how school design reflects changing ideas in education

The end of open-plan classrooms in New Zealand, recently announced by Education Minister Erica Stanford, marks yet another swing of the pendulum in school design.

Depending on who you ask, these classrooms were an opportunity to foster collaboration and flexibility or an exercise in organised chaos.

So-called “modern learning environments” – characterised by flexible layouts, fewer walls and sometimes multiple classes and teachers in one space – were vigorously pushed by the National government in 2011.

The stated goal was to promote flexibility in the way students were taught, encourage collaboration and to accommodate new technology in classrooms.

But a 2024 ministerial inquiry into school property found complex procurement, design and authorisation processes associated with bespoke designs caused delays, budget overruns and unrealised expectations in many school communities.

Among the solutions offered by the inquiry was the development of simple but functional schools based on cookie-cutter designs constructed off-site. This recommendation was welcomed by the current National-led government.

Design influenced by ideology

The modern, bespoke designs of the past two decades represented a response to technological developments, such as the introduction of digital devices, that changed how students learned.

This resulted in the steady replacement of traditional school designs from the industrial age with spaces designed for flexibility.

Those industrial age schools were themselves products of changes in the second half of the 20th century. Since the first school opened in 1843, school architecture in New Zealand had evolved significantly. Early schools featured cramped six-metre by four-metre classrooms which could accommodate more than 30 students.

By the 1920s, the “Taranaki” and “Canterbury” models included a more generous minimum classroom size of eight metres by seven metres. There was a greater emphasis on light and ventilation. Their larger spaces also recognised changes in teaching styles that encouraged more active and participatory learning.

By the 1950s, classroom size had grown to ten metres by seven metres. The “Nelson” and “S68” blocks of the 1950s and 1960s provided small self-contained blocks of classrooms that reduced student movement and corridor noise.

Changes to New Zealand school buildings also reflected global trends. Open-plan schools emerged in North America after 1960. At the same time, there were signs English schools would replace their traditional Victorian-style buildings with classrooms considered more child-centred.

The goal was to achieve flexible, connected designs to support evolving education philosophies. England’s 1966 Plowden Report on primary education significantly aided this evolution towards progressive styles of teaching and learning, leading to the creation of schools that featured flexibility, connectivity and external-internal flow.

These schools were the forerunners of “innovative learning environments” and were considered cutting-edge at the time.

In 2004, the ambitious Building Schools for the Future programme was launched in the United Kingdom. It was designed to replace outdated school facilities considered unfit for preparing students for the 21st century.

But in 2011, the James Review of Education Capital highlighted a number of issues with the way schools were being built, putting an end to the infrastructure programme.

That report, like the 2024 New Zealand report, suggested replacing government investment in bespoke school infrastructure with a focus on standardised designs.

A swing back

In New Zealand, “modern learning environments” became part of education policy with the Ministry of Education’s School Property Strategy 2011-2021, published in 2011. But the pendulum started to swing back after Labour came to power in 2017.

Departing from the 2011 strategy, the language of “modern learning environments”, “innovative learning environments” and “flexible learning spaces” largely disappeared. It was replaced in policy documents with “quality learning environments”.

This shift emphasised physical characteristics such as heating, lighting and acoustics, rather than innovative approaches to teaching and learning.

Since coming to power, the current National-led coalition has focused on embedding a standardised approach to foundational skills in reading, writing, maths and science.

While not directly scapegoating open-plan designs for educational underachievement, Erica Stanford said the reforms would ensure learning spaces were “designed to improve student outcomes”.

But as New Zealand moves back to standardised designs, it is worth considering why modern learning environments were introduced in the first place – the flexibility for new technology and space for collaboration – and what students may lose by a swing back towards the separate classrooms of the past.