The planning process
Everything we have discussed in this book so far was intended to highlight how systematic design in itself, is insufficient and needs to learn to acknowledge the uniqueness of each school’s social context and how this influences the design of school buildings. In saying this however, the intent of schools, their users, and their role in society imply that there are certain fixed points and certain characteristics that distinguish these buildings from any other type of building. For this reason, from the very beginning, we believed that the process by which schools are designed had to have a new obligatory fixed point: participation.
In this book we have focused on how to start this process with the main users of school buildings: children. Whether you decide to organise participatory workshops or you decide to start directly using the learning landscape tool box game, we think that especially during the early stages of the process the focus should be on asking the children and the community around them what they want from their new school. This will allow both users and architects to broaden their horizons and to understand more deeply what the community expects from this new building.
The first sketches, plans and conceptual designs should be developed from these inputs. Furthermore, the new process, unlike the existing one in which participation ends after phase 0, foresees that the designers continue to come back to ask the community whether the initial design actually reflect their wishes. Through discussions, not only with the
children but also with school staff, parents and the surrounding community, it will be possible to find out what might need tweaking or still isn’t completely clear. The professionals who are working on the design of the new building will be able to make necessary changes to the design that will, eventually, reflect what the users and the community expect.
Only at this point, after several discussions and corrections, will it be possible to continue with the following steps in the building process. The aim of all of this is clearly not to make the process linear and more streamlined, letting the community participate in the planning process isn’t always easy and required patience and time.The question we think is necessary to ask at this point is: do we want to base our cities on the values of speed and functionalism, or do we want to take care of each other by making sure that every member of society feels like they belong and are a part of it?
