The affordances of the school environment as a meeting point between educational process and school space

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Published: Jul 27, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/χπ.1477
Keywords:
affordances school architecture schoildol buings greek schools of 1930’s Montessori schools Herman Hertzberger
Ευαγγελία Πέππα (Evangelia Peppa)
Τµήµα Πολιτικών Μηχανικών & Μηχανικών Τοπογραφίας & Γεωπληροφορικής ΤΕΙ Αθήνας
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6879-4164
Abstract

In this paper, the concept of ‘affordances’ is considered as a mean for the understanding of the relation between educational space and educational process. The educational process regulates the operation of the school space, determines which activities will happen where and when, defines the rules for the use of school space and time. A school building is an environment which provides ‘affordances’, perceived or not, activated or not in accordance with the everyday activities and the consecutive agents of the school procedure. The objective of this paper is to show, in certain examples of school buildings, which are the affordances of educational space regarding the school life inside them and to describe the space structures that provide them. The examples analyzed, regarding the relation between space and educational process, conventional and montessorian respectively, are cases of greek school buildings built in the decade of 1930’s and school buildings designed by the dutch architect Herman Hertzberger. The result in both cases is that the affordances are well-matched to the educational process, which, nevertheless, does not determine one-way the design of the school, whose enrichment with affordances can be a challenge to both architecture and education.

Article Details
  • Section
  • THEMATIC FIELD Ι Transformations of schools’ spaces and educational change

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