The design of this flexible school for early childhood education in Milan, Italy, takes into account children’s development and the different ways they experience space according to their age. The facilities will include not only a nursery school and kindergarten, but also a drop-in day-care...

Designing school buildings to respond to change is not a new idea. But perhaps what is different today is the kind and degree of change which we have to anticipate. The OECD is carrying out projects that can help in the planning and design of future educational facilities – exploring trends in...

Hungary’s Belvárosi Tanoda Secondary School offers an informal, flexible environment and alternative teaching methods for students who have had problems in other schools. The Belvárosi Tanoda (which translates as downtown school) is a second chance school for students who have dropped out of...

Brisbane Girls Grammar School’s new Creative Learning Centre was conceived to group arts studies which were previously scattered across the campus and to serve all students as a meeting place and technology hub. The building is specifically designed to provide the most flexible and innovative...

Greece’s School Buildings Organisation (SBO) is developing bioclimatic pilot schemes which are yielding positive results. Bioclimatic action has been one of the principal priorities of Greek school infrastructure planning since 2004. Among the activities undertaken by SBO to use renewable...

In March 2007, the Portuguese government announced an ambitious plan to modernise secondary schools by improving the quality and usefulness of its teaching and learning facilities, while putting schools back into the centre of the community of which they are an integral part.

Scotland’s Building Excellence programme is exploring the implications of curriculum reform for school building design. It includes events which bring together teachers, designers, school managers and local authorities.

In presenting this case study of an innovative school building in Scotland, the author describes its unique design features, conveys the viewpoints of the users, client and design team, and reveals the lessons learned. Dalry Primary, North Ayrshire Introduction Dalry Primary School in North...