement came out as a priority.
As far as management of the schools was concerned we were directed towards a consideration of
management style and the extent to which the school was organised in such a way that professionals
could learn to use the new building. Relationships with the local community were also considered as a
valuable point of scrutiny. Lastly the financial arrangements and their impact on both design and practice
appeared to be matters of some importance.

References
Abu-Lughod, J. (1968) The city is dead – Long live the city. In S.F. Fava (ed.), Urbanism in World Perspective. New
York: Crowell, pp. 154–65.
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis
Press.
Barley, S. and Kunda, G. (2001) Bringing work back in, Organisation Science, 12(1): 76–95.
Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J. and Kobbacy, K. (2013) An holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of
classroom design on pupils’ learning, Building and Environment, 59: 678–89.
Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Davies, F. and Barrett, L. (2015) Clever Classrooms: Summary Report of the HEAD Project. Salford:
University of Salford.
Benito, A.E. (2003) The school in the city: School architecture as discourse and as text, Pedagogica Historica, 39(1–2):
53–64.
 School design: what do we know? 27

Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998) Assessment and classroom learning, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and
Practice, 5(1): 7–74.
Blackmore, J., Bateman, D., Cloonan, A., Dixon, M., Loughlin, J., O’Mara, J. and Senior, K. (2011) Innovative Learning
Environments Research Study. East Melbourne, Vic.: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
https://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30036968/blackmore-researchinto-2011.pdf
British Council for School Environments (BCSE) (2009) www.bcse.uk.net/menu.asp?id=50920.
Building Bulletin (BB) 102 (2012) Designing for disabled children and children with special educational needs:
Guidance for mainstream and special schools. London: Department for Children, Schools and Families
(DCSF).
Burke, C. (2010) About looking: Vision, transformation and the education of the eye in discourses of school renewal
part and present, British Educational Research Journal, 36(1): 65–82.
Burke, C. and Grosvenor, I. (2003) The School I’d Like. Children and Young People’s Reflections on an Education for the
21st Century. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Burke, C. and Grosvenor, I. (2008) School. London: Reaktion Press.Cartwright, N. and Hardie, J. (2012) Evidence-based
policy: A practical guide to doing it better. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carvalho, L. and Dong, A. (2006) Legitimating design: A sociology of knowledge account of the field. Design Stud-
ies, 30(5): 483–502.
Clark, A. (2010) Young children as protagonists and the role of participatory, visual methods in engaging multiple
perspectives, American Journal of Community Psychology, 46: 115–23.
Clark, A. and Moss, P. (2005) Spaces to Play: More Listening to Young Children using the Mosaic Approach. London:
National Children’s Bureau.
Clark, H. (2002) Building Education: The Role of the Physical Environment in Enhancing Teaching and Research. London:
Institute of Education.
Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) (2006) Assessing Secondary School Design Quality.
Research report. London: CABE.
Cooper, I. (1981) The politics of education and architectural design: The instructive example of British primary
education, British Educational Research Journal, 7(2): 125–36.
Cooper, I. (1985) Teachers’ assessments of primary school buildings: The role of the physical environment in educa-
tion, British Educational Research Journal, 11(3): 253–69.
den Besten, O., Horton, J. and Kraftl, P. (2008) Pupil involvement in school (re)design: Participation in policy and
practice, Co-Design, 4(4): 197–210.
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) (2013) Construction 2025 Industrial Strategy: Government and
Industry in Partnership. HM Government.
DfES (2002) Time for Standards: Reforming the School Workforce. DfES/0751/2002. London: DfES.
DfES (2003a) A New Specialist System: Transforming Secondary Education, DfES/0173/2003. London: DfES.
DfES (2003b) Building Schools for the Future: Consultation on a New Approach to Capital Investment. London: DfES.
DfES (2003c) Classrooms of the future: Innovative designs for schools. www.education.gov.uk/publications/
eOrderingDownload/DfES-0162-2003.pdf .
DfES (2005) Harnessing Technology – Transforming Learning and Children’s Services. DfES 1296–2005DOC-EN. www.
dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy
Dudek, M. (2000) The Architecture of Schools: The New Learning Environments. London/New York: Routledge.
Dyson, A., Howes, A. and Roberts, B. (2004) What do we really know about inclusive schools? A systematic review
of the research evidence, in D. Mitchell (ed.), Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Education: Major Themes in
Education. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Earthman, G.I. (2004) Prioritisation of 31 criteria for school building adequacy. American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation of Maryland. www.aclumd.org/aTop per cent20Issues/Education per cent20Reform/Earthman
Final10504.pdf
Eastman, C.M., Eastman, C., Teicholz, P., Sacks, R. and Liston, K. (2011) BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Informa-
tion Modelling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors. Canada: John Wiley and Sons.
Egan, J. (1998) Rethinking Construction: Report of the Construction Task Force. London: HMSO.
Engeström, Y. (1999) Innovative learning in work teams: Analysing cycles of knowledge creation in practice, in
Y. Engeström et al. (eds), Perspectives on Activity Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 377–406.
28 School design: what do we know?

Engeström, Y. and Ahonen, H. (2001) On the materiality of social capital: An activity-theoretical exploration,
in H. Hasan, E. Gould, P. Larkin and L. Vrazalic (eds.), Information Systems and Activity Theory. Vol. 2: Theory and
Practice. Wollongong, NSW, Australia: University of Wollongong Press, pp. 115–29.
Engestrom, Y. and Middleton, D. (ed.) (1996) Cognition and Communication at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Fisher, K. (2005) Research into identifying effective learning environments. Paper presented at the First OECD ad
hoc Experts’ Meeting on Evaluating Quality in Educational Facilities, Lisbon. www.oecd.org/education/country-
studies/centreforeffectivelearningenvironmentscele/37905387.pdf
Foxell, S. and Cooper, I. (2015) Closing the policy gaps, Building Research and Information, 43(4): 399–406.
Galasiu, A.D. and Veitch, J.A. (2006) Occupant preferences and satisfaction with the luminous environment and
control systems in day lit offices: A literature review, Energy and Buildings, 38: 728–42.
Gathorne-Hardy, F. (2001) Inclusive design in schools, Support for Learning, 16(2): 53–5.
Giddens A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Gieryn, T. F. (2002) What buildings do, Theory and Society, 31: 35–74.
Gieryn, T.F. (2000) A space for place in sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 463–96.
Gislason, N. (2010) Architectural design and the learning environment: A framework for school design research,
Learning Environments Research, 13: 127–45.
Gislason, N. (2015) The open-plan high school: Educational motivations and challenges, in P. Woolner (ed.), School
Design Together. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 101–20.
Goldacre, B. (2013) Building Evidence into Education. London: Department for Education.
Hargreaves, D. (2003) Education Epidemic: Transforming Secondary Schools through Innovation Networks. DEMOS.
Harty, C. and Whyte, J. (2010) Emerging hybrid practices in construction design work: Role of mixed media, Journal
of Construction Engineering and Management, 136(4): 468–76.
Heppell, S., Chapman, C., Millwood, R., Constable, M. and Furness, J. (2004) Building Learning Futures: A Research
Project at Ultralab within the CABE/RIBA ‘Building Futures’ Programme. London: CABE.
Higgins, S., Hall, E., Wall, K., Woolner, P. and McCaughey, C. (2005) The Impact of School Environments: A Literature
Review. Design Council Report.
Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. (1984) The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hodson, P., Baddeley, A., Laycock, S. and Williams, S. (2005) Helping secondary schools to be more inclusive of
Year 7 pupils with SEN, Educational Psychology in Practice: Theory, Research and Practice in Educational Psychology,
21(1): 53–67.
House of Lords Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment (2016) Building Better Places. Report
of Session 2015–16.
Hygge, S. (2003) Classroom experiments on the effects of different noise sources and sound levels on long-term recall
and recognition in children, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17: 895–914.
James, S. (2011) Review of Education Capital. London: Department for Education.
Johnson, P., Fisher, K., Gilding, T., Taylor, P.G. and Trevitt, A.C.F. (2000) Place and space in the design of new learning
environments, Higher Education Research and Development, 19(2): 221–37.
Kerosuo, H. (2015) BIM-based collaboration across organisational and disciplinary boundaries through knotworking.
Procedia Economics and Finance, 21: 201–8.
Kraftl, P. (2012) Utopian promise or burdensome responsibility? A critical analysis of the UK government’s building
schools for the future policy, Antipode, 44(3): 847–70.
Latham, M. (1994), Constructing the Team. London: HMSO.
Leadbeater, C. (2004) A Summary of ‘Personalisation through Participation’: A New Script for Public Services. DEMOS.
Leiringer, R. and Cardellino, P. (2011): Schools for the twenty-first century: School design and educational transfor-
mation, British Educational Research Journal, 37(6): 915–34.
Luckin, R. (2010) Re-designing Learning Contexts: Technology-Rich, Learner Centred Ecologies. London: Routledge.
Mahony, P. and Hextall, I. (2013) ‘Building schools for the future’: ‘Transformation’ for social justice or expensive
blunder? British Educational Research Journal, 39(5): 853–71.
Mayrowetz, D. and Weinstein, C. (1999) Sources of leadership for inclusive education: Creating schools for all chil-
dren, Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(3): 423–49.
 School design: what do we know? 29

Microsoft Consulting Services (2005) Building Schools for the Future: An Opportunity to Personalise Learning and Funda-
mentally Re-think the Business of Education. Report prepared for Kent County Council.
Moos, R.H. (1979) Evaluating Educational Environments: Procedures, Measures, Findings and Policy Implications. San Fran-
cisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Morgan, J. (2000) Critical pedagogy: The spaces that make the difference, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 8(3): 273–89.
Morrell, P. (2015) Collaboration for Change. London: Edge Publications.
OECD (2013) Innovative Learning Environments. Paris: OECD.
OECD (2014) Effectiveness, Efficiency and Sufficiency: An OECD Framework for a Physical Learning Environments Module.
Paris: OECD.
Parnell, R., Cave, V. and Torrington, J. (2008) School design: Opportunities through collaboration, CoDesign: Inter-
national Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, 4(4): 211–24.
Porter, J. (2016) Time for justice: Safeguarding the rights of disabled children, Disability and Society, 31(8): 997–1012.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (2007) Evaluation of Building Schools for the Future – 1st Annual Report. London: DCSF.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (2008) Evaluation of Building Schools for the Future – 2nd Annual Report. London: DCSF.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (2010) Evaluation of Building Schools for the Future – 3rd Annual Report. London: DCSF.
Prosser, J. (2007) Visual methods and the visual culture of schools, Visual Studies, 22(1): 13–30.
Radcliffe, D., Wilson, H., Powell, D. and Tibbetts, B. (2008) Designing Next Generation Places of Learning: Collaboration
at the Pedagogy-Space-Technology Nexus. Sydney: Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
RIBA (2017) Better Spaces for Learning. www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/
better-spaces-for-learning
Rutter, M. (1979) Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children. London: Open Books.
Saltmarsh, S., Chapman, A., Campbell, M. and Drew, C. (2015) Putting ‘structure within the space’: Spatially un/
responsive pedagogic practices in open-plan learning environments, Educational Review, 67(3): 315–27.
Shaughnessy, R.J., Haverinen-Shaughnessy, U., Nevalainen, A. and Moschandreas, D. (2006) A preliminary study on
the association between ventilation rates in classrooms and student performance, Indoor Air, 16(6): 465–8.
Sigurð ardóttir, A.K. and Hjartarson, T. (2011) School buildings for the 21st century: Some features of new school
buildings in Iceland, Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 1(2): 25–43.
Sutherland, R. and Fisher, F. (2014) Future learning spaces: Design, collaboration, knowledge, assessment, teachers,
technology and the radical past, Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 23(1): 1–5.
The Key (2015) www.thekeysupport.com/about/media-press/school-buildings/
Tse, H.M., Learoyd-Smith, S., Stables, A. and Daniels, H. (2014) Continuity and conflict in school design: A case
study from Building Schools for the Future, Intelligent Buildings International, 7(2–3), 64–82.
Tufvesson C. and Tufvesson J. (2009) The building process as a tool towards an all-inclusive school, Journal of Housing
and the Built Environment, 24: 47–66.
Tuohy, P.G. and Murphy, G.B. (2015) Are current design processes and policies delivering comfortable low carbon
buildings? Architectural Science Review, 58(1): 39–46.
Vasagar, J. (2012) Buried report praised Labour’s school building programme, Guardian online. www.theguardian.
com/education/2012/jul/05/buried-report-labour-school-building
Veloso, L., Marques, J.S. and Duarte, A. (2014) Changing education through learning spaces: Impacts of the Portu-
guese school buildings’ renovation programme, Cambridge Journal of Education, 44(3): 401–23.
Victor, B. and Boynton, A. (1998) Invented Here: Maximising Your Organisation’s Internal Growth and Profitability. Boston:
Harvard Business School Press.
Volk, R., Stengel, J. and Schultmann, F. (2014): Building Information Models (BIM) for existing buildings – Literature
review and future needs, Automation in Construction, 38: 109–27.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of General Psychology, Including the Volume
Thinking and Speech, ed. R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, trans. N. Minick. New York: Plenum Press.
Watts, J. (1977) The Countesthorpe Experience, London: Allen and Unwin.
Winterbottom, M. and Wilkins, A. (2009) Lighting and discomfort in the classroom, Journal of Environmental Psychol-
ogy, 29(1): 63–75.
Woolner, P. and Thomas, U. (2016) Change and stasis within design and practice over three decades in an English
primary school. ECER, Dublin, 23–6 August.
30 School design: what do we know?

Woolner, P., Hall, E., Wall, K., Higgins, S., Blake, A. and McCaughey, C. (2005) School Building Programmes: Moti-
vations, Consequences And Implications. Research report. Reading: CfBT.
Woolner, P., Hall, E., Higgins, S., McCaughey, C. and Wall, K. (2007) A sound foundation? What we know about
the impact of environments on learning and the implications for Building Schools for the Future, Oxford Review
of Education, 33(1): 47–70.
Woolner, P., McCarter, S., Wall, K. and Higgins, S. (2011) Changed learning through changed space. When can a
participatory approach to the learning environment challenge preconceptions and alter practice? Paper presented
at AERA.
Woolner, P., McCarter, S., Wall, K. and Higgins, S. (2012) Changed learning through changed space: When can a
participatory approach to the learning environment challenge preconceptions and alter practice, Improving Schools,
15(1): 45–60.
Young, M. and Muller, J. (2010) Three educational scenarios for the future: Lessons from the sociology of knowl-
edge, European Journal of Education, 45(1): 11–27.
 The aims, scope and method of the Design Matters? project 55

Documentary analysis
Documentary evidence was collected from school commissioners, architects and engineers to inform the
understanding of the design brief and the commissioning and design processes. Documentary data com-
prised two main types: 1) records of the design-and-build process, and 2) statistics and other information
relating to the school’s performance and ethos.

1 We accessed records relating to the design-and-build process for each school. These came from a
number of sources, within both the schools and the design teams.
2 We consulted school websites and brochures, and Ofsted reports. In addition, we obtained data
concerning GCSE results, value-added scores, free school meals and special needs status from the
Department of Education.

Data analysis
Our aim was to collect data in a variety of ways and from a variety of sources to inform debate about
a broad area of educational concern: the effect of design on practice and experience of schooling. As
with an ethnographic study, we were concerned to draw broad conclusions about the relation of design
to practice and to experience, by drawing on a range of data that, taken together, form a strong data set.
We wanted to undertake our analysis in such a way that broad areas of agreement would emerge. Thus
we moved frequently between data sets, rather than focusing on each exercise as a discrete sub-project.
There is considerable triangulation here; for example, the essay data reveal sets of student concerns very
much in line with those arising from the NGTs and map tasks, thus giving each of these data sets greater
explanatory power. The school connectedness questionnaire, which, as a quantitative instrument, was
susceptible to a degree of inferential, as well as descriptive, statistical analysis.
In Chapter 6 we show how we juxtaposed qualitative and quantative data through time. Following
Greene’s (2007) discussion of crossover track analysis, we sought to construct narratives on the basis of the
quantitative data and quantify the differences that emerged through the qualitative analysis. Our concern
was to develop what Greene (2007, p. 156) refers to as a ‘mixed methods way of thinking’. Bringing
together data from a variety of perspectives, gathered through different approaches, allowed us to piece
together a multifaceted account of the complexity of the perceptions and experiences of different school
designs at a moment in time and as they changed through time.
All the interview data, including NGT and map task discussions, were transcribed. Content and
thematic analysis was undertaken at the group or individual level (e.g. particular focus group or indi-
vidual headteacher) and then at collective levels above that. For example, responses from individual
NGT groups were compared with those from the same school then with those from neighbouring
schools, then with the sample as a whole. This process enabled us to examine the ‘trajectories’ of stu-
dents transitioning between different design and practice contexts. This work will be discussed further
in Chapter 5.

References
Baars, S., den Brok, P., Krishnamurthy, S., Joore, J.P. and van Wesemael, P.J.V. (2018) Constructing a framework for
the exploration of the relationship between the psychosocial and the physical learning environment, in W. Imms
and M. Mahat (eds), Transitions Australasia: What is Needed to Help Teachers Better Utilize Space as One of
Their Pedagogic Tools. Proceedings of an international symposium for graduate and early career researchers in
Melbourne, Australia. www.iletc.com.au/publications/proceedings/.
56 The aims, scope and method of the Design Matters? project

Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Davies, F. and Barrett, L. (2015) Clever Classrooms: Summary Report of the HEAD Project. Salford:
University of Salford. http://ow.ly/Jz2vV
Botar, O.A.I. (2001) Notes towards a study of Jakob von Uexkull’s reception in early twentieth-century artistic and
architectural circles, Semiotica, 134(1/4): 593–7.
Bruner, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Burke, C. (2010). About looking: Vision, transformation and the education of the eye in discourses of school renewal
part and present, British Educational Research Journal, 36(1): 65–82.
Burman, E. (2016) Assessing the operational performance of educational buildings against design expectations – A
case study approach. Engineering Doctorate Dissertation. London: University College London.
Burman, E., Kimpian, J. and Mumovic, D. (2018) Building schools for the future: Lessons Learned from performance
evaluations of five secondary schools and academies in England, Frontiers in Built Environment, 4: 1–16.
CABE (2005) Picturing School Design. A Visual Guide to Secondary School Buildings and Their Surroundings Using the Design
Quality Indicator for Schools. London: Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
Chapple, M. and Murphy, R. (1996) The Nominal Group Technique: Extending the evaluation of students’ teaching
and learning experiences, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 21(2): 147–60.
Cleveland, B. and Fisher, K. (2014) The evaluation of physical learning environments: A critical review of the litera-
ture, Learning Environments Research, 17(1): 1–28.
Daniels, H. (1989) Visual displays as tacit relays of the structure of pedagogic practice, British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 10(2): 123–40.
Daniels, H. (2001) Vygotsky and Pedagogy. London: Routledge.
Fish, S. (1980) Is There a Text in this Class: The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
FNI (2011) Educational Facilities Effectiveness Instrument. Lutz, FL: Fielding Nair International. http://goodschool
design.com/Default.aspx
Foxell, S. and Cooper, I. (2015) Closing the policy gaps, Building Research & Information, 43(4): 399–406.
Gagne, R. (1985) The Conditions of Learning (4th edn). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Gearhart, M. and Newman, D. (1980) Learning to draw a picture: The social context of an individual activity, Dis-
course Processes, 3: 169–84.
Goodenow, C. (1993) The psychological sense of school membership among adolescents: Scale development and
educational correlates, Psychology in the Schools, 30: 79–90.
Greene, J.C. (2007) Is mixed methods social inquiry a distinctive methodology? Journal of Mixed Methods Research,
2(1): 7–22.
Harré, R. (1983) Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Harré, R. (1998) The Singular Self. London: Sage.
Harré, R. (2012) Positioning theory: Moral dimensions of social-cultural psychology, in J. Valsiner (ed.), The Oxford
Handbook of Culture and Psychology. New York: Oxford University, pp. 191–206.
Hawkes, T. (1977; 2nd edn 2003) Structuralism and Semiotics. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hoffmeyer, J., Kull, K. and Sharov, A. (2017) Biosemiotics. New York: Springer.
Hirsch, E.D. (1987) Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
MacPhail, A. (2001) Nominal Group Technique: A useful method for working with young people, British Educational
Research Journal, 27(2): 161–70.
Mumovic, D., Palmer, J., Davies, M., Orme, M., Ridley, I., Oreszczyn, T., Judd, C., Critchlow, R., Medina, H.A.,
Pilmoor, G., Pearson, C. and Way, P. (2009) Winter indoor air quality, thermal comfort and acoustic performance
of newly built secondary schools in England, Build. Environ., 44(7): 1466–77.
Palmer, J., Terry, N. and Armitage, P. (2016) Building Performance Evaluation Programme. Swindon: Innovate.
Punch, K. (2009) Introduction to Research Methods in Education. London: Sage.
Sanoff, H. (2001) School Building Assessment Methods. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Educational
Facilities.
Stables, A. (1998) Environmental literacy: Functional, cultural, critical. The case of the SCAA guidelines, Environ-
mental Education Research, 4(2): 155–64.
Stables, A. (2006) Living and Learning as Semiotic Engagement. New York: Mellen.
 The aims, scope and method of the Design Matters? project 57

Stables, A. (2009; first published 2003) School as imagined community in discursive space: A perspective on the school
effectiveness debate, reprinted in Daniels, H., Lauder, H. and Porter, J. (eds), Knowledge,Values and Educational Policy:
A Critical Perspective. London: Routledge, pp. 253–61.
Stables, A. (2012) Be(com)ing Human: Semiosis and the Myth of Reason. Rotterdam: Sense.
Stables, A. and Bishop, K. (2001) Weak and strong conceptions of environmental literacy: Implications for environ-
mental education, Environmental Education Research, 7(1): 89–97.
Stables, A. and Semetsky, I. (2015) Edusemiotics: Semiotic Philosophy as Educational Foundation. London: Routledge.
Stables, A., Gellard, C. and Cox, S. (2018) Teachers’ conceptions of students’ ‘ability’: Creating the space for profes-
sional judgment, Pedagogy, Culture and Society. doi: 10.1080/14681366.2018.1491483
Stables, A., Murakami, K., McIntosh, S. and Martin, S. (2014) Conceptions of effort among students, teachers and
parents within an English secondary school, Research Papers in Education, 29(5): 626–48.
Tarasti, E. (2000) Existential Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Williams, J. and Snipper, G. (1990) Literacy and Bilingualism. New York: Longman.
von Uexküll, J. (2010) A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With A Theory of Meaning, trans. J.D. O’Neil.
Minneapolis andLondon: University of Minnesota Press.
Wertsch, J.V. (1985) The Social Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1967) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Woolner, P., Hall, E., Higgins, S., McCaughy, C. and Wall, K. (2007) A sound foundation? What we know about the
impact of environments on learning and the implications for Building Schools for the Future, Oxford Review of
Education, 33: 1: 47–70.
84 Design as a social practice

that the extent to which an educational vision can be translated into a material design does not hinge on
the efficiencies of the procurement process per se but on the development and implementation of the
educational vision. In order to achieve this we argue for the need to adopt lessons from Daniels et al.
(2007), which, while not focusing specifically on school design, does share many similarities in relation
to problems experienced in multi-agency working.
In both cases the architectural and teaching professions fail to prepare practitioners for working outside
established organisational practices. This is particularly problematic when the boundaries between differ-
ent organisations are well established and strong. In order to blur these boundaries, Daniels et al. (2007)
would suggest that practitioners need to:

• Be receptive to how other types of practitioner are interpreting the trajectory of the an edu-
cational vision and be receptive to the expertise which informs those interpretations;
• Engage with local systems of distributed professional expertise;
• Follow the design and procurement trajectory in a fluid and responsive way outside of their
own established organisational systems;
• Analyse the suitability of organisational conditions for developing this form of work.
(Daniels et. al., 2007, p. 1)

A second research aim was to develop a methodology for exploring the process of school design in relation
to educational vision. The analysis conducted allowed us to explore the process of design across different
periods. We found that motives can change depending on the aims and objectives at a particular point in
time; when the motives of different professional groupings differ at particular stages this can cause ten-
sions. In order for the design and build to proceed, trade-offs had to occur. Early indications, based on
observation and interview data, are that because of these trade-offs spaces have been built which do not
align with the original goals established during Stages 2 and 3.
This analysis has provided us with a stage model for analysing the process of developing an edu-
cational vision and translating this into material spaces. The next step in this project is to apply this
stage framework to the other four schools involved in our project. We will explore similarities and
differences in the process of designing these schools, some of which were procured under BSF and
some as Sponsored Academies/PFI programmes, with the aim of developing a model for understand-
ing the process of school design and the relationship of this process to the educational experience of
end-users. This will allow us to make recommendations for effective multi-agency work between all
the professional organisations involved in school design (e.g. educationalists, architects, contractors,
CABE) and thus enhance the practice of designing, engineering and facilitating learning spaces for
changing pedagogical practices to support a mass education system, and greater student diversity.

References
Ariani, M.G. and Mirdad, F. (2016) The effect of school design on student performance, International Education Stud-
ies, 9(1): 175–81.
Audit Commission (2003) PFI in Schools. London: Audit Commission.
Baars, S., den Brok, P., Krishnamurthy, S., Joore, J.P. and van Wesemael, P.J.V. (2018) Constructing a framework for
the exploration of the relationship between the psychosocial and the physical learning environment. In Transitions
Australasia: What is needed to help teachers better utilize space as one of their pedagogic tools (pp. 90–97).
Barrett, P., Davies, F., Zhang, Y. and Barrett, L. (2017) The holistic impact of classroom spaces on learning in specific
subjects, Environment and Behavior, 49(4): 425–51.
Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J. and Kobbacy, K. (2013) A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of
classroom design on pupils learning, Building and Environment, 59: 678–89.
 Design as a social practice 85

Bazerman, C. (1997) Discursively structured activities, Mind, Culture and Activity, 4(4): 296–308.
Brittin, J., Frerichs, L., Sirard, J., Wells, N., Myers, B., Garcia, J., Sorensen, D., Trowbridge, M. and Huang, T. (2017).
Impacts of active school design on school-time sedentary behavior and physical activity: A pilot natural experi-
ment, PLOS ONE, 12(12).
Burke, C. and Grosvenor, I. (2003) The School I’d Like. Children and Young People’s Reflections on an Education for the
21st Century. London: RoutledgeFalmer
Burke, C. (2010) About looking: Vision, transformation, and the education of the eye in discourses of school renewal
past and present, British Educational Research Journal, 36(1): 65–82.
Burke, C. and Grosvenor, I. (2008) School. London: Reaktion.
CABE (2004) Being involved in school design: A guide for school communities, local authorities, funders and design
and construction teams. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118095356/http:/www.cabe.org.uk/
files/being-involved-in-school-design.pdf
CABE (2007) Creating excellent secondary schools: a guide for clients. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.
uk/20110118095356/http:/www.cabe.org.uk/files/creating-excellent-secondary-schools.pdf
Can, E. and İnalhan, G. (2017) Having a voice, having a choice: Children’s participation in educational space design,
The Design Journal, 20(sup1): S3238 – S3251.
Cartwright, N. (2007) Evidence-based policy: So, what’s evidence? Enquiry, evidence and facts: An interdisciplinary
conference. www.britac.ac.uk/events/2007/evidence/abstracts/cartwright-long.cfm
Chidgey, J. (2009) Building schools for the future: Implications for design and technology. www2.futurelab.org.uk/
resources/publications-reports-articles/web-articles/Web-Article1316
Cleveland, B. and Fisher, K. (2014) The evaluation of physical learning environments: A critical review of the litera-
ture, Learning Environments Research, 17(1): 1–28.
Cleveland, B. and P. Soccio (forthcoming), Research Report: Development and Pilot Testing of the School Spaces Evaluation
Instrument (SSEI): Module 2 – Technical Performance/Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) Module Alignment of Pedagogy
and Learning Environments. Melbourne: University of Melbourne.
Daniels, H., Leadbetter, J. and Warmington P. with Edwards, A., Brown, S., Middleton, D., Popova, A., and Apostolov,
A. (2007) Learning in and for multiagency working, Oxford Review of Education, 33(4): 521–38.
Den Besten, O., Horton, J. and Kraftl, P. (2008) Pupil Involvement in School (Re)Design: Participation in Policy and
Practice, CoDesign, 4(4): 197–210.
de Vrieze, R. and Moll, H. (2016) An analytical perspective on primary school design as architectural synthesis towards
the development of needs-centred guidelines, Intelligent Buildings International, 1: 1–23.
DfE (2013) Priority School Building Programme. www.education.gov.uk/schools/adminandfinance/schoolscapital/
priority-school-building-programme
DfES (2003) Building Schools for the Future: Consultation on a New Approach to Capital Investment. London: DfES.
DfES (2004) Building Schools for the Future: A New Approach to Capital Investment. London: DfES.
Edwards, A., Daniels, H., Gallagher, T., Leadbetter, J. and Warmington, P. (2008) Improving Interprofessional Collabora-
tions in Children’s Services. London: Routledge.
Elledge, J. (2012) And the medal for worst cock-up of all goes to . . ., The Guardian, 14 August.
Engeström, Y. (1999) Innovative learning in work teams: Analysing cycles of knowledge creation in practice, in
Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.L. Punamäki (ed.), Perspectives on Activity Theory (pp. 377–406). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Engeström, Y., Brown, K., Christopher, C. and Gregory, J. (1997) Coordination, cooperation and communication in
courts: Expansive transitions in legal work, The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cogni-
tion, 13(4): 88–97.
Engeström, Y., Engeström, R. and Vähäaho, T. (1999). When the center does not hold: The importance of knot-
working, in S. Chaiklin, M. Hedegaard and U.J. Jensen (eds.), Activity Theory and Social Practice: Cultural-Historical
Approaches (pp. 345–74). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
Foxell, S. and Cooper, I. (2015). Closing the policy gaps. Building Research & Information, 43(4): 399–406. Retrieved
from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2015.1041298
Frerichs, L., Brittin, J., Intolubbe-Chmil, L., Trowbridge, M., Sorensen, D. and Huang, T. (2015) The role of school design in
shaping healthy eating-related attitudes, practices, and behaviors among school staff, Journal of School Health, 86(1): 11–22.
Galasiu, A.D. and Veitch, J.A. (2006) Occupant preferences and satisfaction with the luminous environment and
control systems in day lit offices: A literature review, Energy and Buildings, 38: 728–42.
86 Design as a social practice

Gilavand, A. and Hosseinpour, M. (2016). Investigating the impact of educational spaces painted on learning and educa-
tional achievement of elementary students in Ahvaz, southwest of Iran, International Journal of Pediatrics, 4(2): 1387–96.
Goodenow, C. (1993). The psychological sense of school membership among adolescents: Scale development and
educational correlates, Psychology in the Schools, 30: 79–90.
Greene, J.C. (2008) Is mixed methods social inquiry a distinctive methodology? Journal of Mixed Methods Research,
2(1): 7–22.
House of Commons: Education and Skills Select Committee (2007) Sustainable schools: Are we building schools for the
future? Seventh Report of Session 2006–07. London: Stationery Office.
House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (2009) Building Schools for the Future: renewing the secondary school
estate.
Hygge, S. (2003) Classroom experiments on the effects of different noise sources and sound levels on long-term recall
and recognition in children, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17: 895–914.
Imms, W. and Byers, T. (2016) Impact of classroom design on teacher pedagogy and student engagement and per-
formance in mathematics, Learning Environments Research, 20(1): 139–52.
ITCD Bid Document (2008) Vol 1 D(a) Part 1 Design.
James, S. (2011) Review of Education Capital. London: DfE.
KCC (2005) Template 01 – Schools for the Future. Kent County Council and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Kerosuo, H. (2015. BIM-based collaboration across organizational and disciplinary boundaries through knotworking.
Procedia Economics and Finance, 21: 201–8.
Könings, K., Bovill, C. and Woolner, P. (2017) Towards an interdisciplinary model of practice for participatory build-
ing design in education, European Journal of Education, 52(3): 306–17.
Kraftl, P. (2011) Utopian promise or burdensome responsibility? A critical analysis of the UK government’s Building
Schools for the Future Policy, Antipode, 44(3): 847–70.
Lau, J., Wang, L.M., Waters, C. and Bovaird, J. (2016) A need for evidence-based and multidisciplinary research to
study the effects of the interaction of school environmental conditions on student achievement, Indoor and Built
Environment, 25(6): 869–71.
Leont’ev, A.N. (1978) Activity, Consciousness and Personality. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Livesey, P. (2012) Priority School Building Programme. London: DfE.
MacPhail, A. (2001) Nominal group technique: A useful method for working with young people. British Educational
Research Journal, 27: 161–70.
Magzamen, S., Mayer, A.P., Barr, S., Bohren, L., Dunbar, B., Manning, D., . . . and Cross, J. E. (2017) A multidis-
ciplinary research framework on green schools: Infrastructure, social environment, occupant health, and perfor-
mance, Journal of School Health, 87(5): 376–87.
Mahony, P., Hextall, I. and Richardson, M. (2011) ‘Building Schools for the Future’: Reflections on a new social
architecture, Journal of Education Policy, 26(3): 341–60.
Mahony, P. and Hextall, I. (2013) Building Schools for the Future: ‘Transformation’ for social justice or expensive
blunder? British Educational Research Journal, 39(5): 853–71.
Mäkelä, T. (forthcoming, 2018) Developing a conceptual framework for participatory design of psychosocial and
physical learning environments.
Mäkelä, T. and Helfenstein, S. (2016) Developing a conceptual framework for participatory design of psychosocial
and physical learning environments, Learning Environments Research, 19(3), 411–40.
Mandelson, P. (1997) Labour’s next steps: Tackling social exclusion. Fabian pamphlet no. 581. London: The Fabian Society.
Maxwell, L.E. (2016). School building condition, social climate, student attendance and academic achievement: A
mediation model, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 46, 206–16.
Ministry of Education (2014) Modern learning environments. www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/Education
Policies/Schools/PropertyToolBox/StateSchools/Design/ModernLearningEnvironment/M LEDQLSStandards.aspx
Nambiar, R.M.K., Nor, N.M., Ismail, K. and Adam, S. (2017) New learning spaces and transformations in teacher
pedagogy and student learning behavior in the language learning classroom, The Southeast Asian Journal of English
Language Studies, 23(4): 29–40.
National Audit Office (2009) The Building Schools for the Future Programme: Renewing the Secondary School Estate. Report
HC 135 Session 2008–2009.
Newman, D., Griffin, P. and Cole, M. (1989) The Construction Zone: Working for Cognitive Change in School. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Design as a social practice 87

OECD (2009) International Pilot Study on the Evaluation of Quality in Educational Spaces (EQES) User Manual Final
Version. Paris: OECD.
OECD (2013) Innovative Learning Environments. Paris: OECD.
OECD (2014) Effectiveness, Efficiency and Sufficiency: An OECD Framework for a Physical Learning Environments Module.
Paris: OECD.
Ofsted (1999–2000) Annual report. www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/annual-report-19992000-ofsted-subject-reports-
primary
Pantidi N. (2016) Supporting fluid transitions in innovative learning spaces: Architectural, social and technological
factors, in Architecture and Interaction. London: Springer.
Pearson, R. and Howe, J. (2017) Pupil participation and playground design: Listening and responding to children’s
views, Educational Psychology in Practice, 33(4): 356–70.
PfS/4ps (2008) An Introduction to Building Schools for the Future. London: 4ps and PfS
RIBA (2007–08) Outline plan of work 2007. www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAProfessionalServices/Client
Services/RIBAOutlinePlanOfWork2008Amend.pdf
RIBA (2013) Outline plan of work 2013. www.architecture.com/TheRIBA/AboutUs/Professionalsupport/
RIBAOutlinePlanofWork2013.aspx#.Uic3AqBOSJo
Sailer, K. and Penn, A. (2010). Towards an architectural theory of space and organisations: Cognitive, affective and
conative relations in workplaces. 2nd Workshop on Architecture and Social Architecture, EIASM, Brussels, May. http://
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1342930.
Schools for the Future (2004) Exemplar Designs Compendium. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.
uk/20110113135138/www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/6113/Exemplar%20Designs%20compendium.pdf.
Shaoul, J., Stafford, A. and Stapleton, P. (2010) Financial black holes: The disclosure and transparency of privately
financed roads in the UK, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 23(2): 229–55.
Shaughnessy, R.J., Haverinen-Shaughnessy, U., Nevalainen, A. and Moschandreas, D. (2006) A preliminary study on
the association between ventilation rates in classrooms and student performance, Indoor Air, 16(6): 465–8.
Sigurð ardóttir, A.K. and Hjartarson, T. (2016) The idea and reality of an innovative school: From inventive design to
established practice in a new school building, Improving Schools, 19(1), 62–79
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research, 2nd edn. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
UNISON (2003) What is Wrong with PFI in Schools? A PFI report for UNISON.
Victor, B. and Boynton, A.C. (1998). Invented Here: Maximizing Your Organization’s Internal Growth and Profitability.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of General Psychology, Including the Volume
Thinking and Speech, ed. R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, trans. N. Minick. New York: Plenum Press.
Whyte, B., House, N.H. and Keys, N. (2016) Coming out of the closet: From single-cell classrooms to innovative
learning environments, Teachers and Curriculum, 16(1), 81–8.
Wilson, H. K. and Cotgrave, A. (2016) Factors that influence students’ satisfaction with their physical learning envi-
ronments, Structural Survey, 34(3): 256–75.
Winterbottom, M. and Wilkins, A. (2009) Lighting and discomfort in the classroom, Journal of Environmental Psychol-
ogy, 29(1): 63–75.
Woolner, P., Hall, E., Higgins, S., McCaughey, C. and Wall, K. (2007) A sound foundation? What we know about
the impact of environments on learning and the implications for Building Schools for the Future, Oxford Review
of Education, 33(1): 47–70.
 Design and practice 117

FIGURE 5.24 The flexible underpinning structure in Waddington’s epigenetic landscape

viable. Our response is that without responsive designing as a process investments in capital assets may
fail to yield the returns which they should provide for investors. Complex forms of action such as those
that take place in schools require designs that do not constrain practice rather they should facilitate it.

References
DfES (2003) Building Schools for the Future. Consultation on a New Approach to Capital Investment. London: DfES.
Hillier, B. (2007) Space is the Machine: A Configurational Theory of Architecture. London: Space Syntax.
Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. (1989) The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
James, S. (2011) Review of Education Capital. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/
uploads/attachment_data/file/180876/DFE-00073-2011.pdf
Milliband, D. (2006) Choice and Voice in Personalised Learning, in Personalising Education. Paris: OECD, pp. 21–30.
NAO (2009) The Building Schools for the Future Programme: Renewing the secondary school estate. www.nao.org.
uk/report/the-building-schools-for-the-future-programme-renewing-the-secondary-school-estate/
Ratti, C. (2004) Space syntax: Some inconsistencies, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science,
31(4), 487–99.
Shotter, J. (1997) Wittgenstein in practice, in C.W. Tolman, F. Cherry, R. van Hezewijk and I. Lubek (eds), Problems
of Theoretical Psychology. York, Ontario: Captus Press, pp. 27–34.
Victor, B. and Boynton, A. (1998) Invented Here: Maximizing Your Organization’s Internal Growth and Profitability.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Waddington, C.H. (1956) Genetic assimilation of the bithorax phenotype, Evolution, 10: 1–13.
136 The experience of new-build schools

As we argued in Daniels et al. (2017), it is as if there is a process of resignification at each point of

cultural change in successive management regimes. This raises considerable challenges for the kinds
of social and cultural transformation that were envisioned in BSF. If the process of prolepsis fails, then
the vision fails. If it succeeds, it only does so while the imagination of the practices remains aligned
with the vision. If changes in policy or pedagogic predilection of a new school leader drift away from
the original vision, then there will be a need for an effective form of adaptation. The original BSF
policy documents voiced a concern for adaptation. In practice it appears to be both difficult to enact
and often very expensive. This suggests that the notion of sustainability of a school design should
place much more emphasis on the possibilities for resignification. Failure to do this can result in more
dissatisfaction.
The new BSF designs commissioned by the county’s Transformation Team all witnessed social priori-
ties whether through ‘heart’ spaces, large open spaces at the centre of the schools for social exchange, or
the mixed economies of teaching spaces or community spaces for active engagement. The NGT data
suggest that if the design is predicated on principles of the importance of social relations, then it is at the
level that the proleptic instructional effect as witnessed in the mediation by the artefacts. At the level
of the social relations of the instructional practice it would appear to have little effect unless the social
conditions of that practice mirror those imagined in the design.
As the National Audit Office (2017, p. 12) argues ‘to deliver value for money, the Department must
make the best use of the capital funding it has available – by continuing to increase the use of data to
inform its funding decisions and by creating places where it can demonstrate that they will have the
greatest impact’. This calls for a greater understanding of the relationship between design and educational
practices and the impact on experiences of students and teachers.
The methodology that we have developed in the course of this project has shifted the potential gaze of
post-occupancy evaluation from a static, and often highly delimited, view of functioning at one moment
in time to a much more responsive view of the dynamics of design in-practice over time. An understand-
ing of the ways in which perceptions of students and staff change as they interact within often rapidly
changing social situations in which a building, understood as an artefact, is shaped and transformed
through time.
Cole’s (1996) concept of proleptic instruction in child rearing offers much to the investigation of
activities which seek to design interventions in the future of practice. The idea of projecting futures
onto practice through design is, of course very appealing, given that it suggests that innovation and
development can be brought about through changing spaces. This project suggests we need to under-
stand design in terms of its social origins and the social circumstances of the dynamics of its futures.
The social analysis of design is multifaceted. We need to understand the social relations of the design
process itself. If the social relations of design are not effective, then the resulting building will not be fit
for the purposes of the imagined future. The social characteristics of the practices of design may con-
strain the social possibilities for the outcomes. We also need to understand the social relations of design
in-practice through time.

References
Chapple, M. and Murphy, R. (1996) The Nominal Group Technique: Extending the evaluation of students’ teaching
and learning experiences, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 21(2): 147–60.
Cole, M. (1996) Culture in Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Daniels, H. (2001) Vygotsky and Pedagogy. London: Routledge.
Daniels, H., Tse, H.M., Stables, A. and Cox, S. (2017) Design as a social practice: The design of new-build schools,
Oxford Review of Education, 43(6): 767–87.
 The experience of new-build schools 137

Daniels, H., Tse, H.M., Ortega, L., Stables, A. and Cox, S. (2018) Changing Schools: A study of primary secondary
transfer using Vygotsky and Bernstein.
DfE (2018) Permanent and Fixed Period Exclusions in England: 2016 to 2017. London: DfE.
Griffin, P. and Cole, M. (1984)‘Current activity for the future: The zo-ped, in B. Rogoff and J. Wertsch (eds), Chil-
dren’s Learning in the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’. Jossey Bass: San Francisco, pp. 45–64.
Holland, D. and Lachicotte, W. (2007). Vygotsky, Mead, and the new sociocultural studies of identity, in The Cambridge
Companion to Vygotsky (pp. 101–35). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ivic, I. (1989) Profiles of educators: Lev S.Vygotsky (1896–1934), Prospects, XIX(3): 427–35.
Kraftl, P. (2006) Building an idea: The material construction of an ideal childhood, Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, 31(4): 488–504.
Lefebvre, H. (1991 [1974]) The Production of Space. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Ministry of Education, New Zealand (2011) The New Zealand School Property Strategy 2011–2021. Edu-
cation.govt.nz. www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Primary-Secondary/Property/SchoolProperty
Strategy201121.pdf
National Audit Office (2017) Capital Funding for Schools. Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General. London:
NAO.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2010) OECD review of the secondary
school modernisation programme in Portugal. CELE Exchange 2010/1. www.oecd.org/education/innovation-
education/centreforeffectivelearningenvironmentscele/44708107.pdf
OECD (2017) The OECD Handbook for Innovative Learning Environments. Paris: OECD.
Pomeroy, E. (2000). Experiencing Exclusion, Improving Schools, 3(3): 10–19.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (2007) Evaluation of Building Schools for the Future – 1st Annual Report. London: DCSF.
Reid, K.C. and Stone, A. (1991) Why is cognitive instruction effective? Underlying learning mechanisms, Remedial
and Special Education, 12(3): 8–19.
Tse, H.M., Learoyd-Smith, S., Stables, A. and Daniels, H. (2014) Continuity and conflict in school design: A case
study from Building Schools for the Future, Intelligent Buildings International, 7(2–3): 64–82.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of General Psychology, Including the Volume
Thinking and Speech, ed. R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, trans. N. Minick. New York: Plenum Press.
 Changing schools 163

As Ratner (1997) notes, Vygotsky did not consider the ways in which concrete social systems bear on
psychological functions. He discussed the general importance of language and schooling for psychologi-
cal functioning, however, he failed to examine the real social systems in which these activities occur and
reflect. Vygotsky never indicated the social basis for this new use of words. The social analysis is thus
reduced to a semiotic analysis which overlooks the real world of social praxis (Ratner, 1997). Vygotsky’s
understanding of mediation by psychological tools is, as it were, situated by the Bernsteinian under-
standing of the regulation, structuring and recontextualisation of the tool. In this way a psychological
understanding of the social formation of mind is extended through a sociological understanding of the
origins of mediational means.
In a recent chapter, Singh (2017) compares Foucault and Bernstein’s ideas on governance. She suggests
that new policies on school design are in effect new modes of pedagogic governance, and these modes
of pedagogic governance are recontextualised in specific practices. Our work has shown how new poli-
cies of school design have been recontextualised (Daniels et al., 2017) as understood by Bernstein (see
Singh et al., 2013). Attempts to effect the transformation of education as outlined in BSF depend on the
willingness of schools to align with an imagined pedagogic future. It also depends on the availability of
the psychological tools (Vygotsky, 1987) which enable the capacity to bring transformation into effect.

The allure of continuous makeover by pedagogic means is supposedly available to all actors. But
this is the fantasy of pedagogic makeovers. Implicit within the new pedagogic translations is a
model of the ideal learner who has the capacity (not ability) to ‘meaningfully rather than relevantly
or instrumentally project’ themselves into a pedagogised future.
(Bernstein, 2001, p. 366, original emphasis, in Singh, 2017, p. 159)

This project advances the development of the post-occupancy evaluation of schools through the incorpo-
ration of perspectives drawn from Vygotsky’s theory of sociogenesis and Bernstein’s later work on cultural
transmission. The chapter has also shown how Bernstein’s approach to the codification of modalities of
pedagogic practice can be extended to incorporate a broader notion of the configuration of space in the
design of a building and allows for the examination of the consequences of change over time.
We suggest that innovations in school design must be understood as relays of underlying arguments
that may come into conflict with other pedagogic perspectives in the social world of schooling. The
interplay between design and practice can ease or exacerbate the challenges of moving between schools.

References
Abreu, G. and Elbers, E. (2005) The social mediation of learning in multiethnic schools (introduction), European
Journal of Psychology of Education, 20(1): 3–11.
Benito, A.E. (2003) The school in the city: School architecture as discourse and as text, Pedagogica Historica, 39(1–2):
53–64.
Bernstein, B. (1977) Class, Codes and Control, Vol. 3. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bernstein, B. (1985) On pedagogic discourse, in J. Richards (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of
Education (pp. 205–40). Greenwood Press: New York.
Bernstein, B. (1990) Class, Codes and Control,Vol. 4: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge.
Bernstein, B. (1993) Foreword, in H. Daniels (ed.), Charting the Agenda: Educational Activity After Vygotsky (pp. xiii–xxiii).
London: Routledge.
Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique, rev. edn. Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield.
Building Bulletin (BB) 95 (2002) Schools for the Future: Designs for Learning Communities. Department for Education
and Skills.
164 Changing schools

Burke, C. (2010) About looking: Vision, transformation and the education of the eye in discourses of school renewal
part and present, British Educational Research Journal, 36(1): 65–82.
Carvalho, J. and Dong, A. (2006). Legitimating design: A sociology of knowledge account of the field, Design Stud-
ies, 30: 483–502.
Cole, M. (1998) Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Daniels, H. (1989) Visual displays as tacit relays of the structure of pedagogic practice, British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 10(2): 123–40.
Daniels, H. (1995) Pedagogic practices, tacit knowledge and discursive discrimination: Bernstein and post-Vygotskian
research, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 16(4): 517–32.
Daniels, H. (2010) The mutual shaping of human action and institutional settings: A study of the transformation of
children’s services and professional work, The British Journal of Sociology of Education, 31(4): 377–93.
Daniels, H., Tse, H.M., Stables, A. and Cox, S. (2017) Design as a social practice: The design of new-build schools,
Oxford Review of Education, 43(6): 767–87.
DfES (2003) Classrooms of the Future: Innovative Designs for Schools. London: DfES.
Douglas, J. W. (1964) The home and the school: a study of ability and attainment in the primary school. MacGibbon and
Kee: London.
Fitz, J. (2007) Review essay: Knowledge, power and educational reform, applying the sociology of Basil Bernstein,
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(2), 273–279.
Flygt, E. (2009) Investigating architectural quality theories for school evaluation: A critical review of evaluation
instruments in Sweden, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 37(5): 645–66.
Goodenow, C. (1993) The psychological sense of school membership among adolescents: Scale development and
educational correlates, Psychology in the Schools, 30: 79–90.
Hasan, R. (2002) Semiotic mediation, language and society: Three exotropic theories – Vygotsky, Halliday and Ber-
nstein. Presentation to the Second International Basil Bernstein Symposium: Knowledge, pedagogy and society,
Cape Town, July .
Hoadley, U. (2006) Analysing pedagogy: The problem of framing. www.education.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/
image_tool/images/104/hoadley2006.pdf
Hundeide, K. (1985) The tacit background of children’s judgments, in J. Wertsch (ed.), Culture, Communication and
Cognition (pp. 306–22). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ivic, I. (1989) Profiles of educators – Lev S. Vygotsky (1896–1934), Prospects, XIX(3): 245–58.
Luria, A.R. (1928) The problem of the cultural development of the child, Journal of Genetic Psychology, 35: 493–506.
Melhuish, E.C., Phan, M.B., Sylva, K., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I. and Taggart, B. (2008) Effects of the home
learning environment and preschool center experience upon literacy and numeracy development in early primary
school, Journal of Social Issues, 64(1): 95–114.
Moos, R. H. (1979) Evaluating Educational Environments: Procedures, Measures, Findings and Policy Implications. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Niehaus, K. Moritz Rudasill, K. and Rakes, C. (2012) A longitudinal study of school connectedness and academic
outcomes across sixth grade. Journal of School Psychology, 50: 443–60.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (2003) Building Performance. An empirical assessment of the relationship between schools capital
investment and pupil’ performance. DfES Research Report Series, RR242.
Ratner, C. (1997) Cultural Psychology and Qualitative Methodology. Theoretical and Empirical Considerations. London:
Plenum Press.
Singh, P. (2017) Pedagogic governance: Theorising with/after Bernstein, British Journal of Sociology of Education,
38(2): 144–63.
Singh, P., Thomas, S. and Harris, J. (2013) Recontextualising policy discourses: A Bernsteinian perspective on policy
interpretation, translation, enactment, Journal of Education Policy, 28(4): 465–80.
Tudge, J.R.H. and Winterhoff, P.A. (1993) Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura: Perspectives on the relations between the
social world and cognitive development, Human Development, 36(2): 61–81.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987) The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of General Psychology, Including the Volume
Thinking and Speech, ed. R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, trans. N. Minick. New York: Plenum Press.
Wertsch, J.V. (1998) Mind as Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, J.J., Hong, S.M., Mumovic, D. and Taylor, I. (2015) Using a unified school database to understand the
effect of new school buildings on school performance in England, Intelligent Buildings International, 7(2–3): 83–100.
184 What matters about design?

There is, nevertheless, an issue relating to variability of context and the useful life of a school: an issue
of what constitutes sustainability in school design. Even over the five-year period between the begin-
ning of the Design Matters? project and the time of writing, schools have changed not only leadership
but also management and pedagogic style on several occasions. How can one design, therefore, be fit for
‘the future’? There is no easy answer to this dilemma. Our in-depth research on a small number of BSF
and Academy schools suggests that not all original design intentions will be realised in practice for very
long in most cases, particularly when fundamental changes take place in educational policy with changes
in government.
Overall, our findings suggest a need to redefine ‘sustainability’ in terms of adaptation to different forms
of practice. In order to extend the functional life of new school buildings, the vision and design process
must allow for adaptation as educational policies and practices change through time. In practice, this
means that school design requires good multi-professional holistic post-occupancy evaluation which has
a remit that goes far beyond the physical/environmental functioning of the building.
Above all, an understanding of the social relations that are enacted within a design as it is taken up by
different forms of practice is crucial to the development of better sites for schooling.

References
Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Davies, F. and Barrett, L. (2015) Clever Classrooms: Summary Report of the HEAD Project. Salford:
University of Salford.
Bluyssen, P.M. (2017). Health, comfort and performance of children in classrooms – new directions for research,
Indoor and Built Environment, 26(8): 1040–50.
Building Futures (2004) 21st century schools: Learning environments of the future. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.
gov.uk/20110118205716/www.cabe.org.uk/files/21tt-century-schools.pdf
CABE (2007) Creating excellent secondary schools: A guide for clients. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.
uk/20110118111850/www.cabe.org.uk/files/creating-excellent-secondary-schools.pdf
Clark, H. (2002) Building Education: The Role of the Physical Environment in Enhancing Teaching and Research. London:
Institute of Education.
Cooper, I. (1985) Teachers’ assessments of primary school buildings: The role of the physical environment in educa-
tion, British Educational Research Journal, 11(3): 253–69.
Daniels, H., Tse, H.M., Stables, A. and Cox, S. (2018) Design as a social practice: The experience of new build schools.
Cambridge Journal of Education, 43(6): 767–87.
Department for Education (2010) List of schools. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/19_07_10_school_
error_list.pdf
Education and Skills Funding Agency (2014) Baseline designs for schools: Guidance. www.gov.uk/government/
publications/baseline-designs-for-schools-guidance/baseline-designs-for-schools-guidance#cost-and-area-allowances
DQI (2014) www.dqi.org.uk/perch/resources/dqi-schools-guidance-copy.pdf
Gunter, T. and Shao, J. (2016). Synthesising the effect of building condition quality on academic performance, Educa-
tion Finance and Policy, 11(1): 97–123.
House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (2017) Capital Funding for Schools. London: HMSO.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Law, M., Petrenchik, T., King, G. and Hurley, P. (2007) Perceived environmental barriers to recreational, community,
and school participation for children and youth with physical disabilities. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation,
88(12): 1636–42.
Locke, J. (1959) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Dover Publications.
Martin, C.S. (2016) Exploring the impact of the design of the physical classroom environment on young children
with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16: 280–98.
McAllister, K. and Sloan, S. (2016) Designed by the pupils for the pupils: an autism-friendly school, British Journal
of Special Education, 43(4): 330–57.
 What matters about design? 185

Mihaylov, S.I., Jarvis, S.N., Colver, A.F. and Beresford, B. (2004) Identification and description of environmental
factors that influence participation of children with cerebral palsy, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology,
46(5): 299–304.
Mumovic, D., Palmer, J., Davies, M., Orme, M., Ridley, I., Oreszczyn, T., Judd, C., Critchlow, R., Medina, H.A.,
Pilmoor, G., Pearson, C. and Way, P. (2009). Winter indoor air quality, thermal comfort and acoustic performance
of newly built secondary schools in England, Build. Environ., 44(7): 1466–77.
OECD (2006) The Case for 21st Century Learning. Paris: OECD. www.oecd.org/general/thecasefor21st-centurylearning.
htm
OECD (2014) Effectiveness, Efficiency and Sufficiency: An OECD Framework for a Physical Learning Environments Module.
Paris: OECD.
Partnership for Schools and 4ps (2008) An Introduction to Building Schools for the Future. London: Department for
Children, Schools and Families.
Pollock A.M., Shaou, J. and Vickers, N. (2002). Private finance and ‘value for money’ in NHS hospitals: A policy in
search of a rationale? BMJ, 324(7347): 1205–9.
Price, I., Clark, E., Holland, M., Emerton, C. and Wolstenholme, C. (2009) Condition Matters: Pupil Voices on the Design
and Condition of Secondary Schools. Reading: CfBT Education Trust.
Scott, I. (2009) Designing learning spaces for children on the autism spectrum, Good Autism Practice, 10(1): 36–51.
Sharp, R. and Green, G. (1975), Education and Social Control: A Study in Progressive Primary Education. London: Rout-
ledge and Kegan Paul.
Tse, H.M., Learoyd-Smith, S., Stables, A. and Daniels, H. (2014). Continuity and conflict in school design: A case
study from Building Schools for the Future, Intelligent Buildings International, 7(2–3): 64–82.
Williams, J.J., Hong, S.M., Mumovic, D. and Taylor, I. (2015) Using a unified school database to understand the
effect of new school building on school performance in England, Intelligent Buildings International, 7(2–3): 83–100.
Winterbottom, M. and Wilkins, A. (2009) Lighting and discomfort in the classroom, Journal of Environmental Psychol-
ogy, 29(1): 63–75.