Great Schools by Design is a national initiative of the American Architectural Foundation (AAF) that seeks to improve the quality of America’s schools and the communities they serve by promoting collaboration, excellence, and innovation in school design.
Throughout the country, Great Schools by Design engages superintendents, architects, teachers, parents, residents, students, local government officials, and other stakeholders in a far-reaching conversation about what must be done to improve the places where children and young adults learn. We strive to help create schools that both support student achievement and serve as centers of community.
Each day across the United States, more than 59 million students, teachers, and education employees spend considerable time in our nation’s 120,000 school buildings. Unfortunately, too many of these schools are aging, crowded, and in need of repair. These pervasive conditions negatively impact our children’s ability to learn and our teachers’ ability to teach. With school enrollment forecasted to increase at record levels through 2013, and spending on school construction, renovation, and maintenance expected to total nearly $30 billion annually, the need to transform our schools has never been more urgent.
AAF’s National Summit on School Design, co-convened with KnowledgeWorks Foundation, took place in October 2005 in Washington, D.C. The Summit launched a national discussion on school design and developed consensus around principles for creating excellence in school design. AAF and KnowledgeWorks brought national thought leaders and local community and education leaders together for this event. Participants in the National Summit on School Design included mayors, state and local planning officials, school board superintendents, architects, teachers, education experts, students, and other thought leaders from across the country.
AAF also holds School Design Institutes for local school leaders in cities across the country. At these events, mayors, school superintendents, and other school design stakeholders meet with design and planning experts for focused discussions about school design and planning issues in their cities. Recent School Design Institutes include Akron, OH; Bridgeport, CT; Manchester, NH; Oklahoma City, OK; St. Louis, MO. In addition, AAF held the Mississippi Regional School Design Institute to help superintendents in the Gulf Coast region as they prepare to rebuild schools destroyed and damaged by Hurricane Katrina. In each of these cases, AAF seeks to provide resources and information so that local leaders may make thoughtful, informed design decisions for their communities.
Building on the work of the National Summit on School Design, AAF and its partners will convene a series of forums and roundtables addressing such topics as: the classroom of the future, site selection and site size, sustainable design, alternative spaces for learning, and safety and security. These forums will bring together thought leaders from around the country and local educators and leaders with special knowledge or relevant experience to address the particular focus of each forum. After each forum, articles and whitepapers will be developed and widely distributed.
AAF, in partnership with KnowledgeWorks Foundation and Target, is creating a library of Great Schools by Design video case studies and discussion guides that will educate and inform people about how successful school design can benefit local communities.
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