Mahoney, 2015
Current trends for primary public school design do not account for the psychological effects everyday stress and trauma have on the ability for students to effectively learn. Set design standards and regulations efficiently disregard designing to alleviate student stress and for child-, community-, demographic-, and age- centered environments in order to foster learning for all students. The aim of this thesis is to define the principal architectural concepts responsible for the creation of a child focused primary school environment integrated with the specific elements needed for the mitigation of everyday stress and trauma on the student.
The relevance and limitations of current primary school design trends will be addressed to situate the discussion of designing schools to mitigate the effects of mental or emotional strain or tension on students. Typically, children are less able to cope with these situations leading to a state of mind ‘turned off’ to learning. A primary school designed for the student needs to respond to the emotional needs of the student while providing a positive first impression of learning. By defining the spatial qualities needed to address the effects of everyday stress and trauma combined with how to design for children and the critique of current design trends, this thesis will present the final design aims and methods for providing an urban, public school for the downtown Cincinnati area meant to mitigate the effects of everyday stress and trauma on students in order to promote learning through the built environment.
