The Civic World

Those who provide education, from Nursery to University, are responsible for a vast estate at the heart of communities and cities. The spaces that surround these public buildings are not only a critical resource in learning - but also in redefining, regenerating, and enriching the public and private activities around them.

Schools matter. They are are public places which convey the meaning and purpose of learning in our communities. They influence how we value and use public space. For children, they are the single most significant built expression of the civic world.

Every major investment in the educational estate represents a major opportunity to remake the physical environment for the people who live and work in that larger place - in a way that will engender hope and improve life chances.

Cliches? Perhaps, but ones worth fighting for.

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Useful Assumptions

Classical Economic theory introduces us to some interesting theoretical assumptions - such as consistently rational consumers and perfect knowledge about the market. We know these aren’t true, but we suspend disbelief in the hope that the theories built on these assumptions might still prove to have some use in the real world. Economics is now reeling from the aftershocks of these theories self-imploding.

Design also introduces us to some interesting creative assumptions – such as the requirement for time, money, power, and patrons to achieve good design. However, based on experience, we have no reason to believe that these assumptions will prove useful in the real world. Design needs to prove that its value is rooted in how it changes the day to day business of living - in the reality of the world we find ourselves in, rather than the world we would like to assume.

To paraphrase John Lennon, good design is what happens when we are arguing about the context and the theory. Good design is what happens when we do it.

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Everyday Details

Detail matters. The everyday details of our unique lives shape how we experience the world we each inhabit. Even well considered briefs can leap from strategic visions to room data sheets. Somewhere, running through this, are hidden the narratives of young lives lived from classroom to classroom.

Hazelwood School has been acknowledged internationally as a stunning example of how a building can harness all the senses in pursuit of getting the physical details just right. It may be a specific response to pupils with specific needs, but the way it does this says something important to us all. It reminds us that education is experienced by one child at a time.

When we design for nobody in particular – it shows. Good design needs us to get personal.


Hazelwood School from A+DS.

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Atoms of Delight

Let’s start with a secret. Six months of talking, listening, visiting and investigating have uncovered what no one seems to talk about: Scotland is creating some great schools. But don’t believe me, or press releases, or media headlines – go to Inverclyde Academy or Dalry Primary and look, listen and learn about the real difference great buildings can make.

‘Often when looking for a thing I find something else.’ That’s the first line of the last book by the great Scottish author Neil Gunn. And when I visit schools looking for ‘good design’ what I also find are inspiring teachers and smart stereotype-shattering pupils. Yes design matters. But schools – the living organisations rather than the bricks and mortar – matter more.

Neil Gunn’s book was called ‘The Atom of Delight’ – we should humbly remember that the purpose of great school design is to create a place where profoundly important small things happen every day.

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