Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications

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    School and Community Infrastructure Networks: What Might These Look Like?
    Miles, N ; Cleveland, B ; Chandler, P (Springer Nature Singapore, 2023)
    Abstract This chapter asks, ‘How might school and community infrastructure networks be conceived, and what might they look like?’ Through an exploratory review of the literature, the relationships between school and community infrastructures are investigated and connections and boundaries between different forms of infrastructure for community use are discussed. A network theory approach is adopted to explore emerging insights into how school facilities and other community assets (buildings and landscaped areas) might better support whole-of-community development, education, and wellbeing. Historically, the opposing design objectives of connection and security have challenged the development of schools as locations for community use, often resulting in facilities that are inadequately planned or resolved in their design to meet the needs of multiple user-groups. Might the reappraisal of school planning and design enable new and improved connections with other community infrastructures? Might planning and designing community facilities with school users in mind improve their utility? Drawing together various discourses in the literature, a network model is proposed to represent relationships between school and community infrastructures. This is intended to encourage planning authorities to explore potentially better integrated, more effective, and financially more efficient models of infrastructure provision for community use—especially in fast growing areas on the edges of Australia’s largest cities where demand for community services and infrastructure is high, but resources are stretched.
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    Policy for Schools as Community Hubs: Insights Into a Fragmented Environment
    Polglase, R ; McShane, I ; Cleveland, B (Springer Nature Singapore, 2023)
    Abstract Schools as community hubs are recognised for their significant contributions to communities. Yet, these projects must negotiate complex and often fragmented policy environments that cross government jurisdictions and disciplines to achieve stakeholder support, funding, and operate over the longer-term to deliver benefits to communities. Policy research in this area is scarce. This chapter discusses policy for schools as community hubs through the lenses of Bacchi and Goodwin’s ‘problem representation’ approach and ideas about performative and locally enacted policy. This theoretical framework is applied to Yuille Park Community College, in Victoria, Australia, as an interpretive policy analysis to reveal insights into the policy environment that was negotiated to develop this community-facing school. Now proclaimed as a ‘whole of life’ community centre, Yuille Park relied on the skill and continuity of key actors who—with little formal policy direction—coordinated solutions across service provision, urban planning, and facility design to make a difference to a struggling community, generating neighbourhood uplift and helping to overcome entrenched intergenerational challenges.
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    Affordances, Architecture and the Action Possibilities of Learning Environments: A Critical Review of the Literature and Future Directions
    Young, F ; Cleveland, B (MDPI, 2022-01)
    This paper critically reviews the body of literature on affordances relating to the design and inhabitation of school buildings. Focusing on the influence of learning spaces on pedagogical practices, we argue that links between affordances, architecture and the action possibilities of school-based environments have largely been overlooked and that such links hold great promise for better aligning space and pedagogy—especially amidst changing expectations of what effective teaching and learning ‘looks like’. Emerging innovative learning environments (ILEs) are designed to enable a wider pedagogical repertoire than traditional classrooms. In order to transcend stereotypical understandings about how the physical environment in schools may afford teaching and learning activities, it is becoming increasingly recognised that both design and practice reconceptualisation is required for affordances of new learning environments to be effectively actualised in support of contemporary education. With a focus on the environmental perceptions of architects, educators and learners, we believe affordance theory offers a useful framework for thinking about the design and use of learning spaces. We argue that Gibson’s affordance theory should be more commonly applied to help situate conversations between designers and users about how physical learning environments are conceived, perceived and actioned for effective teaching and learning.
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    Schools as Community Hubs Development Framework: Workshop 1, Emerging Themes & Insights
    Chandler, P ; Cleveland, B (University of Melbourne- Melbourne School of Design, 2020)
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    Building Connections for Community Benefit. Proceedings of Schools as Community Hubs International Conference 2020
    Cleveland, B ; Chandler, P ; Backhouse, S ; Clinton, J ; McShane, I ; Newton, C (University of Melbourne - Melbourne School of Design, 2020-11-30)
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    Rethink: Interdisciplinary evaluation of academic workspaces
    Backhouse, S ; Newton, C ; Fisher, K ; Cleveland, B ; Naccarella, L ; Agrawal, A ; Gupta, R (Architectural Science Association (ANZAScA), 2019)
    Academic workspace remains an emotive topic. It is bound tightly with each academic’s identity, purpose and status. As universities increasingly focus on cross-disciplinary collaboration to producenew knowledge, the sanctuary of the individual office is under challenge. Inspired by precedents in the commercial world, universities are experimenting with more open workspace environments with a desire topromote collaborationand increasespace utilisation.However,there is resistance withintheacademic community. Given this context, there is a surprising paucity of research into the design and occupation of academic workspaces. This research beginsto fill that gap through a scoping literature review specific to the academic workspaceand anew approach toacademic workspace evaluation (AWE). The AWE approach focuses on the alignment of people, purpose and place, differentiating itself from the predominant post-occupancy evaluation fociofbudget, time, environmental performance and user satisfaction. A key finding of the research has been that change management – as an integral aspect of the project design process –is as importantto the success of future-focused academic workspace projects as theirspatial design.
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    Learning Environment Design and Use. Towards Effective Learning Environments in Catholic Schools (TELE): An Evidence-based Approach (2015-2017)
    Cleveland, B ; Soccio, P ; Mountain, R ; Imms, W (Catholic Education Melbourne, 2018)
    This report – Summary of Findings – is intended to support evidence-based decision making by those involved in the design and use of school learning environments. It summarises the findings of a three-year collaborative research initiative involving Catholic Education Melbourne (CEM), Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta (CEDP) and the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) at the University of Melbourne. The Towards Effective Learning Environments in Catholic Schools (TELE): An Evidence Based Approach (2015-2017) project is one of the largest known studies to have evaluated the relationships between the built environment and the pedagogical practices and activities of school teachers and students. The findings have been drawn from the rigorous evaluation of 43 learning environments in 38 schools.
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    Why Innovative Learning Environments? Stories from three schools that helped establish an ongoing space and pedagogy agenda
    Cleveland, B ; Alterator, S ; Deed, C (Brill - Sense, 2018-07-26)
    The research reported in this chapter was conducted to address a seemingly simple question: How are contemporary middle years (Years 5-9) pedagogies influencing the design of physical learning environments? What the study uncovered was a deep spatio-pedagogical conversation about historical misalignments between middle years pedagogies and largely isolated and dissociated classrooms, and the desire to create new and innovative learning environments to better accommodate the practices, activities and behaviours of contemporary teaching and learning. During the period between 2008-2011, school leaders identified tensions between traditional classroom spaces fitted only with tables and chairs and the pedagogical objectives and intensions of leading middle years educators, such as those outlined in the Middle Years Research and Development (MYRAD) Project (DEET, 2002, p. web): – Strengthening teacher-student relationships; – Involving students in decision-making about content, process and assessment; – Presenting authentic tasks that require complex thought and allowing time for exploration; – Inclusion of processes involving co-operation, communication, negotiation and social competencies generally; and – Providing for individual differences in interest, achievement and learning styles. Undertaken as a PhD study titled Engaging spaces: Innovative learning environments, pedagogies and student engagement in the middle years of school (Cleveland, 2011), the research investigated the emergence of ‘space’ as a factor in re-thinking how schools might operate, how teachers might teach, and most importantly how students might learn. The project was embedded within an Australian Research Council Linkage project titled Smart Green Schools and was situated in three schools in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. To report on a) why the three participating schools wished to create more innovative learning environments for their middle years’ students, b) how they went about creating these environments, and c) what characterised the learning environments they created, this chapter is divided into three main sections: – Drivers for change; – Design process; and – Architectural responses. These sections are preceded by a short discussion of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; 1973: Giroux 1985; Apple, 1995; McLaren, 1998; 2007; Giroux & Schmidt, 2004), the theoretical framework that informed the analysis of the field-data and supported discussion in this chapter. This conceptual tool was employed to analyse and discuss the motivations, objectives and intentions of the schools’ leaders and explore the ideological, sociological, pedagogical and spatial implications of their educational aspirations. As a qualitative multiple case study (see Research Design), the findings presented have been aggregated from across the three schools. Quotes extracted from interviews have been included to support the claims made and to ensure that the voices of the study’s co-researchers/participants were portrayed. On occasion, specific sites are referred to by pseudonyms to illustrate particular phenomenon. The schools that took part in the study were selected due to their involvement in ‘space and pedagogy projects’ i.e. projects that dealt with the development of innovative learning environments for contemporary pedagogies. The individuals who drove these projects were largely the school leaders – principals, associate principals, assistant principals and leading teachers. The findings that are presented and discussed were mostly derived from a series of interviews with these influential people. To a lesser extent, the perspectives of the teachers and students who took part in these projects are also represented. Of course, school communities do not act in isolation to imagine and deliver new ‘socio-spatial contexts for learning’. Architects, interior designers, landscape architects, education consultants, members of school council and parents are all instrumental in driving projects such as these forward. I chose to focus on the perspectives and opinions of school leaders, teachers and students in order to portray the voices of those most likely to be directly affected by changes to learning environments and pedagogies.
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    The “state of play” concerning New Zealand’s transition to innovative learning environments: Preliminary results from phase one of the ILETC project
    Bradbeer, C ; Mahat, M ; Marian, T ; Cleveland, B ; Kvan, T ; Imms, W (New Zealand Educational Administration & Leadership Society, 2017-01-01)
    Driven by international trends and government policy, it is a requirement for all newly built schools in New Zealand to be designed as innovative learning environments (ILEs) with flexible learning spaces. These environments, celebrated by some for the “transformational” educational opportunities they may provide, also raise questions about whether the anticipated pedagogical value of these “non-traditional” spaces is based on idealised visions of teaching and learning rather than empirically derived evidence. Before such complex issues can be efficiently addressed, evidence of the actual “state of play” of ILEs is required. Drawing on New Zealand specific data from a large Australasian research project, this paper triangulates principals’ opinions, teachers’ perspectives, and the literature on some key preliminary issues: what types of learning spaces can be found in New Zealand schools; what teaching styles are evident in these spaces; what pedagogical beliefs are driving ILE teaching practices; and what types of learning activities are occurring in ILEs? The paper provides an evidence based platform for further discussion about the opportunities and challenges surrounding the use and practice of ILEs in New Zealand.
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    Evaluating Learning Environments: Snapshots of Emerging Issues, Methods and Knowledge
    Cleveland, B ; Imms, W ; Fisher, K ; Imms, W ; Cleveland, B ; Fisher, K (SENSE PUBLISHERS, 2016)
    The recent trend in innovative school design has provided exciting places to both learn and teach. New generation learning environments have encouraged educators to unleash responsive pedagogies previously hindered by traditional classrooms, and has allowed students to engage in a variety of learning experiences well beyond the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ common in many schools. These spaces have made cross-disciplinary instruction, collaborative learning, individualised curriculum, ubiquitous technologies, and specialised equipment more accessible than ever before. The quality of occupation of such spaces has also been encouraging. Many learning spaces now resemble places of collegiality, intellectual intrigue and comfort, as opposed to the restrictive and monotonous classrooms many of us experienced in years past. These successes, however, have generated a very real problem. Do these new generation learning environments actually work – and if so, in what ways? Are they leading to the sorts of improved experiences and learning outcomes for students they promise? This book describes strategies for assessing what is actually working. Drawing on the best thinking from our best minds – doctoral students tackling the challenge of isolating space as a variable within the phenomenon of contemporary schooling – Evaluating Learning Environments draws together thirteen approaches to learning environment evaluation that capture the latest thinking in terms of emerging issues, methods and knowledge.