Mamer Koenigsbund - Jim-Clemes

I am often asked the question,does good design inschool settings aidthe well being of childrenand teachers?It is an aspiration which is hard to prove definitively, however the discipline of EnvironmentalPsychology and some of its concepts is a useful aid to understanding more deeply the potential forwell designed school spaces to aid child development.4 5An introduction by Mark DudekEducation design expertHaving spent some time, many years ago, observing the behaviour of the Siamang, (which lookslike a larger, black gibbon), in a Malaysian jungle, I was most interested to observe the stable familygroup and its interactions. Spending ones days beneath such a family one quickly becomes awareof the infant’s working through the tasks of early childhood. Leaving the comforting immediacy ofthe parent the infant has to work out its physical capacities and the effects of its movement on theperceived properties of the local world; although still being suckled, it is testing the properties of thingsencountered, what tastes good, what is to be avoided, what you can expect to be where (water trappedin tree ferns; stinging ants in a marching column for example). As the infant grows more confident andadept at mobility, there come issues of navigation and location, away from the familiar and comforting,and rapid returning if danger threatens.If Siamang and human infants have in common a need to learn the dimensions of space; testingphysical and cognitive capacities against its challenges; and wayfinding in socio-physical space; thenone can also see that for the human infant, the elementary school, poses similar albeit more complextasks. With its larger numbers of individuals to negotiate, and greater range of resources both to useand to dispute, levels of social complexity expand logarithmically. However life in the canopy still seemssomewhat similar to that in the elementary school in that the physical space available to both species isthe most important dimension of education’s key activity, social interaction. Put simply, the successfulschool is about constructing and elucidating transactions between people and places within theframework of a safe yet challenging environment, (‘transactions’ because the relationship works bothways: as Winston Churchill said we shape our places and they shape us).