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Tag: School Design

Published on

(2006). Washington, DC: American Architectural Foundation.

The National Summit on School Design convened more than 200 professionals from around the country to discuss current trends related to school design. The event was an open dialogue on school design, where participants were actively engaged in discussions about school design principles for the 21st century and the challenges and tensions related to effective design. This report details eight overall recommendations made by Summit participants following discussions on a range of school design topics.

AAFNationalsummitonschooldesignreport

Published on

Pardee, M. (2005).

Resource Guide Volume 4: Creating Playgrounds for Early Childhood Facilities, published by LISC’s Community Investment Collaborative for Kids (CICK). This guide assists early childhood programs with the planning of a center’s outdoor space to achieve a successful natural environment for young children. It includes suggestions for equipment and materials that support a range of activities that children can enjoy outdoors.

CreatingPlaygroundsforEarlyChildhood

Published on

Cooner, S. A., Wooldridge, M. D., Fitzpatrick, K., & Ford, G. L. (2004). (0-4286-S)

The State of Texas, particularly in the large urban areas, has recently experienced considerable population growth. This growth has produced new schools on sites near highways originally designed for low volumes and high speeds. Another trend is the higher proportion of children being transported to schools in private vehicles. These realities make it important to consider the design of roadways within and around schools. Equally important is the consideration of the location and design of the school site, preferably during the planning stages, in order to establish safe and efficient operations. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has focused attention on these issues through its Precious Cargo Program. Precious Cargo allows TxDOT to review school site plans and make recommendations prior to construction. TxDOT has assisted independent school districts (ISDs) through application of transportation principles and fundamentals, but its efforts have sometimes been limited by the lack of knowledge of the specific problems associated with school transportation needs and the lack of acceptable guidelines. This research addressed these limitations and provided an opportunity to enhance Precious Cargo by providing TxDOT staff, ISD personnel, and the other stakeholders with guidelines and good examples for the design and operation of roadway facilities around schools.

View Guide

Published on

Wargo, J. (2004). (Doc. 2)

This document includes information to create a healthy school environment, and to identify and modify aspects of the physical environment that jeopardize safety and health. However, physical interventions alone will not suffice. The document also contains guidance to ensure that positive changes in a school’s physical environment are supported, reinforced and sustained by school health policy, skills-based health education and school health services, the core components of an effective school health programme as called for in the international initiative to Focus Resources on Effective School Health (FRESH)

Wargo_ThePhysicalSchoolEnvironment

Published on

Branham, D. (2004).

Objective. This article looks at the effect of school infrastructure on student attendance and drop-out rates. Methods. Using the school as the unit of analysis, Tobit analysis is performed to analyze 226 Houston Independent School District schools. Results. The quality of school infrastructure has a significant effect on school attendance and drop-out rates. Students are less likely to attend schools in need of structural repair, schools that use temporary structures, and schools that have understaffed janitorial services. Conclusions. School districts who wish to maximize attendance and minimize drop-out rates should avoid temporary solutions to school building inadequacies and provide students, teachers, and administrators with quality permanent structure schools, and quality janitorial staffs to maintain those schools.

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Published on

United States Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2003). (FEMA P-428)

The purpose of this primer is to provide the design community and school administrators with the basic principles and techniques to make a school that is safe from terrorist attacks.

FEMA - Primer to design safe school projects in case of terrorist attacks

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South Carolina Education Oversight Committee Stevenson, K. R. (2001).

This research project sought to determine if a relationship exists between school academic outcomes and school facilities characteristics. To address this issue, data were gathered from a variety of sources including research literature, state data files, principal questionnaires, and focus groups.

Stevenson_The Relationship of School Facilities Condition To Selected Student Academic

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Sanoff, H. (2001).

This manual presents guidance for creating a constructive dialogue between school officials and the surrounding community on the design of community schools that contribute to enhancing educational quality. The benefits of community participation are addressed as are descriptions of the principle parts of the participation process, including strategic planning, goal setting, and long term planning. Finally, the manual presents the Charrette process as a method for generating design ideas.

Sanoff_A visioning process for designing responsive schools

Published on

Earthman, D.I., & Lemasters, L. (1996).

The most persistent question in the field of school facility planning relates to that of the relationship between the built environment and the performance and behavior of users, particularly students. Ways in which the built environment affects two student variables--student achievement and student behavior--are explored. The first variable is student achievement as measured by some form of standardized or normed test, or examination administered to all students in the schools under study. The other variable is student behavior that can include specific level of student activity or school climate. A survey of research summarizes open-education programs and open-space schools, school building age, thermal factors, visual factors, color and interior painting, hearing factors, open space, windowless facilities, underground facilities, site size, building maintenance, and numerous other factors. All of the studies demonstrated a relationship between student performance--both achievement and behavior--and the condition of the built environment. The relationship varied from very weak in some early studies to a considerable degree of relationship in recent studies. Some of the more important factors that were found to influence learning are those relating to control of the thermal environment, proper illumination, adequate space, and availability of equipment and furnishings, particularly in science education. Some areas of needed research are discussed

Earthman_Review of Research on the Relationship (1996)

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