Kenn Fisher

This Reprint title—‘Biophilic School Design for Health and Wellbeing’—suggests the coverage of a range of factors through which it is contended that key elements of nature and the built environment have a direct link to the health and wellbeing of students and teachers

Biophilic design emphasises human connections to nature to enhance health and well-being. In health and medical environments, the biophilic design hypothesis suggests improved healing and health outcomes when patients have a connection to nature. Emerging evidence indicates that if teachers and students experience a greater sense of health and well-being in the campus environment, they are likely to have better teaching and learning outcomes. To understand this at a deep level, a critical synthesis and analysis of some fifty systematic reviews outlines the significant emerging body of evidence in support of this approach. Systematic reviews are a fundamental basis for new research to be framed in the context of existing research findings within the evidence-based research methodology. Key outcomes of this critical synthesis review are that there is compelling evidence of some 70 health and well-being factors being improved though biophilic design. Also, organising an agreed taxonomy of biophilic design and health and well-being elements at a granular level would assist in simplifying and compiling the evidence of the benefits of such an approach to inform school funding, planning, design and operations authorities.

This section presents research in managing change and risk inherent in the introduction of new learning environments. The topic is introduced, and a brief review is given for each chapter in the following section.

This section presents research in inhabiting new learning environments. The topic is introduced, and a brief review is given for each chapter in the following section.

This forward provides an overview of earlier LEaRN work carried out leading up to this book. It also explores some of the pedagogy and spatial tropes which have emerged over past decades. Whilst there have been many explorative innovations over that time, very few have been scalable and sufficiently resilient to dislodge the primordial hold that the Industrial Age classroom has taken in school design for over a century. Many attempts have been made to align pedagogy and space, but the classical classroom learning container remains in large part due to teacher mindsets. The Transitions suggested in these chapters may well be a seminal moment in the history of school design as the ILETC project nears its final stages of discovery.