Research into the relationships between a) school architecture and b) the educational practices and behaviours of teachers and students has received increased attention over recent years. It could be argued that such attention has tracked with the ‘spatial turn’ in the social sciences, with inquiry into socio-material practices in education becoming a topic of interest to scholars in both education and architecture (Mulcahy et. al, 2015). This contemporary ‘learning environments research’ follows earlier work dating back to the 1960’s that included seminal work in ecological psychology, including the development of behaviour settings theory and related approaches to understanding environment-behaviour relations (see for example Barker & Gump, 1964). Weinstein’s (1981) research in the 1980’s provided a bridge from the school environment research conducted during the 1960’s to the learning environments research conducted in more recent years (see for example Gislason, 2010). Oddly, very little research in the field addresses issues related to the architectural design process, including review of built environment outcomes in relation to the conduct of design teams, and especially with respect to the design of innovative learning environments (ILE’s) that are intended to provide opportunities for ‘pedagogical change’. This paper draws on empirical research conducted by the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) over the past decade to develop a framework for effective collaboration between educational leaders (school principals, assistant principals, teachers and school system administrators) and design professionals (architects and related consultants) in the development of new educational facilities that embody constructivist educational philosophies and related forms of practice, in what Monahan (2005) described as ‘built pedagogies’. The paper also draws on the literature (e.g. Gislason, 2010; Dovey & Fisher, 2014; Woolner et. al, 2014; Cleveland & Kvan, 2015; and Fisher, 2016) to identify aspects of the ‘the messy business of collaborative translational design’ that educational leaders and design professionals are required to ‘sort out’ in the process of designing, delivering and inhabiting new learning environments to positive effect. In doing so, the paper addresses a number of issues concerning how best to embody an educational vision in school architecture and discusses the extent to which architecture can be expected to shape educational practice; calling on the work of Mulcahy et. al (2015) and their analysis of ‘realist’ and ‘relational’ perspectives on the relationships between learning spaces and the educational practices and behaviours of teachers and students.

Barker, R., & Gump, P. V. (1964). Big school, small school: High school size and student behaviour. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cleveland, B., & Kvan, T. (2015). Designing learning spaces for interprofessional education in the anatomical sciences. Anatomical Sciences Education, 8(4), 371-380. Dovey, K., & Fisher, K. (2014). Designing for adaptation: The school as socio-spatial assemblage. Journal of Architecture, 19(1), 43-63. Fisher, K. (Ed.) (2016). The translational design of schools. An evidence-based approach to aligning pedagogy and learning environments. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Gislason, N. (2010). Architectural design and the learning environment: A framework for school design research. Learning Environments Research, 13(2), 127–145. Mulcahy, D., Cleveland, B., & Aberton, H. (2015). Learning spaces and pedagogic change: envisioned, enacted and experienced. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 575-595. Monahan, T. (2005). Globalization, technological change, and public education. New York, NY: Routledge. Weinstein, C. (1981). Classroom design as an external condition for learning. Educational Technology, 21, 12–19. Woolner, P., J. Clark, K. Laing, U. Thomas, & Tiplady, L. (2014). A school tries to change: How leaders and teachers understand changes to space and practices in a UK secondary school. Improving Schools 17 (2): 148–162.