Environment and Structure
How time is structured, how students are grouped, how spaces are designed and how authority is distributed have largely remained unchanged since mass schooling began. But does the traditional model serve the engagement needs of contemporary secondary students?
This collection examines the evidence on how the structural and physical design of a school shapes student participation, and what alternative models reveal about engagement.
Deeper Learning by Design: Secondary pupils’ study approaches across innovative and traditional learning spaces
- Dan Murphy, Wesley Imms & Marian Mahat
- 2025
Drawing on data from 23 secondary schools across Australia and New Zealand, this study tests a claim long made by educationalists and architects but rarely evidenced: that open and flexible "innovative" learning spaces support deeper student learning and stronger engagement than traditional cellular classrooms.
Blueprint for Tomorrow: Redesigning Schools for Student-Centered Learning
- Prakash Nair
- 2014
Most school buildings were designed for a different era — one that valued compliance over curiosity, and efficient content delivery over genuine learning. In Blueprint for Tomorrow, award-winning school designer Prakash Nair makes a compelling case that the physical environment is not a neutral backdrop to education; it actively shapes what is possible inside it.