What characterises a successful educational building?
A successful educational building should provide inspiration to its users and meet the pedagogical strategies laid out by the educational institution. For Henning Larsen Architects, it is particularly a matter of creating spaces that invite collaboration and dialogue as well as concentration and focus.
It is important that the physical framework provides the students with a sense of belonging. The building should offer a special atmosphere and add a specific quality to the physical surroundings that the students and teachers can relate to.
How does Henning Larsen Architects promote the successful learning environment?
For us, it is decisive that students, teachers and researchers feel inspired by the physical framework. They should get the feeling of entering a bright and inviting space where the daylight contributes to emphasising the experience and intensity of the building. The building should provide the users with a sense of belonging and improve their everyday life.
With our educational buildings, we seek to strengthen both the formal and informal learning processes. What happens between lessons is just as important as what takes place during the teaching. A prerequisite for learning is that you receive, discuss and actively use what you have learned. An educational building should support all these elements.
In Damascus, we are currently working on the Massar Children’s Discovery Centre, which will provide Syrian children with the opportunity to learn about the world while playing and exploring the exhibitions. The project has a clear sustainable profile integrating local craft, which adds a special and unique quality to the project.
What will be the requirements for educational buildings in 2020?
Without a doubt, a variety of new spatial themes will appear – which is particularly evident when we look at the rate of which digitalisation is changing our way of communicating and organising our everyday life.
I think that the educational buildings of the future will be characterised by more fluid boundaries. This applies to the boundaries between home studies and teaching, work and education, formal and informal learning etc. The educational buildings will become a more integrated part of the surrounding society.
As I see it, learning is something which is developed and realised most optimally in interaction with others. So even though there is a tendency towards increasing digitalisation and more distance learning. I am sure that there will always be a need for the physical learning environment.
The physical learning environment offers something different to digital learning – it supports what happens between the lines. And this is what our current – and future – buildings always aim to stimulate!