It’s been suggested that subtle improvements to our built environment can dramatically boost performance. That’s the reasoning behind the cheerfully colored, comfy modular workspaces of Allsteel’s Gather collection and the enviable slide at the center of AOL’s headquarters: a happy workplace leads to better brain power. But the theory isn’t limited to offices. Now that our modern-day geniuses seem to be ready to change the world at earlier and earlier ages, it’s only fitting that the architecture of schools, the day-to-day environment, should follow suit. With the days of the one-room schoolhouse long behind us, even the stifling narrow corridors, uninspired fluorescent lighting, and forward-facing, inside-the-box thinking we might remember from our own childhoods are quickly becoming a thing of the past, giving way to classrooms that better nurture the curious and creative. Architizer has rounded up a handful of schools that have gone above and beyond the 3-R’s to give kids these days, through architecture, a few S’s: space, security, sustainability, and sunlight. Space In Battle Creek, Michigan, the architects at TowerPinkster were charged with converting the former Cereal City USA Museum into the 64,000-square-foot Battle Creek Area Mathematics and Science Center. The structure is ...
It’s been suggested that subtle improvements to our built environment can dramatically boost performance. That’s the reasoning behind the cheerfully colored, comfy modular workspaces of Allsteel’s Gather collection and the enviable slide at the center of AOL’s headquarters: a happy workplace leads to better brain power. But the theory isn’t limited to offices. Now that our modern-day geniuses seem to be ready to change the world at earlier and earlier ages, it’s only fitting that the architecture of schools, the day-to-day environment, should follow suit. With the days of the one-room schoolhouse long behind us, even the stifling narrow corridors, uninspired fluorescent lighting, and forward-facing, inside-the-box thinking we might remember from our own childhoods are quickly becoming a thing of the past, giving way to classrooms that better nurture the curious and creative. Architizer has rounded up a handful of schools that have gone above and beyond the 3-R’s to give kids these days, through architecture, a few S’s: space, security, sustainability, and sunlight. Space In Battle Creek, Michigan, the architects at TowerPinkster were charged with converting the former Cereal City USA Museum into the 64,000-square-foot Battle Creek Area Mathematics and Science Center. The structure is ...