Deconstructing the American Classroom during a Pandemic: Architects and Teachers Reconsider Learning Spaces
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Among the many challenges the Covid pandemic has brought, education is one that will be forever reformed. Having children in school is critical because it dictates what our future will be, and to make this possible during a pandemic, we need better designed schools. Therefore, to imagine the ideal covid-safe classroom, I decided to explore what architectural lessons for learning spaces in terms of an “ideal classroom” can be drawn from changes in architects’ thinking and teachers’ experiences during the pandemic. I conducted interviews with eight architects and seven educators, asking the architects how the pandemic changed their thinking about educational spaces and prompting elementary school educators to reflect on what they’ve learned about the distribution of space in their classroom. In analyzing the interviews, four intangibilities emerged on which architects and educators agree that a classroom must have: useability, a useable and multipurposed space; adaptability, being able to transform and change; breathability, good air ventilation; and egressability, access to the outdoors. Through the analysis and coding of the architects’ and educators’ perspectives, I was inspired to create my own architectural design of a learning space that embodies the four intangibles, which moves away from traditional, cubic rooms to undulating roofs and walls that mimic students’ movement and learning. With this reshaping, I create a fluid, mobile, and flexible space that allow teachers and students to adapt to the next crisis. The results of the study suggest the value of continuing the conversation with educators and architects across America to expand our thinking of classroom design for a dynamic and developing world.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2021 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Garza Gonzalez, Paula Maria |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | Stanford Graduate School of Education |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford University |
| Subject | design |
| Subject | classroom |
| Subject | learning |
| Subject | space |
| Subject | pandemic |
| Subject | Covid-19 |
| Subject | adaptable |
| Subject | flexible |
| Subject | useable |
| Subject | outdoors |
| Subject | ventilation |
| Subject | school |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
Garza Gonzalez, Paula Maria. (2021). Deconstructing the American Classroom during a Pandemic: Architects and Teachers Reconsider Learning Spaces
Unpublished Honors Thesis. Stanford University, Stanford CA. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/jp735nf9617
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
- Contact
- paumagar97@gmail.com
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...