Education by design — Architects fill schools with learning-friendly features

A space shuttle appears to be coming out of the front of a building on Washington Boulevard in Ogden. If you were to go inside, you'd soon find yourself in what appears to be a space-age control room.

It's Ogden School District's aerospace magnet elementary school, as yet unnamed, which will open in the fall.

And it's nothing like the school design most adults remember from their own childhoods.

Neither are the trapezoid and triangle halls at Nibley Park Elementary, or the crayon lights lining the halls of North Star Elementary in Salt Lake City. But the concept of studying at round tables in a steep glass-enclosed alcove at Ecker Hill Middle School in Park City or traversing gently curved glass-sided hallways at Harrisville's Orion Junior High, planets dancing overhead, doesn't seem foreign to most children.

Schools are being designed using a whole new set of principles. And the architects have the scientific evidence to back them up.

A well-designed school "enhances and supports the healthy development of students," says Dennis Cecchini, vice president of MHTN Architects, "so they become vibrant, healthy contributors to society. It's about a lot more than making sure the carpet doesn't give off gas or meeting building codes."

"In the last 10 years or so, studies show buildings affect learning," says Steve Crane, owner/partner of the architect firm VCBO, one of several in Utah that design schools.

He cites a study of three locations with distinctly different climates: Colorado Springs, Seattle and Orange County. It found that students in classrooms with a lot of daylight had 26 percent higher math scores and 28 percent higher reading retention, compared to those who relied solely on interior lighting.

Schools are also being designed for collaborative learning, those spaces a crucial element of the total plan. "Teach someone to do it themselves, and they learn it 100 percent," he says. "Break-out spaces and collaboration areas are important."

Crane calls it a BLT — "Building as a Learning Tool." A school might fold a section of exposed duct work or electrical cables into the overall look to show children how the building is made and operates, for example.

A researcher at Cornell University found that classrooms where teachers can manipulate the furniture and thus involve the space itself in the learning process saw a 70 percent increase in students learning the material. Retention was up, too. Put the kids in desks in neat rows — what some architects call "kids on grids" — and the levels drop, Crane says.

Caves, campfires