Kathryn Scotten

For: AIA Committee on Architecture for Education

DESIGNING LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

TO REBUILD URBAN AMERICA
October 23-25, 2009
New York, New York
Rebuilding our learning environments places architects in a pivotal
position as leaders to modernize our schools, in turn developing the
future intellectual capital: our young learners. New York City schools
will serve as our laboratory to examine history, trends and innovations
in educational theory and practice, as well as in construction.
(Conference Chair, Peter C. Lippman, Associate AIA, REFP)

Manhattan was of course an iconic place for talking about designing schools for urban America.
Conference goers experienced it all, not only remarkable schools tucked away in high-rise
buildings, but also the subway ride and Greenwich Village walk to the AIA New York Center for
Architecture. Their tour buses twisted through the narrow streets of the Financial District,
cruised past the autumn foliage along the Hudson River and nosed their way across Times
Square. However, as CAE chair Tim Dufault said, Our context this weekend is New York, but
what we learn here can be implemented in all learning environments.
FRIDAY KEYNOTE ADDRESS
BUILDING SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL SYSTEMS FOR A NEW CENTURY
Speaker: Eric Nadelstern, Chief Schools Officer, NYC Department of Education
For most of my 38 years in public education, I tried not to notice my surroundings or to think
about how they affected learning. My first assignment was in a 7,000-student high school. It
was a three-story building, and my classroom was on the fourth floor. It took me the better part
of the first day to discover there was a bell towerand that my classroom was an old broom
closet in that bell tower. Over time, my experiences with New York school architecture forced
me to conclude that school is a state of mind, not a physical location.
DOE Reform Over the last seven years, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has
implemented three broad initiatives. It has disassembled the most intractable bureaucracy since
the fall of the Kremlin, redirecting the resources to the schools. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and
schools chancellor Joel Klein are committed to reestablishing the school as the districts primary
unit.
The new administration has also initiated significant partnerships with the private sector to do
things it cannot do on its own, such as developing a leadership academy for principals and
creating 400 small schools. The third focus has been on empowering school leadersand on
holding them accountable.
Our ultimate goal is an urban school district comprising 60 to 70 networks of self-selected, everchanging schools. Of the 400 new schools, 100 are charter schools. This administration is

committed to educational diversity, because it spurs innovation and gives students and families
choicesand also because competition is the way to get to the best level of service.
21st Century Schools Schools will probably be smaller, because 25 years of research has
shown school size to be the most effective variable in the graduation rate; and in urban areas
where land is scarce, multiple small schools will probably share buildings.
Evander Childs High School, in the Bronx, had 4,000 students, including 900 freshmen who had
been held back. At South Bronx High School, only 20 percent of students got to their junior
year. Stevenson High School had 1,800 students with more than 20 absences by the winter
break. Of the 1,700 students enrolled at Morris High School, 1,200 were freshmen. There was
no accountability, not only year after year, but decade after decade. Redesigned, each of these
large high schools now houses multiple small schools, and their aggregate graduation rate is
closer to 80 percent than to 30 percent.
Three schools outside New York illustrate what schools should look like in the 21st century.
The 100 students at the Met School, in Providence, Rhode Island, spend most of their time in
community internships. Their building is essentially one big room, large enough for the whole
school community, with small corner conference rooms where students meet with their advisors.
High Tech High, in San Diego, California, occupies a converted airplane hangar: a huge,
cavernous space full of opportunities for students and faculty to work together in the various
configurations in which people can be productive. Students find learning in creative ways, so
what they learn in school is immediately connected to their lives.
The program at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy reflects its desert setting near
Las Vegas, Nevada. Students spend a lot of time outside, conducting research on the local flora
and fauna.
How People Learn Over nearly 40 years in public education, I have come to five
fundamental beliefs about how people learn.

Education must be centered on learners and continually assessed and adapted to their
needs.

Learning, like life, is interdisciplinary.

Students learn best from each other and need frequent opportunities to work together;
school should be activity-based and project-driven.

What students learn must be relevant to their lives and communities beyond school at the
present moment.

Over the course of a childs primary and secondary education, the locus of control and
ownership for learning should shift from teacher to student.

Two examples illustrate the nature of an ideal learning environment. The first is a bridgebuilding unit supported by the Salvadori Center for Education and the Built Environment at The
City College of New York. It could not be contained in time or space: kids came in before and
after school, and they wanted into their classrooms on weekends and holidays. They couldn't
stop working on their bridges, and the work spilled out of the classroom. The other thing that set
it apart from any learning I have ever seen is that every kid in that heterogeneous group

(different levels of language and academic ability) was able to produce outstanding workand
to speak eloquently about what was learned.
I heard an NPR interview with a high-tech CEO who described how their workplace is set up
around activity areas focused on projects in development. As they arrive each day, employees
gravitate to the centers that most interest them, for hours or for months. It struck me that this is
what the best kindergarten classrooms look like. And then I thought: why limit it to
kindergarten? What if this is what school looked like? Engaging project centers designed
around what students need to learn. It is the kind of school I would have liked as a childand
the kind of school I would like for my own child, which is the ultimate test.
Links
NYC Department of Education: http://schools.nyc.gov/default.htm
Salvadori Center for Education and the Built Environment at the City College of New York:
http://www.salvadori.org

ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS: A HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE
Presenter: Dr. Michele Cohen, Art Historian
A good school should inspire teachers and students with architecture and art. As cultural critic
Lewis Mumford observed: art is the spiritual varnish we lay on material things.
As public education evolved, so did the schoolhouse. By 1905, NYC grammar schools had
added kindergarten classrooms. As waves of immigrants arrived, schools were charged with
Americanizing both children and parents; and their auditoriums became community centers. The
1896 School Reform Law mandated free, compulsory secondary education, spawning high
schools in every borough. Junior high schools emerged in 1929, followed by vocational high
schools and then by specialized schools, such as the Aviation Trades High School, designed to
pave pathways to industry. The early childhood center emerged after WWII. The current trends
are toward small schools and an echo of the grammar school (prekindergarten through grade 8).
Late 19th Century James W. Naughton shaped the face of public education in Brooklyn.
Superintendent of buildings and repairs from 1879 to 1898, he designed more than 100 schools,
10 of them NYC designated landmarks.
The Romanesque Revival Boys High School (Brooklyn, 1891) still dominates its neighborhood,
its most memorable features the asymmetrical towers along Marcy Avenue. At Public School
107 (Brooklyn, 1894), tall chimneys replace towers, but Naughton retained the Romanesque
arches, terra cotta detailing, lively brickwork and abundant natural light.
Early 20th Century C. B. J. Snyder was chief designer from 1891 to 1922, during the
Progressive Era when the school emerged as a civic monument to the connection between public
education and American democracy. Snyder designed nearly 350 schools, 18 of them designated
landmarks. He had not only to build more schools than his predecessors did, but also to build
more complex schools. He faced the enormous enrollment increases due to immigration and
compulsory education, the expanded role of the school as a community center and the growing
importance of vocational training.
He met the challenge and left his mark as a designer, engineer and administrator. His most
celebrated innovation was the midblock H-plan, which allowed him to place schools on less

expensiveand less noisy and more protectedurban sites. Best known for his Collegiate
Gothic designs, Snyder also experimented with French Renaissance, Dutch Renaissance and
Beaux Arts, a range best illustrated by the first post-reform high schools, which he regarded as
the peoples colleges.
As schools became centers of community and adult learning, Snyder realized they needed a
public space directly accessible from the street and began to experiment with the placement of an
auditorium in the H-plan. The auditorium also became the focal point for art.
Many artists took on the mantle of educator, favoring historical and literary subjects over
allegorical ones. Charles Yardley Turner received the first official commission, for murals
entitled Opening the Erie Canal (1905) for the auditorium at DeWitt Clinton High School.
Midcentury New Deal administrators scouted the city for mural opportunities, and about half
of the 50 murals executed in NYC schools still exist. Among them are Maxwell Starrs History
of Mankind in Terms of Mental and Physical Labor murals in the lobby and auditorium of
Brooklyn Technical High School (1941).
The decades following World War II introduced the design principles of European Modernism.
Emulating Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, designers redefined the materials and configuration
of public schools with glass block, sweeping curves and an open plan. Suburban residential
development enabled low-rise, sprawling schools.
Michael Radoslovich served as superintendent of school buildings from 1952 to 1969, creating a
team of in-house architects and outside consultants to reinvent the public school. The most
important Modernist buildings were the new generation of vocational high schools, including the
Aviation Career and Technical Education High School (Chapman, Evans & Delehanty, 1958)
and the High School of Graphic Communication Arts (Kelly & Gruzen, 1958).
Radoslovich also played a key role in promoting public art. Like Snyder, he proposed
institutionalizing funding for school art; and artworks embellish the schools designed during his
tenure.
Among them is Gwen Luxs Vapor Trails (1958), an exterior, wall-mounted sculpture of steel
tubes, prisms and plates positioned to cast a complex web of shadows across the brick faade of
the Technical Education High School in Manhattan.
Hans Hofmanns untitled mosaic mural for the High School of Printing (1958) was his last
public commission. The 64-foot exterior mural, almost 12 feet high, is divided architectonically
into horizontal and vertical planes of yellow, blue, red and black, overlaid with bold calligraphic
marks in black and red, coupled with bright Miro-like biomorphic spots of red and blue.
In the 1960s, the community became more active in commissioning art for the schools. Martin
Stein, the lead architect of the Boys and Girls High School (Max O. Urbahn Associates, 1976),
believing its artwork must reflect the community and the times, consulted the community and
then earmarked all of the art funding for a group of African American artists, including Ernest
Crichlow (Untitled, 1976) and Edward Wilson (Middle Passage, 1978).
Final Thought Public schools are the cornerstone of American democracy, the blueprint for
the future. In May 1894, Edwin D. Mead, editor of The New England Magazine, urged his
readers to consider the importance of school design: If we can once give beauty its rights in the
schools, we shall have done the greatest thing which we can do toward securing for our people a

more beautiful public life. Let us meet that challengeand not forget what we can learn from
our historic public buildings.
Link: http://schools.nyc.gov/community/facilities/PublicArt/default.htm

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE NYC SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY

Presenter: Sharon Greenberger, President and CEO, NYC School Construction Authority
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the School Construction Authority (SCA) and the
completion of its fourth, five-year capital plan ($13 billion). The FY 2005-2009 capital plan
obligated over $9.0 billion in three years; awarded 118 new capacity projects; awarded over
4,000 CIP and Reso A projects; completed over 2,900 CIP projects; obligated over $450 million
in Mentor Program contracts; and opened 77 new school facilities with 38,196 seats.
Other accomplishments included overhauling design standards, to make them more costeffective and to take advantage of recent innovations, and implementing multiple efficiency
strategies, such as a simplified contractor qualification process and an aggressive outreach to the
Minority, Women-Owned and Locally Based Enterprise community.
Efforts to improve customer service, for partner firms as well as for the public, reflect the NYC
Department of Education (DOE) focus on transparency and accountability. Before mayoral
control, SCA was a separate entity; it remains a state authority, but it is now closely aligned with
the chancellor, a change that has impacted school design as well as SCA processes.
Evolving School Models Pre-kindergarten classrooms are now required in all new
elementary buildings, and NYC schools are moving away from traditional grade configurations;
a school built for a PK-5 program may house a PK-8 program in the future. DOE is restructuring
25 large high schools to create smaller learning environments; because there is no swing space
for so many students, construction must be phased over multiple summers. Finally, the trend
toward shared facilities, driven by both program and cost considerations, brings its own
challenge.
New program models translate into a greater need for flexibility, and that involves a balance
among three things: innovative design, the integration of teaching and learning and cost
effectiveness.
One project that illustrates the new programmatic environment is the Mott Haven Campus in the
Bronx (Perkins Eastman/DeMatteis, 2010), which will educate 2,300 secondary students in four
schools on a shared campus built on a remediated railroad yard. It will support independent
learning communities and also reduce cost by sharing an auditorium, kitchen and gymnasiums
as well as a NYC rarity, a large athletic field.
Siting Challenges There are no ideal locations left. SCA has had to push the concept of ideal
by building vertically, making adaptive reuse of existing buildings and pursuing lease
opportunities. The Millennium School is an example of the lease option [see Building Tours].
In a city that is so dense, where real estate costs are so high, SCA has to be creative about
placing schools. SCA works closely with city planning and housing offices to insert schools into
development and rezoning processes. We want to be at the table to say: Yes, affordable housing
is an important component of every developmentand so is school mitigation. And SCA has

been successful at siting schools in multi-use developments. It is currently building a school in

the face of the eight-story Beekman project (Frank Gehry/Swanke Hayden Connell).
Another response to siting issues is to maximize the use of space. SCA is piloting gymtoriums
designed to support a range of educational activities, as well as school performances and
community events.
Building Additions In overcrowded areas with limited site availability, an addition may be the
most viable option. It is important to be sensitive to the work required in existing buildings,
including code compliance, and to the need to maintain play space; and it means engaging the
community on the best use of space and coordinating with other agencies, such as the parks
department. SCA has completed five additions to relieve overcrowding in Queens this year,
among them PS 113Q (Anderson LaRocca Anderson Haynes).
Green Design Sustainability is not really a trend; it is a requirement and will soon simply be
what we have come to expect. SCA has overhauled its design standards, focusing on energy
efficiency, water conservation, improved air quality and recycling.
An example is PS/IS 276 in Battery Park City (Dattner/DeMatteis), a 900-student K-8 school
that will open in September 2010, where the built environment will become the learning
environment, embracing green standards that are integrated into the curriculum.
Next Capital Plan SCA has just started a new, $11.3 billion plan. The FY 2010-2014
priorities are to address capacity needs on a neighborhood basis; to ensure the stability of
existing facilities; to continue the instructional enhancement program; and to allocate limited
resources effectively.
Link: http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/SCA/AboutUs/default.htm

INNOVATIVE AND CURRENT TRENDS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY AND

PRACTICE
Panel Moderator: James A. Dyck, AIA, The Architectural Partnership
In the last 10 to 15 years, there has been a lot of research on the effects of the built environment
on learning. The rallying cry was borrowed from Winston Churchill who, arguing in support of
rebuilding the Houses of Parliament as they had been before World War II, said, We shape our
buildings, and thereafter our buildings shape us.
Panel Member: Dr. Jeff Vincent, University of California, Berkeley
People learn because they are intrigued or challenged; the fundamental question for educators is
how to trigger that innate desire to learn. The classroom Eric Nadelstern imagined, based on the
high-tech CEOs interview, would be a wonderful learning environment: what if kids could
select learning activities that interested them?
John Taylor Gatto has written that schools force children to grow up absurd not only because
of what they teach, but also because the learning processes are unlike the real world of work,
which is increasingly about creating information, partnering and collaborating.
Researchers who studied why the Silicon Valley was so successful compared with other hightech areas found that the techy young pioneers who moved to the Bay Area spent a lot of time
together, creating a social network and sharing ideas, even when they worked for competing

start-ups. They developed a model based on shared knowledge that was very different from the
isolated secrecy of established corporate culture.
At its heart, learning is a social process. It is about community, learning through talking and
listening and creating meaning and identity. Rigor and relevancy are also critical; and
authenticity is the key to both. It is important for students to get out into the world, and also for
schools to invite the world in.
What does this mean for facilities? People who make decisions must think outside the box about
how schools can support the community as well as their primary mission. An example is a new
high school and senior center in Massachusetts, where the design facilitates interactions between
students and elders in ways that authentically support the missions of both programs.
Panel Member: Dr. Beverly Falk, The City College of the City University of New York
Twentieth century schools were built on an industrial model using teaching practices developed
with little knowledge of human development or of the learning process. Too many schools
continue to function that way, despite an explosion of knowledge in the biological,
neurobiological, behavioral and social sciences about how people learn. The challenge for both
educators and architects is to put that knowledge to use. And the work begins in early childhood.

Because learning is an active and social process of connecting new information with prior
experiences and understandings, classroom environments must provide opportunities for
active learning and social interactions, including play.

Because children learn best when engaged in interesting, meaningful and purposeful
experiences, the curriculum must infuse learning and skill development into activities that
build on their interests and make connections between ideas and disciplines.

Because development and learning are influenced by multiple social and cultural
contexts, schools must teach about, and be responsive to, diverse social, cultural and
linguistic backgrounds.

Because learning is not just cognitive but also physical, social and emotional, schools
must provide a broad array of experiences and support all aspects of growth.

Because children have different modes of learning and ways of representing what they
know, educators must provide different kinds of opportunities for them to learn and to
demonstrate what they have learned.

Because family involvement enhances childrens learning, schools must build strong
partnerships with families.

Because teacher quality is the most important factor influencing student achievement,
schools must create many and varied structures to support ongoing professional learning
and curricular coherence.

For architects, the challenge is not only to design with an understanding of how children learn,
but also with an eye toward how it feels to be a child in school.

Panel Member: Claire Sylvan, Executive Director, International Network for Public Schools
People learn only when they want to learn. People choose whether to engage; you cannot force
them. You can force them to stare forward, but you cannot affect the inner workings of their
minds. The challenge is to create the conditions that encourage engagement.
The mission of the Internationals Network for Public Schools is to provide quality education for
recent immigrant students through a network of small, public high schools based on the
Internationals Approach. Its core principles have relevance to how all students learn.

Heterogeneity and collaboration: Heterogeneous and collaborative structures that build

on the strengths of every individual member of the school community optimize learning.

Experiential learning: The expansion of 21st century schools beyond the walls of the
school building motivates adolescents and enhances their capacity to participate
successfully in modern society.

Language and content integration: Language skills are most effectively learned in
context and emerge most naturally in purposeful, language-rich, experiential and
interdisciplinary study.

Localized autonomy and responsibility: Linking autonomy and responsibility at every

level within a learning community allows all members to contribute to their fullest
potential.

One learning model for all: All learners (faculty and students) participate in similar
collaborative learning and work structures that maximize their ability to support one
another.

Ideally, a high school would have 300 to 400 students. It would have a space for assemblies and
graduation. An interdisciplinary team of teachers would work with a group of students in a
shared, defined space. A set of small spaces (perhaps a classroom pod) would support a range of
learning activities and provide a separate working and meeting place for teachers.
Panel Member: Dr. Richard Steinberg, The City College of the City University of New York
An understanding of science education applies to other areas of learning. Consistently, students
arrive at college with weak math and science skills and, worse, they cannot think or reason.
The learning environment is one reason. Students in rows is still prevalent in high schools and
in colleges. Student-centered room arrangements, in which students work together and interact
with each other, are better with respect to any measure. But it is not simply physical: students
must be actively engaged in something that is both meaningful and pedagogically directed. It is
not a teacher lecturing students who happen to be sitting in groups. It is not students who have
been told what to do, how to do it and what to find. It is not students confined to their groups.
Teacher education classes talk about inquiry, school principals about tests; and course content
may not relate to either. But for high school teachers, the most important issue every day is
classroom management. Even at schools for the college-bound, in nonthreatening
environments with well-equipped labs, implementing inquiry-based science faces challenges.
One of the most significant is student attitude. They demand to know: Is this on the Regents
Exam? Student preparation and skills are another challenge. However the biggest problem is the

emphasis on standardized, short-answer exams. The same students who calculated an average of
57 for the numbers 36 and 38 were able to provide rote answers to multiple-choice Regents
Exam items about advanced physics terms.
Any approach to changing the teaching of scienceor of any subjectmust be holistic. It is not
possible to pick off isolated elements, including the facility. But there are commonalities in
classrooms where students are truly engaged. Their teachers have managed to wring some
flexibility from their space so students can work together, and they have provided the materials
that enable authentic inquiryan original document, a greenhouse or just duct tape.
Panel Member: Ritchard Sherman, New Jersey Schools Development Authority
Dr. Howard Gardners The Unschooled Mind is a good book for people who design schools.
He writes about the intuitive theories young children formulate in their efforts to understand
the world about them. They may not be accurate, but they explain things. He also suggests we
fall back upon our intuitive theories much later in life. This may be why schools today look so
much like the ones we attended ourselves.
Based on her experiences, a childs understanding of school might include:

We only learn when there is a teacher in the room.

We dont learn after school or during the summer.

We learn best in groups of 25 or so, sitting in desks in rows facing the front of the
classroom.

We know that we are learning by taking tests.

Thinking ahead to the workshops following this panel: how well does this align with Blooms
taxonomy of educational objectives (from low to high: remember, understand, apply, analyze,
evaluate, create)? Or Jerome Bruners studies of the retention rates associated with different
kinds of learning activities, which can be displayed in a pyramid, with the most effective
learning activity (teaching others, 90 percent) at the base and the least effective (lecture, five
percent) at the point.
Too many classrooms today look a lot like photos from the 1950s, which in turn look
disturbingly like drawings of classrooms from the 16th century. The addition of an interactive
whiteboard would update either classroom to 2009. Interestingly, Raphaels painting The
School of Athens, depicting a scene 2,000 years ago in a society renowned for its learning, has
no desks, no rows and no teacher at the head of the room.
Workshop Leaders: James A. Dyck, AIA, The Architectural Partnership; Alan Feinberg, The
City College of New York
Conference participants worked in small groups, each focusing on a different grade level (early
childhood education, primary education, middle school, high school or college) in response to
the same questions.

How do people learn, and what is the role of choice in learning?

What is the central purpose and mission of education?

What are the two or three guiding principles of pedagogy?

Building on these principles, describe the range of learning strategies and activities.

Given this range of learning strategies and activities, describe the characteristics of a
supportive learning environment.

NEW DESIGN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Roundtable Discussion Participants
Crystal Gosine, Swanke Hayden Connel Architects, LTD
Ileana LaFontine, Freelance Designer and Marketing Consultant
Jean Jacques, VP Sales, Continental Lighting
Jomo Charles, New York City School Construction Authority
Nelson Vega, RKT&B Architects
Ryan Clarke, AIA Liaison for LMNOP
Corey Willis, Director of Design, New Design High School
Five New Design High School Students
Dont listen to people who say you cant follow your passion. Dont select yourself out. Build
your own support network if you have to. Remember that its all just a test of your motivation.
That was the core of the advice New Design High School students received in this wide-ranging,
90-minute conversation, one of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Legacy Events. The
AIA is working with the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) to give something
back to the cities they visit, by promoting team building and fostering volunteer commitment.
Their goal is to create a lasting memory for architects, architectural students and the general
public.
Six young New York architects talked with five teenagers about everything from architectural
terms (a building envelope is like the cover of your cell phone) to Le Corbusier (suddenly
you touch my hearti) to diversity (you have to be comfortable in your own skin) to
architecture school (there will be mathget over it).
They shared not only their passion for their chosen profession, but also the different roads they
traveled to get there. And they listened. To the wistful senior: My dad, the word college
doesnt even come out of his mouth; hes likego get a job. To the bright-eyed, articulate
junior whose sixth-grade teacher told her she would never finish elementary school.
Some of the architects had faced similar obstacles: lack of support at home, lack of
encouragement at school, lack of resources, lack of role models. At the end, as they passed out
business cards, one of these new role models said, The support we offer is genuine because
were where you want to beand weve been where you are.
The organizers of this Legacy Event offered to take this show on the road and asked the
students to encourage their classmates to get involved when the architects visit their school.
New Design High School is one of five small schools that now occupy a 1916 high school
building on Manhattans Lower East Side. A college-preparatory school, it uses design as the
conceptual framework for a holistic approach to supporting the academic, intellectual, social,
emotional and artistic development of adolescents.

Corey Willis identified a number of ways the architecture community could support their
program. They welcome visiting designers and artists, encourage them to spend the day and
have the flexibility to create multi-week units around them. They need people to work one-onone with students in the design portfolio workshop. And they need somehow to create a space in
which students can experience design: When students can see design, when they have that
visualthey get it.
Link: http://www.newdesignhigh.com/

SATURDAY KEYNOTE ADDRESS

NOT YOUR FATHERS PLAN: COMMUNITY COLLEGE DESIGN FOR THE NEXT
GENERATION
Speaker: Dr. Gail Mellow, LaGuardia Community College
It is difficult to understand LaGuardia Community College without seeing its students faces.
There are 31,000 of them each year, from all over the world, speaking 110 languages. They are
crossing boundaries: countries, cultures, economic class. They are the new Americans, and they
have a passion for education because they see it as the door to the American dream.
Financial Constraints Deeply embedded in local economies, community colleges must
negotiate year after year. They may have money for building but not for maintenance, so it is
important to build to last; the architect must be an advocate for the future.
We also need guidance about when to renovate and when to replace. LaGuardia has an 800,000SF facility built nearly 100 years ago for the Sunshine Biscuit Baking Companywith a 100year terra cotta exterior. It would be a lovely restoration, but it may never be affordable.
Architects need to help community colleges rethink campus design. Across the country, too
many of them look like shopping malls; it is all about the parking lots, and that deadens the
emotional and educational environment.
Assets There is a lot of energy and innovation in community colleges: how can we best use
that? Our students remain in the area; we have close ties to local businesses. What are the
implications of being totally connected to our communities?
We need help communicating the return on taxpayers investment, so they will support new
buildings. Community colleges are really about urban renewal. At urban community colleges,
family income increases 17 percent to 23 percent upon graduation.
King Library at the University of Kentucky (Kallmann McKinnell & Wood) is so beautiful, it is
a spiritual experience. Ivory tower has become a pejorative term, but this building actually has
an ivory tower. And it has wonderful views between the levels; it feels both open and closed,
enlightening and uplifting. Build something like that for community colleges. They do not have
enough of that ivory tower, I could think great thoughts here feeling.
Unique Needs In addition to the typical credit classes, community colleges offer
developmental classes for adults who lack college-level skills, and they are taught differently.
Architects need to help clients think through that. When they say they have 40 units of
developmental math, ask for the details: what goes on in there?
Community colleges offer enormous numbers of noncredit and workplace development classes.
LaGuardia has 16,000 credit students and as many as 45,000 noncredit students, everyone from

the English as a Second Language student who is on campus 30 hours a week to the person
taking three Saturday-morning QuickBooks classes.
The pedagogy is different. Community colleges do not enroll the students who were most
successful in traditional structures. They take students where they are and move them forward.
What we do is different, and when we do it well it looks different.
Part of that is the fluidity between the college and the community. A diagram of our external
community illustrates those fluid connections (and might guide the development of a facility
planning committee). It is critical to understand the implications of the noncredit classes and the
business and community services. The difference between credit and noncredit classes is not
full-time versus part-time. Community colleges educate people from before college (e.g.,
GED programs) and along a workplace development continuum that spans preparing people to
chop vegetables in restaurants and diversity training for senior management.
How do you design the flexibility to support what goes on at a community college? LaGuardia
has $15 million in soft-money programs that change over time and 25 different workforcerelated programs linked to a changing economy.
What do community college faculty members need? Many are part-time. They need places to
connect with each other and meet with students, but they may not need traditional offices.
What do community college students need? Many are poor; they may have access to a computer
at home, but it is in a crowded living room and shared with six other people. How do you
provide a place where students can think and work? How do you create a space that helps the
families of young women see how important education is for them, where they themselves feel
safe and connected?
Community colleges want buildings that inspire their students to see themselves as scholars. We
send our students on to great schoolswe see kids move from the projects to Harvard and
Vassarbut first they must change their ideas about who they are. I felt smarter in that library at
the University of Kentucky. A building can do that. You know that. Help community colleges
understand that power.
CREATING AND RETHINKING THE DREAM MACHINE
Presenters: Iris Weinshall, Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning, Construction and
Management, City University of New York; Meghan Moore-Wilk, AICP, Director of Space
Planning, City University of New York
Since the 1847 founding of its predecessor, the Free Academy, the City University of New York
(CUNY) has promised New Yorkers the highest quality education possible and opportunities for
educational, social and economic advancement. That promise was renewed nine years ago in the
aftermath of a system-wide review.
The Economist praised CUNYs transformation in a 2006 feature article titled Rebuilding the
American Dream Machine, describing CUNY as singular in the world of public higher
education as a pathway by which immigrants and others can achieve the American dream of
material and intellectual success. This is the universitys mission, but more importantly it is our
commitment to the people of New York.

Facilities Challenges The nations largest urban university, CUNY has conferred more than
one million degrees since 1967. The system comprises 23 institutions located throughout the
five boroughs. It is our offices responsibility to ensure that CUNYs facilities support more
than half a million students and 35,000 faculty and staff.
Increasing enrollment is a significant challenge; full-time enrollment is growing faster than
headcount, which means more classrooms and support facilities. Another is addressing the
consequences of 15 years of deferred maintenance across 312 owned and leased buildings, more
than 60 percent of them built before 1975.
Current Projects CUNY has 18 projects larger than 100,000 GSF. Even with these
additions, we will need an additional 9.5 million GSF by 2013. Learning environments have
changed, and the challenge is not just building more space but building the right kind of space.
Three large-scale projects will make a tremendous difference to the system as a whole, as well as
to their campuses.

The multi-use building (Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 2011) at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in Manhattan will feature a third-floor outdoor quad designed to give
students a campus feeling in an urban environment.

The new academic building (Polshek Architects Partnership) at Medgar Evers College
will alleviate crowding and help create a cohesive campus in a very urban part of
Brooklyn.

CUNYs first successful public/private partnership, the School of Social Work and Public
Health will relocate two Hunter College schools from their respective insufficient
facilities to a shared, 142,000-SF facility (Cooper Robertson & Partners, 2011).

Science Facilities Chancellor Matthew Goldstein has declared 2005-2015 the decade of
science, renewing CUNYs commitment to a robust pipeline for the sciences, math, technology
and engineering. That requires appropriate facilities to support both research and instruction.
We could not do everything that needed to be done at every campus, so we developed an
integrated research concept. Located at City College, the Advanced Science Research Center
(Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and Flad & Associates) is a shared resource for researchers from
throughout the university.
Lab space is valuable real estate, and to ensure its availability for new grants CUNY is replacing
traditional closed labs, which tend to become personal property in perpetuity, with open labs in
which bench space is allocated according to current need. The area includes shared equipment
rooms, graduate assistant officesand also social tea rooms because interdisciplinary
collaboration requires an opportunity to talk.
Our science faculty also needs better facilities on their home campuses. The new science
building at Lehman College (Perkins + Will) reflects its botany program and strong collaborative
relationship with the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Its central courtyard will feature a living
machine that recycles rainwater. Other new science facilities will seek LEED gold certification,
but this one will be LEED platinum and designed to be a learning tool.

The science building addition (Mitchell Giurgola Architects) at Queens College will introduce
the open lab concept and clear the way for the renovation of existing space to support less
infrastructure-dependent programs and activities.
A system-wide allocation for science upgrades will allow us to address immediate needs at
several campuses, improving labs, classrooms and lecture halls to create better learning
environments. It is important to tell people that they matter now.
Other Facilities The current capital program will also update and upgrade libraries. The new
instructional building (Robert A.M. Stern Architects) at Bronx Community College will include
a library that features spaces where students can work individually or in small groups.
A similar concept can be seen in the library (Thanhouser and Esterson) at Brooklyn College,
where the library caf features a mesh-enclosed wireless zone where students can work together.
That project included the renovation of a historical reading room with murals, the kind of place
that communicates the importance of learning.
Our students are our clients, and the architecture can help to improve customer service.
Thoughtful designs at Hunter College, City College and LaGuardia have enhanced student
services functions by providing welcoming environments, improving efficiency and
accommodating confidentiality needs.
Link: http://www.cuny.edu/administration/cb.html

BUILDING TOURS
The New School
Architects: Lyn Rice Architects
Designed by Joseph Urban, the founding building at 66 West 12th Street was completed in 1931
as the first international style building in New York. Its auditorium is a designated interior
landmark, and the adjoining courtyard was designed by sculptor Martin Puryear. At the corner
of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street, a multiple-award winning design by architect Lyn Rice replaced
a shared maintenance building with a skylighted urban quad to integrate several buildings used
by Parsons The New School for Design. The quads large windows with deep frames for sitting
connect students and their work to the Greenwich Village community.
Link: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/interiors/archives/08_johnson/default.asp

Millennium High School

Architects: HLW International and Fielding/Nair International
Designed by HLW architects in consultation with Fielding/Nair, Millennium High School
occupies the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth floors of the 1929 ITT building, in the Financial
District. The design uses a central staircase to integrate the three floors and draw students
toward the cafeteria, library and student lounge on the middle floor. The uses of color and light,
interior transparency and display create an attractive learning environment; and the design of
common areas and circulation spaces make it a flexible one.
Link: http://www.designshare.com/index.php/projects/millenium-high

The Gateway School

Architects: Andrew Bartle Architects, PC
The Gateway Schools innovative new facility, on the top two floors of a converted parking
garage on Manhattans Upper West Side, uses abundant sunlight, bright colors, purified air and
special acoustical treatments to create an appealing and effective learning environment for
children with learning disabilities. A variety of spaces, from small hallway alcoves to the
grandstand at the foot of the skylighted staircase, support alternative groupings and learning
activities for elementary students.
Link: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/K-12/Gateway/overview.asp

CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

Architects: Stephen Thomson Architects
The City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, located on the third and fourth
floors of the former Herald tribune Building on West 41st Street, consists of new classrooms,
meetings spaces, broadcast studios, editing rooms and faculty and administrative offices, as well
as a state-of-the-art converged newsroom. The newsroom was designed to support the
collaborative creation and delivery of multi-media news, including print, television, radio and the
Web, from a single location. Its open design and large freestanding media wall allow for the
configuration of story teams.
Link: http://www.engatech.com/articles/Thomson-Architects-PC-Designs-World.htm

REIMAGINING SCHOOL DESIGN: THE CASE FOR COLLABORATION

Workshop Leaders: Susan Whitmer, IIDA, Herman Miller; Helen Hirsh Spence, V/S America
Conference participants formed six small groups to role-play design meetings, for projects as
diverse as residence halls, community colleges and an elementary school, from various
perspectives, such as teacher, administrator, maintenance directorand architect. The purpose
of this activity, which ended with reports to the group as a whole, was to demonstrate the value
of diverse participation to building consensus and to help architects understand the perspectives
of the other people typically involved in the design process.
Link: http://www.thethirdteacher.com/home/home-third-teacher

ERGONOMICS, CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN

Presenter: Dr. Dieter Breithecker, V/S America
When the body is alert, the brain is alert. Human beings are made to move. A century ago, the
average person took enough steps each day to walk 10 miles; today the average office worker
walks half a mile. When we were children we were active for five or six hours a day,
independent of adults; now adults are organizing workouts for sedentary kids.
People of all ages are out of balance. Their ears and eyes are overwhelmed, but another
important sense is neglected: the kinesthetic sensory system.
Our senses evolved to work together; we learn best if we stimulate several senses at once. The
reason you feel so well in a place like the Swiss Alps is that all of your senses are stimulated

naturally. We have to satisfy the entire sensory system. This is important not only for wellbeing but also for learning.
Kinesthetic sensors are located in every joint and muscle. If I ask you to stand with your eyes
closed for a few minutes, you will not stand perfectly still and you will be aware of micromovements, small adjustments in your posture and stance. If I ask you to sit on a static chair for
a few minutes, you will not feel any movement. That is because your vestibular kinesthetic
sensory system is not working. And that causes fatigue. The average person loses attention in
25 minutes; if static sitting is combined with another environmental deficiency, such as poor
lighting, the average person loses attention in 10 or 15 minutes.
Starting at school entry, kids are socialized into a static environment. Normally a 12-year old
would be moving around, which engages the vestibular kinesthetic sensory system. It is
important to get that well-balanced stimulation to the developing brain. It is not just a matter of
obesity; children who do not move are more likely to have learning delays and attention deficits.
The combo-unit student chair is like a prison, because it cannot move. They are designed and
promoted as chairs kids cannot rock, but kids have to rock. The growing brain forces the body to
move, because movement stimulates the kinesthetic sensory system, which is good for posture
and also for wakefulness.
It is important to get out of this sitting trap. Furniture is not the sole solution, but it is one
important component.
Scientists who studied posture observed that a rider on a horse has good abstract posture. Sitting
on a saddle spreads the thighs, which rotates the pelvis forward, causing a chain reaction that lifts
the body up. But that is not the whole story. The rider gets body fatigue after a few minutes if
the horse is standing; the horses movement makes it possible for the rider to stay in that
position.
A chair that allows for pelvic movement enables dynamic posture behavior. It allows for the
forward inclination of the pelvis which provides space for internal organs, including the lungs
which then have space for deep breathing. The upright, 90-degree angle forced by most chairs
suppresses the internal organs, which is not good for health. So we recommend chairs that allow
for the open angle of the pelvis.
Chairs should enable comfortable sitting postures in both resting and working positions.
Traditional, static chairs may be comfortable when students are resting, leaning back, but that is
not the normal posture in school. When working at a desk or table, students must sit on the edge
of these chairs to relieve the pressure on their thighs when they lean forward. A good student
chair would enable flexible forward inclination. It should also have flexible backward
inclination that allows students to lean back and expand their body cavity to rest their internal
organs.
Because the sitting student is in a constant physical relationship with the chair, the school chair
must accommodate a range of natural movements, not hinder them. This need can be met by an
ergonomic roll-swivel chair with a seat surface that offers three-dimensional movements. The
seat adjusts to all subconscious position changes of the students body and simultaneously
encourages the body to change itself. This active seating has a natural rhythmic effect on the
entire postural systemand these movements stimulate the brain.

Dynamic sitting provides students the flexibility they need to expend energy and, at the same
time, to focus on their workinstead of having to focus on how to keep still.
Link: www.haltungundbewegung.de

21st CENTURY LEARNING FOR THE NEXT DECADE AND BEYOND

Panel Moderator: Paul Hutton, AIA, Hutton Architecture Studio
This panel is intended to focus on three key issues: urban schools, the relationship between
research and practice and the voice of the learner (which means teachers as well as students).
Panel Member: Ron Bogle, American Architectural Foundation
Two of the projects of the American Architectural Foundations Great Schools by Design
initiative were undertaken to give voice to people whose perspectives have been
underrepresented in the national dialog about school design: students and teachers.
In 2007 AAF partnered with Target to conduct a national study of student perspectives on school
design. Phase I of Voice of the Student was a design contest. Approximately 300 high school
students completed submissions that required an essay and a visual representation of their vision
of ideal places to learn in the 21st century; eight winners received scholarships. Phase II
involved a closer look at all entries to tease out themes and ideas; these findings will be
published in 2010. Some of the themes were: designing for variety and flexibility; providing
safe, comfortable social spaces for students; and sustainability. There were several creative
ideas, among them an organic school with no square corners and a school with a tree house
library.
We believe that Voice of the Teacher is the first thorough study of teacher perspectives on school
design, based on focus groups at 12 schools chosen for their exceptional designs. We are hearing
that when schools are designed to foster community and collaboration, they do. Teachers are
telling us that when they must learn to work in an environment designed to encourage
collaboration, it is a transformative experience.
Link: http://www.archfoundation.org/aaf/aaf/index.htm

Panel Member: Jose Murguido, AIA, REFP

There are two types of technology in the classroom: the technology you see, and the technology
you do not see. What you see is the institutional technology that reinforces teacher-centered
education, which uses linear, left-brain software. What you do not see is the personalized
technology in the backpack (e.g., the iPod, the cell phone), which uses right-brain software.
Technology has an attitude. Look at the caricatures on television: PC (e.g., sequential,
analytical) versus MAC (e.g., simultaneous, intuitive). But students need to develop both their
left and right brains; we need People who are Analytic and Creative (PACs).
How does this affect school? I see the culture and philosophy of a school as the platform for its
technology. Two projects serve as illustrations.
The Pine Jog Elementary and Environmental Center is the joint venture of a school district and a
college of education. Based on Richard Louvs Last Child Left in the Woods, the program

integrates sustainability and an appreciation of nature into the curriculum and exploits the 150acre preserve on which it is located to support interdisciplinary, mixed age, project-based
instruction. Floridas first LEED gold school, it harvests rainwater for a hydroponic garden and
uses solar energy to heat water. Exposed mechanical systems and green touch software help to
integrate building performance into the curriculum.
A. D. Henderson University School was designed to support a transformative pedagogy that
transitions students to independent learning. Students start in traditional pre-kindergarten and
kindergarten classes and graduate from high school at the university, where they have dual
enrollment opportunities. A mix of rooms for teacher-centered instruction and learning studios
with flexible, movable furniture are arrayed along a learning street. The school as a whole is
open and full of movement. The technology supports the educational mission; the curriculum
makes use of personalized technology such as mobile whiteboards and iPods.
To personalize technologyand make it relevantlook for what is unique and authentic about a
place and build to that intention and inspiration.
Links: http://richardlouv.com/last-child-woods; https://pinejoggreen.palmbeach.k12.fl.us

Panel Member: Dean Evans, New Jersey Institute of Technology

The Center for Building Knowledge (CBK) at the New Jersey Institute of Technology functions
as the research arm for the New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA), which oversees
the bulk of the states school construction, a $12 billion program and growing. That provides a
unique opportunity to study the institutionalization of quality assurance; and over the last three
years, CBK has partnered with SDA to implement a knowledge management function.
The first step was to define a comprehensive set of 24 design criteria. The resulting 21st
Century School Design manual is linked to the progress reports required of design teams. They
have flexibility in how to meet these criteria, but must describe their approaches in progress
meetings with the SDA.
The next steps are measurement, analysis and feedback. Each year we have focused on special
studies, not full post-occupancy evaluations but targeted assessments. We have focused on a
range of construction and constructability topics: playground spaces, inclusion, commissioning,
service life planning, classroom and corridor lighting and brick masonry wall assemblies. These
field observations are the basis, not for imposing restrictions on future designs, but for providing
feedback that helps to avoid similar problems in the future.
We have developed consistent processes for collecting and entering data about school
construction projects, based on review of construction documents and site visits, which include
discussions with administrators, educators and facilities personnel. This results in
comprehensive individual school reports, which include image galleries, as well as a searchable
database across schools. For example, a design team interested in a cafetorium with daylighting
could find ideas and images from multiple schools. Only the largest owners could create such a
system, but it may be something the professional community, perhaps through CAE, would wish
to explore.

Panel Member: Tom Hille, AIA, Tabula Rasa Architects

My perspective on schools for the 21st century is unusual: looking backward at schools over the
last 100 years, thinking about what they mean for the future. Many of the themes of the last two
days are recognizable in schools of the last century. They clearly reflect modern educational
theory and practice and highlight the potential of architecture to create great learning
environments.

Hillside Home School (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1903) was a very early modern school; its
relationship to the landscape reflected its activity-based educational program.

This is one of three unique schools built in a 1920s planned community in The
Netherlands, noteworthy for introducing color and child scale.

The Cranbrook School (Eliel Saarinen, 1928) is integrated into an art academy, which
shaped the schools identity.

Amsterdams Open Air School (Johannes Duiker and Bernard Bijvoet, 1928) offers a
diversity of indoor and outdoor instructional environments.

The Montessori School of Amsterdam (Willem van Tijen, 1935) features simple
classrooms with abundant daylight, activity corners and child-scale chalkboards.

The Open Air School in Paris (Eugne Baudoin and Marcel Lods, 1935) is a series of
pavilions with folding glass walls that open classrooms to the outdoors.

Englands Impington Village School (Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry, 1936) is an early
example of community use; a secondary school and an adult continuing education
program split the school, sharing core facilities such as the library.

The functionalist design of this Bauhaus school for young union workers outside Berlin
(1930) integrates living, working, studying, recreating and socializing. Classrooms with
sloped ceilings and bilateral light allow flexibility in classroom orientation.

On the left is Copenhagens School by the Sound (Kaj Gottlob, late 1930s); on the right,
a Danish hall school, an effort to bring the whole school together under one roof in a cold
climate.

This large urban school south of Stockholm houses four smaller schools, which share
common facilities that are also open to the public.

The home-like classrooms of Crow Island School (Eliel Saarinen, 1940) reflect educator
Carlton Washburns belief that children cannot cognitively cope with a large elementary
school.

Richard Neutras University Elementary School (1950s) reflects his belief that our
relationship with nature is important to our well-being. Learning spaces spill out into the
ravine, and the cafeteria is an open picnic area under the sycamores and redwoods.

This German school (1950s), designed around the idea that the primary task of education
is socialization, is a microcosm of the community, with an interior street, a commons,
activity zones and home-like classrooms clustered into neighborhoods.

I leave you with a quote from a historian friend, borrowing from The Bard: all the past is
prologue, but remember that the best is yet to come.
The Committee on Architecture for Education wishes to thank the following sponsors for their
contributions to the 2009 fall conference.
UNDERWRITER
V/S Furniture
PATRON
Council for Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI)
Herman Miller
SPONSOR
USG Corporation
SIS-USA, Inc.
BP Independent Reprographics
Kohler Co.
SUPPORTER
Cuningham Group Architecture, PA
Dagher Engineering PLLC
JCJ Architecture
Joseph R. Loring and Associates, Inc.
Tate Access Flooring
FRIEND
Pyrok, Inc.
VCBO Architecture
Mahlum Architects, Inc.
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Vers une architecture (1923)