Abstract Title: Approaching the Radically Other of Animal and Natural Worlds: Exploring Participatory and Co-design methods in Building Sustainable Schools.
Author(s):
Andrea S Wheeler, Dip.Arch. MPhil. PhD* - The University of Nottingham
Abstract:
This paper examines how participation and sustainability are being addressed by architects in new schools building programmes in the UK. It explores Government policy and a variety of participation practices which suggest co-design of school buildings. Through research with young people from some of the most disadvantaged communities in the UK, those communities that the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is targeting, the paper demonstrates that young people attitudes to sustainable lifestyles and to education can illuminate many of the problems of current policy, and suggests that we need some very different ways of teaching in the C21st if we are to address the social and environmental problems that climate change will bring. Art based participation practices with young people suggest empowerment, citizenship, place making and community, but so many questions are refused by educationalists, architects and within policy literature. New educational philosophies may provide useful insight, as will new architectural approaches but the question of well-being is key and is also poorly researched. Participation within the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme risks becoming tokenistic, understanding the relationship between art practices in participation and sustainability could however, not only counter these accusations but enable the UK Government to achieve the dual objectives of providing better learning environments and sustainable schools.
