With my background in ecology, I’ve always been interested in understanding how things work together, how interactions work within a system, and how a functioning ecology works. If you are unfamiliar with ecological systems, a baseline premise is that everything is connected and systems function best when everything is in balance. In an ecological system, each component, whether a biotic (living) or abiotic (non-living) factor, contributes to the health and sustainability of the entire system. When one element thrives or declines, it impacts everything connected to it.
The same principle applies to many other fields, from education to business, where interconnected systems thrive on collaboration, diversity, and the careful management of resources. Understanding this interconnectedness allows people to design solutions that support resilience and adaptability, creating environments that can respond positively to new conditions and change while promoting sustainable growth and improvement.
When we apply ecological systems thinking to school design, we can create learning environments that support teaching and learning by actively nurturing a sense of community, belonging, and interdependence. To encourage this, we can start by creating connective spaces that promote interaction and collaboration—spaces that foster meaningful connections among students and between students and educators. To support these connections, designers can create spaces with intentional adjacencies so that their proximity establishes a network of spaces that work together towards a combined and additive purpose. This approach imagines that each space contributes to a more extensive, cohesive learning experience (think learning as an ecology), helping students feel more connected to their learning, to each other, and to their school.
This interdependence also extends to the relationship between virtual and physical spaces. Contemporary schools offer a comprehensive online presence that supports teaching and learning experiences as well as supporting standard communication capabilities. Virtual spaces support online learning by connecting students to the world beyond school, to experts, mentors, and collaborators, extending what it means to be a part of a much broader and connective ecosystem of learning. This purpose reimagines and extends the role of virtual spaces beyond the debacle of online learning during the pandemic to make this resource a functioning and mission-critical component of a next-generation learning system. How virtual learning impacts the design and capabilities of physical spaces is a necessary and challenging conversation when designing schools, especially in light of how most schools view the importance of instructional technology.
Just as ecosystems rely on diversity for resilience, adaptability, and functionality, learning environments thrive when they incorporate a range of spaces tailored to different needs and purposes. In a healthy ecosystem, a variety of habitats ensures stability and adaptability; similarly, in education, a mix of learning spaces—such as collaborative zones, quiet areas for reflection and respite, generative workspaces, and informal locations for social interaction—all can contribute to a balanced, flexible environment that supports the diverse ways students learn and grow.
When considering spatial diversity, it’s necessary to move beyond the school's vision of a classroom, gym, library, and cafeteria design. While those spaces are essential, they can be reimagined and new and engaging spaces added. It’s time to move past the double-loaded corridor of 800-square-foot classrooms.
In addition to connective, technological, and diverse spaces, consider these spaces as part of a new spatial ecology:
Spaces that are generative: Begin by going beyond the corner library makerspace filled with robots and maker kits. Build a Creative Lab and fill the space with everything imaginable that students can use to create things that interest them. Let them explore their curiosities and build stuff - and it can even be for projects for assignments. Give them options. Open it on Saturday. For classrooms, create spaces with whiteboards, technology, agile furniture, wall space, and displays - think about the elements of that space that could be usable, on-demand resources for students to tinker, create, build - and learn with.
Invitational spaces: Design spaces that feel welcoming, safe, and are clearly student-centered. Use thoughtful and deliberate combinations of color, lighting, acoustics, flooring, furniture, and biophilic design to create environments that draw students in—spaces they enjoy spending time in and feel ownership over.
Spaces that are celebratory: Use spaces to celebrate and communicate student value and accomplishment. Design areas that showcase the importance of education and its meaning for every student, demonstrating that the school community deeply values students and their potential. Transform the school into a living showcase of achievement, highlighting the accomplishments of both current students and alumni. Create environments that reflect students’ identities, allowing them to see themselves as integral parts of the space.
Spaces that support student-centered pedagogies: Use space and flexible and agile furniture, as well as technology, to shift from a classroom model to a studio model, where the room becomes a canvas for new opportunities to be active and participatory and where students have some degree of agency regarding how and what they learn. No more rows, no more teacher desk at the front of the room, no walls littered with never-ending posters. Work with teachers to understand space, how to design spatial layouts to support engaging learning experiences, understand cognitive load theory, and how to manage kids in new spaces.
Spaces that honor the adults that do the work. Please - no more teacher lounges, which is the worst name for a space in the history of educational spaces. The last thing I want to present to a school community is a space for teachers to lounge in. I’ve never met a teacher that lounges; they’re too busy working with kids. Create spaces that reflect and honor the professionalism of the adults in schools. Make places for gathering, sharing, and places where educators feel valued.
Many capable architects design nice new schools—you can find their work with a quick online search. And yes, they still have the core required elements of a school: the hallways, the classrooms, the cafeteria, and the library, and they're all recognizable—everyone knows what a school should look like. How would you reinvent the typical spaces of schools? How could they be places of imagination and curiosity rather than rows of desks or cafeteria tables?
The key: avoiding a design that is basically an updated version of now.
It’s time to push beyond these familiar components and to take school design in a bold new direction and design school spaces as an ecology. This will require a pivot from simply building new spaces that function as traditional schools always have to creating new environments that are designed with a deeper consideration of the relationships and interactions between people and space, and how new spatial typologies serve a different type of education that can broaden and deepen the experience of school.