Interactions between Design Innovation and Educational Change in Non-Western Schools

Abstract

In Western countries, school systems have employed modern school building designs as symbols for progressive and innovative educational change. Yet, how does this design symbolism change teaching and learning? To address this, we examine the challenges and complexities of innovative school design by drawing on case studies of preschool and primary-level schools from non-Western cultural contexts. A conceptual framework that links social, organisational, cultural, and material elements is used to analyse two new schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Uruguay that used modern school designs as a basis for changes to local pedagogical approaches. Our findings suggest that school building design is not able, by itself, to drive educational changes; and that there are inherent challenges involved in its alignment with localities in terms of staff cultures, student dynamics, and school organisation. Special focus is given to the design of the new school facilities, and the voice of educators in this process. The conclusion points out the need for an adaptive alignment between non-Western educational conventions and introduced education and design concepts.

1. Introduction

Innovative school design is increasingly characterised as central to environments that can accelerate educational change [1]. Across the Western world, countries have used schools as change agents for more than a century. Learning spaces are often identified as innovative, and this is apparent in different fields including education, architecture, and policy making [2]. Several global education concepts can be identified as influencing transformation in educational design and practices. These concepts imply a transition from teacher-driven to student-oriented practices [3]. Since the early 1920s, innovative school designs in Europe and US have tended to step away from traditional, teacher-centred designs to designs influenced by a range of other education practices [4]. Innovative design ideas, such as the active learning models by Steiner and Montessori, open-air primary schools, and John Dewey’s radical educational ideas have influenced primary school building design [5]. The open-school movement characterised the second half of the 20th century in the UK, the Nordic countries, the US, and Canada, mainly in primary education, in line with the growing influence of progressive educational ideas [6,7,8]. However, during the 1980s, a decline in the popularity of progressive-type schools meant the re-examination of open spaces and in many cases a return to conventional classroom design [9].

Despite these criticisms, the last two decades have seen the re-emergence of innovative school designs. These new designs have been labelled as ‘innovative learning environments’ [10,11], with common features of future-focused design [12,13], and they have been widely used internationally [14]. With this has come the assumption of possibilities of the ‘transformation’ of learning [15], and they have restored discussions about school design. This is reflective of international trends that promote educational facilities designed to respond to changes in curricula. Some examples are the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) program in the UK [16], the Building the Education Revolution program in Australia [17], and the Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) project in Canada, Peru, and New Zealand [18]. These programs are characterised by design thinking infused with ideas of ‘mobile’, ‘agile’, and ‘flexible’ learning environments [19].

This study, therefore, interrogates the assumption that modern school building design trends in preschools and primary education—such as flexible and open educational spaces—lead to the enactment of progressive and student-oriented pedagogical practices in non-Western cultural contexts. This paper employs a multiple-case-study approach using two schools in Saudi Arabia and Uruguay as part of a longer study of the role of innovative school design on changes in pedagogical practices.

In Saudi Arabia, government-approved schools are largely traditional, and this includes an underpinning of Islamic values [20]. The Ministry of Education is responsible for the control of the education system, including the curriculum and associated pedagogical approaches, and there is limited scope for school autonomy [21]. The dominant pedagogical approach tends to be rote memorization by students [21] and examination or testing as the main approach to assessment. Student-oriented approaches such as inquiry-based learning are regarded as difficult for both teachers and students [22]. However, there is an acknowledgment in the country’s media that in order to participate in a modern economy, there needs to be education reform [23].

The education system in Uruguay is traditional and centralized. The National Public Education Administration (ANEP) is the governmental organisation in charge of framing and realizing policies in school education. At this central level, curricula are planned for public and private schools, and there is little scope for autonomy. Though educational achievement has slowly increased over the past decade (OECD, 2016) [24], the latest report on the state of education indicates that the system is facing major challenges, and students are failing to achieve quality education in an equitable manner [25]. There is agreement on the urgent need to rethink the education system in the country. Though it has changed in recent decades, the world is changing faster, and the education results that in the past allowed for building a modern society are at present considered insufficient. According to [26], ‘to compete in a knowledge society, radical goals for educational reform are necessary’.

Based on a conceptual framework developed by Gislason [13,27] linking material, social, organisational, and cultural elements, the research question is whether changes in school design in these local contexts (1) were intended to lead to pedagogical change; and (2) whether these changes occurred. The Saudi Arabia case study addresses the first part of the research question, and the Uruguay case study addresses the whole of the research question.

Innovation, Challenges, and Opportunities in Modern School Design

The relationship between innovation in school design and pedagogy is influenced by several contextual factors [28]. Gislason [13] developed a conceptual framework to understand the functional interactions between educational spaces and teaching and learning. The framework contemplates that the school environment is the product of four interconnected elements: organisation, scheduling, and curriculum; student engagement and learning, as well as the social climate of students; staff culture, inherent teaching beliefs, and values; and ecology, building design, material elements, and technology. These elements provide the basis for the thematic indicators of design innovation and educational change. Gislason [29] highlights the need for the alignment of these elements when implementing innovative approaches as they involve unfamiliar practices. Indeed, the dynamic interrelations between aspects that constitute a learning environment show the importance of designers’ understanding of pedagogical intentions, and teachers’ awareness of how to use the building design [1]. For example, the openness of a space can allow collaboration and learning in large groups using elements of flexible-use architecture [30]. However, these spaces can also be challenging as educators and students adjust to different conditions in which to work and learn. Flexible designs can be more suited for self-regulated students than for those who are easily distracted [31].

An increasing body of research has highlighted the influences of innovative physical spaces on pedagogical practices and on the perception of students’ learning. These studies present evidence that particular characteristics of a school can impact how physical space is used in different contexts [28,32,33] and the effectiveness of the innovative school design [34,35,36]. It is recognized that the alignment of organisational, social, and cultural conditions with system agendas and designs will result in improved student engagement [12]. For example, students’ increased autonomy, and opportunities for flexible and collaborative learning [36], teachers’ increased agency, along with high levels of trust, creativity and collaboration [37], as well as a sense of belonging within the school community [1,38] are all related.

There is recognition that it is possible that innovation may become unrelated to the user needs [39]. When this happens, adaptions can require financial resources, which may jeopardize the intentions of the innovation [38,40,41]. Failures in newly built schools may mean retrofitting to create more ‘traditional’ environments [38,42], and deficient consideration of design implications can create problems of temperature, ventilation, and acoustics [41]. Indeed, research findings have highlighted that a successful transition to innovative designs requires changes to schools’ organisation and culture [13,43,44].

Challenges are inherent in innovative school design, emerging from different social contexts and cultures [15]. Schools have a particular history, specific staff and population, and serve distinct communities and localities [45,46]; these may be at odds with the assumptions inherent within what may be characterised as an outside design ‘innovation’. The nature of the relationship between teaching and learning activities and spatial affordances has been broadly established [33]. Alterator and Deed [2] argue that the design and use of learning environments invariably mean levels of interaction between the built environment and educational practices. In this line, research on innovative school design has signalled challenges associated with the relation between educational affordances of spaces, student learning capacity, and how teachers work. Students can experience distraction in open spaces due to an increase in noise and visual disturbance [29]. Teachers may feel pressured to collaborate in open spaces [47]. Indeed, an underutilization of spaces is associated with the lack of shared belief in co-teaching among teachers [48]. Although problematic, research on innovative school design provides direction for how to respond to these challenges. For example, participatory design processes (and attention to users’ voices) in relation to educational spaces [49] and leadership practices [48] and a focus on teachers’ collaborative ways of working in new spaces are recommended [50].

2. Materials and Methods

The paper presents a multiple-case-study approach [51] undertaken between 2018 and 2020, conducted as part of a wider study of the role of building design in pedagogical change. The case study analyses two schools in Saudi Arabia and Uruguay to investigate the design of the learning environments. The aim of the study was to examine the design of schools in non-Western contexts, and to focus on the interaction with its use or intended use.

The two case study schools were chosen as being representative of non-Western countries that face social and economic forces pushing them to change their education systems. Though located in different local contexts, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay have obdurate education and school design traditions in common; both face challenges to transforming education. These countries have largely traditional school systems, but are attempting to develop and modernize their economies and associated educational delivery. Hence, innovative school design and pedagogy are emergent characteristics of wider societal changes.

Permission was provided by the school principals of both schools to conduct the research presented. To preserve the identity of the schools, fake names were used in this paper.

The case study data were collected in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and in Uruguay between 2018 and 2020 using varied data collection techniques including guided tours of the two existing schools, respectively, as well as semi-structured interviews with head teachers, teachers, and staff. These provided an initial understanding of the educational aspirations, organisational structure, and design concepts. Classroom practice observations and other activities undertaken in the existing schools, such as walkthroughs with teachers and informal discussions with end users, also took place.

In both cases, interviews were undertaken. For Najd Public School, interviews with the head teacher and 6 teaching staff members took place between June and September 2019. For MVD School, the head teacher, 2 representatives of the school leadership, 6 teachers, and 4 other related staff members were interviewed between September 2018 and February 2020. All interviews lasted between 30 min and an hour.

Background information from each school was gathered in the form of written documentation including policy statements and annual reports, as well as educational visions and briefing documents. Workshops and planning focus groups took place with educators and designers during the design process.

The data analysis for each case study was based on a thematic analysis, based on the literature on innovative learning environments. Once the separate cases were thematically analysed, they were further refined using Gislason’s [13] model, outlined above. The aim of the analysis was to highlight the challenges involved when implementing innovative school designs in non-Western countries. The following provides an overview of each school in relation to the design concepts applied and the expected pedagogical activities.

2.1. Case Study 1—Najd Public School

Najd Public School is a new school located in a residential area in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The new school was planned to be comprehensive and segregated, with over 500 preschool and primary school students aged between 4 and 12 years old. The school’s aim is to prepare students for participation in the global economy [52]. As a private school, for Saudi nationals, it had some scope to consider and incorporate international trends in its design and pedagogy.

Pedagogical vision. The strategic aim of the school leadership was to design a new school that acts as a catalyst for educational innovation. Essentially, this meant that the new school would neither look, nor operate, like any other school in Saudi Arabia, except for international schools.

The main concepts informing the planning and design of the new school are personalised and experiential learning. Personalised learning can be considered to be broadly aligned with Islamic educational practices of individualised learning [53]. Experiential learning, on the other hand, is aligned with the long-standing culture of farming, textiles, ceramics, and other handicrafts. These pedagogical concepts were used as the basis for creating a school that would engage students with learning processes compatible with contemporary international trends in education [54].

Design conceptualization. Provision of this type of learning had direct implications for the design of the new school, since it must cater to a range of learning approaches, with a choice of spaces to support individual, group, and community learning needs. The design needed to include breakout spaces adjacent to classrooms, flexible spaces, and learning support or resource areas. An experiential approach to learning also translates to the design of spaces that allow for creative, investigative, constructive, model-based, performative, and project-based learning. Representative spaces might include STEM/STEAM labs, media and recording studios, an embodied immersive virtual reality space, science or engineering labs, as well as non-tech spaces such as spaces for working with wood and textiles, and play-based areas.

Design process. Largely led by the international staff members, key innovative pedagogical and design concepts emerged during multiple planning focus groups and interviews with key educator stakeholders, including flexible and open learning spaces; increased use of immersive multi-media and interdisciplinary projects; a globally oriented contemporary curriculum program; an expansive, open, and networked mode of teaching and learning; and an increased emphasis on student-based learning. Staff working in the new Najd School are planned to be a mix of international and local educators. Local educators have been largely educated to deliver a traditional style of teaching, being educator-directed and transmissive. Students are used to a highly controlled and supervised environment, with an emphasis on monitoring and security.

2.2. Case Study—MVD School

MVD School is located in a residential area in Montevideo, Uruguay. The private school hosts 900 students aged 3 to 18, with preschool, primary, and secondary levels. The new building replaces the existing preschool located within the school facility on a nearby site from 1950. The new preschool enrols up to 300 students aged 3 to 5 and has been operational since March 2020. The school’s educational culture is oriented to nurture the growth of the whole person, higher-order thinking, and life-long learning.

Pedagogical vision. Project-based learning is the main pedagogical concept that informed the design of the new preschool facility at MVD School, with the specific aim of departing from the concept of an isolated classroom with a single teacher. Specifically, the vision for the preschool was to make it into a ‘transformational’ space, regarding its design conceptualization, so that it enables the implementation of progressive pedagogical ideas. The school’s vision, regarding the physical design, was to generate an inspirational and open environment for preschool children allowing the flexible use of spaces. Indeed, through the design of an innovative building, the school aimed to challenge existing educational approaches and push for pedagogical change. This approach is aligned with what researchers consider an ‘interventionist strategy with the potential to catalyse the systemic uptake of constructivist pedagogical practices in schools’ [55] (p. 386).

Design conceptualization. The layout of the preschool building has a rectangular shape composed of two distinctive areas: (1) learning, and (2) administration. There are no conventional corridors; instead, a central space with a staircase was intended to become the ‘heart’ of the school. Teachers can use student desks, as there are no individual desks, and storage is in wall cabinets. The learning areas are divided into three distinct zones that are open, with natural daylight and furniture that was purposely designed. Each learning space can host approximately 100 students from the same year with a team of teachers. Each space is composed of three to five neighbouring rectangular areas (the size of a standard classroom) fitted with acoustic doors that can be drawn into smaller configurations or be kept open to allow for larger groups of students to be taught jointly.

Design process. This involved consultation with teachers and staff to engage them in discussions about educational change through thinking about innovative learning spaces. Based on a framework to facilitate collaborative engagement about school space developed by Woolner [56], the process aimed at considering users’ starting points in understanding their educational spaces and practices to then facilitate the exploration of new ideas and possibilities. As part of the consultation process, workshops were conducted with educators to move them from evaluating their own experiences to thinking about learning and space in wider terms and designing the preschool in a structured activity.

One staff member was intentionally chosen as a coordinator by the school board to manage the transition to the new building, to enable continuing staff professional development, and to act as an innovation champion for the new preschool building. Staff professional learning opportunities, including sessions with outside specialized speakers, were offered during the design process to explore how to successfully use the space across a range of lessons. Online learning resources were also available to staff.

3. Results

Both case studies are examples of how design was integrated with the educational purpose and vision of the school. The new learning spaces were considered transformative as they expanded the type of spaces currently available in most schools in Saudi Arabia and Uruguay. The planned spaces in the new schools represent a major turn away from Saudi Arabian tradition and convention as well as Uruguayan local culture.

The challenges of innovation are interpreted through the analysis of Gislason’s elements, which can respond to global trends as well as to local cultures and needs. Applying Gislason’s framework, we seek to address alignments and misalignments between school design and the interconnected elements of organisation, scheduling, and curriculum; the student learning experience; the staff’s cultural conventions and traditions; and the building design, material elements, and technology.

3.1. Ecology

The designs of Najd Public School and MVD’s new school building encourage the disarticulation of teaching and learning processes from individual classrooms to a range of integrated learning environments. Both schools were keen to have a learning ecosystem, or a range of interconnected spaces that are reconfigurable in multiple ways. As mentioned before, the design of enclosed classrooms signals and shapes the teaching practices and learning processes to be employed. Therefore, the move to more flexible spaces supports the transformation of the pedagogical approach.

As part of the participatory design process, the senior leadership team at Najd Public School were sensitive to the idea that spatial affordances may shape or prompt the practical actions and thinking of educators and students. This was reflected in the design requirements for maker spaces (creative, self-directed learning spaces, e.g., wood or metal workshop, art studio, 3D-printing laboratory), multi-media labs, and project rooms. Here, a link was established between the educational concepts of learners as active, social, and self-regulated, and a transaction between contextual resources and individual learners. Related spaces allowed for creative and investigative activities using a range of media; construction, modelling, and simulation; as well as long-term project development and display. The flexibility of Najd Public School was expressed in the number of different spaces that were available for students. One lesson on Arabic, for example, may include using the main classroom for instruction, followed by using adjoining rooms for recording language practice sessions, or small-group work. The co-location of multiple spaces was the basis for flexible instructional practices.

For the Uruguayan case, the new facility was designed to enable flexibility of use, breaking with the concept of the enclosed classroom; it was about the delivery of ‘agile’ spaces to encourage forms of learning that include collaborative group work and project-based learning. The older building had a classroom and corridor configuration in line with a teacher-focused transmissive pedagogy. The new building, however, allows for a more student-centred approach aligned with the development of 21st-century skills. Staff could easily rearrange spaces to support different approaches to learning through the movement of wheeled furniture into various positions.

For both schools, several different furniture configurations were possible. MVD school students were not provided with their own tables and chairs. Rather, different furniture types and configurations were delivered to support student needs. This encouraged teachers to deliver differentiated lessons that encouraged student agency. However, these aspects also required the consideration of design elements such as various acoustic solutions to deal with possible noise pollution.

3.2. Organisation

Planning and timetabling are organisational aspects that can challenge the intended use of the physical space. According to Gislason [13], the provision of learning spaces designed with collaborative teaching in mind brings up concerns about the considered planning time needed to support staff collaboration. To minimise discombobulation between different learning spaces, the timetable and planned pedagogical activities need to be managed. Administrators can experience difficulties conceiving how to timetable and resource activities with a range of different learning environments, while teachers may not be able to use non-traditional teaching spaces effectively. Indeed, timetabling is considered essential in order to support educators engage in teamwork across the learning spaces.

In both schools, during the design process, careful consideration was taken on the time and space resourcing needed to effectively use the new spaces. In MVD school, during the workshop session, a group of teachers highlighted the need ‘to coordinate and plan between teachers’ with regard to how to use the different spaces in advance of the new building. They planned to work together to coordinate their use of space and time, so that, when the time came to use the spaces, activities were properly sequenced and there was an orderly use of the spaces. Teachers and administrators in MVD agreed that lessons would have to be carefully timed so that the use of the shared spaces was smooth.

Design features that adhere to the concept of ‘nudge’ are understood as intentional interventions to guide users towards certain actions while, simultaneously, discouraging others [36]. In MVD School, an intentional intervention was the absence of teacher desks in the learning spaces. Understood as an artefact of traditional schooling, the teacher’s desk can draw the educator to a specific location to engage in independent activities. Indeed, removing the educator’s desk in MVD School was understood to encourage teachers to move about the space while teaching using varied modalities. After the handover of the building, some teachers highlighted their increased use of the learning spaces that was understood to result from the lack of teacher’s desks.

Teachers’ support of team teaching and pedagogical vision was key to achieving the level of collaboration needed. Studies on collaboration in teaching highlight that teachers working in teams tend to experience some loss of autonomy, tension over new time allocations, and an increased need to communicate [57]. Therefore, to enable a long-lasting team-teaching experience, teachers need to feel that the advantage of collaboration outweighs the challenges involved. At MVD School, support to develop this kind of teaching was robust; the teachers undertook training sessions and workshops during the design process to better understand the underlying challenges and opportunities of this new approach.

3.3. Student Milieu

Students’ capacity to participate in a range of learning experiences and to also remain focused on their own work was challenging, as they adapted to a range of non-familiar educational approaches. Their role within the case study schools shifted from being passively taught to being able to choose how and when to learn. However, the open nature of the spaces also leads to disruptive behaviours. Open layouts can facilitate socialization, and this might be difficult to manage if students are inclined to socialise rather than work.

Both case studies showed how the design process afforded student-oriented learning environments. Najd Public School used design to accommodate personalised learning, for example. This included responding to a differentiated curriculum, student participation in learning processes, interdisciplinary learning, and managed levels of student autonomy. In terms of design, this meant an environment with spaces that allow for a range of teaching and learning approaches, age-appropriate fitting out of spaces for learning and socialisation, access to multi-media resources throughout the school, and spaces that could be flexibly configured by students to meet the requirements of learning tasks.

For MVD School, the use of the learning environments in a flexible way was encouraged, taking into consideration the inherent need of children to explore and take ownership of the different spaces. Teachers considered the importance of ‘the stimulation of creativity and learning motivation’ through the flexible use of different spaces and layouts. Also to be considered were the effects of age, learning stages, and the motivation of students, which can impact their capacity for independent learning and the related need for staff monitoring.

3.4. Staff Culture

This final element of the framework was key to supporting the new approach and was underpinned by the staff’s commitment to the educational vision. For many educators, teaching habits and choices become a limiting factor when aligning learning spaces and pedagogies. The challenge is that the new spatial affordances will not be perceived, understood, or utilized by educators, bringing them back to the tried and tested [1]. The value of alternative learning spaces is beneficial only if teachers can effectively adapt their practices to the spatial potential.

For MVD School, the challenge was associated with the ability to shape teachers’ practices in such a way as to enhance and evolve them to meet the needs of the new pedagogical vision. Indeed, during the interviews with teachers, they highlighted the need to ‘promote instances of training and practices of the new modes of teaching and learning’. Indeed, professional learning opportunities were offered to educators to encourage the use of space in a new way, and several participating teachers commented they felt empowered to try new teaching practices. They also felt that intentional reflection and a realignment of existing goals were important to shift their teaching practices. However, this desire to make use of the space as intended was not universal; teachers’ approaches and thinking about how to make the most effective use of the new school were varied, with some educators regarding it as a continuation of the existing teaching environment and other simply refusing to change their practices.

MVD School purposively appointed a member of the staff who worked as a teacher in the existing school to a new role. Her primary role was to provide tools to support and help teachers be prepared to transition to the new space. As an innovation enabler, she looked at empowering teachers and maintaining the new school’s vision prior to the move.

For both schools, team teaching was regarded as a generator of innovation in teaching practices. In MVD School, there were examples of team teaching of single-student cohorts. As mentioned before, an organised way to use the space was discussed with the teachers. However, this effort to organise team teaching was not welcomed by all teachers. Some educators in level 5 insisted on working independently in their learning space regardless of the agreed-upon plan of action.

For Najd Public School, the main challenge was the teachers’ ability to adapt to the new pedagogical vision. As the vision was shaped by the contextual conditions, part of this adaptation was being able to work effectively within the new school environment. This can be related to the ‘assumption that changes in teaching and learning will occur as a result of new spaces’ [58] (p. 75). At Najd Public School, for example, a professional learning program was devised to highlight how each teaching space could be used as part of the pedagogical approach used by the school. This increased their familiarity with the proposed new spaces and gave them examples of how they might use these spaces to support their pedagogy.

3.5. School Local Culture

Ultimately, a consideration of the schools’ local cultures involved challenges. In Saudi Arabia, this relates to whether the symbolism, function, and purpose of the planned Najd Public School were perceived by the school community as a reasonable extension of the Arabic and Saudi context, conventions, and resources. However, this was also balanced by the ambition of the school to reflect contemporary Western learning programs and pathways. How the innovation is experienced by the wider community, including students, educators, administrators, parents, and government officials determines how much change will be acceptable. In the case of Uruguay, the culture of the school was responsive to a wider community in the country ruled by long-lasting conventions and traditions that have dictated school designs. However, this community has lately shown an interest in new pedagogical approaches in their schools. This willingness can be considered the starting point of a change in education at a regional level. See

Table 1. Summary of findings.

Thematic Analysis	Najd Public School	MVD
Ecology	From conventional design to flexible and integrated learning spaces
	Addition of maker spaces, multi-media labs and project rooms—adjoining classroom spaces	Design to enable agile and reconfigurable classroom spaces to include a student-centred approach to learning
Organisation	Careful planning between teachers to use the new spaces efficiently
	Teaching staff involvement in planning how to incorporate new spaces	Removal of teacher desks
		Training and workshops to support staff collaboration
Student milieu	Personalised learning curriculum including differentiated programs, interdisciplinary learning, and managed levels of student autonomy	Students encouraged to explore and take ownership of new spaces
		Teachers use spaces flexibly to allow for the effects of age, learning stage, and motivation
Staff culture	Professional learning program including testing how to use the new spaces	Professional training provided for teachers
		Organised reflection on teaching practices
		Staff member appointed to support transition to new spaces

for a summary of findings.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

This study examines the assumption that modern school building design trends in preschool and primary education facilities lead to the enactment of progressive and student-oriented pedagogical practices in non-Western cultural contexts. A multiple-case-study approach using two schools, in Saudi Arabia and Uruguay, was used to identify challenges and opportunities related to teaching practices, organisational structures, and leadership, as well as student learning, to be considered when local and national cultures attempt to enact these transformations.

Applying a conceptual framework of interaction between design and teaching and learning, it was apparent that contemporary educational design, incorporating ideas of flexibility, adjacency, and broadening the scope of conventional classroom potential, can result in the incorporation of student-oriented pedagogy. However, the case studies clearly identified a range of factors that need to be in place to support this shift in pedagogy—design planning taking place jointly with educators, resources to support the transition and ongoing practice, careful management of time and space organisation, and encouragement of student agency to explore and co-configure these environments.

The case studies show a primary issue related the diffusion of the supposed integration of innovative design and pedagogical change. The challenges involved in this process can potentially be reduced when considered in relation to the elements in Gislason’s framework. Architects, educators, and other stakeholders involved in the school planning process should consider the interplay of these elements of a given school. However, it is important to highlight that for this type of circumstance, local culture and beliefs are key considerations for the success of the school. In countries where the cultural background of the population is very influential, a commitment to school transformation needs to be informed by local stakeholder perspectives. The participatory design approach is even more crucial so that global education approaches can be adapted to local realities. In sum, tradition and culture matter.

The case studies demonstrate that the major challenge is the potential for a non-alignment between teaching practices and the design of learning environments. As mentioned by Gislason [13], practices that are unfamiliar might be discarded if they are poorly supported by teachers, or if the school administrators do not allocate sufficient resources for professional training to support different pedagogical approaches. This can be a significant problem in any national and cultural context, as demonstrated in various Western countries in the past, as well as more recent resistance to schools with flexible open designs [6,59,60], and indeed the continued building of traditionally designed schools in many countries [60]. These challenges need to be addressed through participatory school design processes, including the development of teacher preparedness for creative teaching and learning in new or innovative learning environments, as well as collaborative approaches to inhabiting and using the new spaces [50].

The overriding challenges of the planned schools can be the misalignment with the past experiences of educators, administrators, students, and families. It is important for the school communities to perceive that schools are integrated with their contexts, cultures, and communities. The evidence base for the mitigation of these challenges relates to productivity, functionality, and user experience. In other words, it is expected that the new schools should simultaneously respond to (1) the physical, social, and cultural context; (2) a contemporary participatory pedagogical approach; and (3) styles and modes of a flexible, open, and global learning environment.

Each of these potential issues can be mediated through ongoing investment in the preparation, transition, and adaptation of educators and students to the new learning environment. While the building design expresses and authorizes ways of teaching and learning, the catalyst for responding to these affordances is largely in the hands of the teachers and school leaders.

5. Limitation

The main limitations of this research relate to the case study methodology. While this provides snapshots of teacher and student interactions with school design, they were limited in scope and duration. The case studies were conducted in order to examine design innovation in schools, and the complex school systems created were examined in a limited way using observation and interviews over a relatively brief time period and with a focus on a limited range of factors.