Learning Spaces – the Environment as the Third Teacher. Part 2

HOW ARCHITECTURE CAN SUPPORT MODERN EDUCATIONAL METHODS.

In building the new German School campus in Yangpu, headmaster Sven Heineken was given the opportunity to design a school building based on the shifting demands of modern teaching techniques. VIRTUARCH supported him in the project’s development and implementation phases. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of its opening, Sven Heineken met Daniel Heusser onsite to discuss lessons learned, success factors, and takeaways from the project. Read the second part of the three-part series.

“Children should be able to play and run around. Outside and inside.”

Daniel

Outdoor spaces were an important element when conceptualizing the school.

Sven

Nature and playing in the wild are a big factor in Germany. As a German school, we wanted to make that a part of the experience for our pupils in Shanghai too – come to the summer heatwave, damp cold winter, or questionable air quality days. The question became how to transplant the experience of outdoor play into a building. Our solutions were slides, climbing walls, and open indoor play areas with a direct connection to the outdoor playgrounds. In my opinion, we have one of the highest quality playgrounds in Shanghai and all playground equipment was imported from Germany. All equipment is made of wood, a natural material. Weather and pollution levels permitting, we take the children outside to play. When we can’t, the school building features enough indoor opportunities for pupils to push their limits and test their senses. The barefoot path in the Kindergarten is just one example of this – warm cork, cool slabs, smooth paving stones, rough felt, and much more. There are many different stimuli to train perception and sensory skills. The multi-use room in the Kindergarten section is another inviting factor, simulating wide open spaces and thus encouraging movement and play. The room can be opened up and configured in different ways, with seating added to transform from the gymnasium and play room to stage or to the cinema.

“Our ‘House of Learning’: The architecture reflects the pupils’ developmental stages.”

Daniel

The concept of a ‘House of Learning’ crystallized out of the planning and design workshops at an early stage and shaped the room program and spatial concept. 

Sven

It was important for the architecture to visually reflect the pupils’ key developmental stages, to visually transform the building into a ‘House of Learning’. The first stage comprises the cluster of 3-5 year old. It is the first developmental step at school – figuratively as well as literally in the building design. The next stage is Elementary School, which is linked to the Kindergarten on the second-floor level. Consequently. as the children grow up, they also move up in the building structure. 

Kindergartens are usually physically separate from schools in Germany, sometimes even located in a different part of town. At the German School, Yangpu everything is contained in one house with a vertical and a horizontal axis connecting the sections. This creates a smoother transition for our pupils as well as affording teachers more opportunities for cooperation with other sections. The layout supports these gateways between the sections as well as the growth of the children within their purpose-designed, age-appropriate areas.

Daniel

Our idea was that the school building would reflect the environment in which the children live. Interaction between the different rooms and zones was very important for us all; we wanted to bring the different functions closely together. At the same time, the more spacious new school allowed us to design more elaborate purpose-built rooms offering specific functionalities.

Sven

We have what we refer to as ‘Labs’ in Yangpu, which are essentially subject-specific rooms such as art rooms, music rooms, handicraft workshops, and a media center. The idea behind the ‘Labs’ is to have areas where pupils can independently make use of educational opportunities also outside the defined teaching hours. In Pudong, every classroom also functioned as a ‘Lab’. With the new layout, we have been able to separate these, allowing for more customized use and better functionality.

Daniel

You have a lot more space overall.

Sven

That is true, however, we deliberately designed the classrooms a bit smaller in order to allow more space for other rooms. As a result, we have more specialized and shared multifunction rooms. Every part of the school is designed to offer a unique learning opportunity. 

Daniel

What about the staff areas?

Sven

During the design phase, the teachers expressed a wish to be connected across clusters as well. We could achieve this through a vertical connection: staff rooms were stacked in the building’s layout and then connected through a spiral staircase. The principle of linking clusters worked well in that setting too.

“Shared spaces must be attractive to promote their acceptance and use”

Daniel

Let’s get back to the differentiation rooms and how they function within the cluster system. We put this concept of differentiation rooms already in place in Pudong, where spatial separation then occurred through corridors and common areas. What can you tell us about the implementation of this concept in Yangpu?

Sven

We now have classrooms and cluster-specific multipurpose rooms grouped around plazas. They are intended to be open and, especially in secondary school, encourage pupils to freely use them. To achieve that, the rooms have to be enticing. We placed large TFT-monitors in each of the multipurpose rooms in the Secondary School cluster, which pupils can WiFi-connect their devices to. Tables are curved to be more inviting and offer another example of design supporting non-teacher-led learning environments for both individual pupils and groups. The stimulating nature of these rooms has been effective. Pupils enjoy studying and spending time in these rooms, as evidenced in their daily use.

Daniel

How well has the new ‘cluster architecture’ worked in terms of learning outcomes? Is there already a noticeable difference compared to the Pudong campus in this regard?

Sven

Learning success is difficult to quantify, however in Secondary School especially I do see children using the differentiation rooms throughout the day in their free periods. Teachers are also using the opportunities these rooms offer, for example in group work. 20 pupils working and communicating in different teams can be a noisy affair when contained within one room. Where possible, groups are now split up into different areas – one group might use a differentiation room, another the plaza or the entrance foyer or the library. This makes the most of our ‘house of learning’; it’s an architectural design which truly supports learning. It also gives pupils the opportunity of choice. Would they prefer to work and research in a private space, in a quiet space such as the library, or would it be more conducive to be in an open area with other pupils, be it pupils of the same age, or younger or older peers? The cluster system works extremely well in creating space to allow for self-determined study. 

Daniel

In other words, we gave the pupils the freedom to define and contextualize the space and the pupils have taken on the responsibility to do just that.

Sven

Indeed – and it’s the same principle you see in progressively-run companies today, for example at Porsche. The right work environment can actively encourage communication and collaboration with a notable impact on teamwork. Personal offices are declining in favor of shared meeting rooms, open spaces, creative areas – i.e., the same setup we have established at the German School Yangpu. 

Daniel

That’s a good point. In our line of work, we have the first-hand experience of how the demands on learning and work environments are changing. Around 15 years ago we designed a secondary school in Shenzhen. It was a completely open-plan learning landscape, devoid of dedicated classrooms. At the time it was considered revolutionary and few beyond our team and the headmaster, Bob Dunseth, believed that it could work. The design and the freedoms it allowed were ultimately well-received, allowing us to step away from the traditional ‘classroom-corridor-special purpose room’ layout in an increasing number of projects. Workspace settings are undergoing a similar development. This has been partially driven by IT-supported tools, allowing more flexibility, and the emancipation of students and employees.

Sven Heineken completed his teaching degree in music and physics at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg. Following practical teacher training in Frankfurt, Sven taught at the Otto Hahn secondary school, Springe and Viktoria Luise secondary school in Hameln before taking on the role of Deputy Headmaster at the Humboldt secondary school in Bad Pyrmont. In 2014, Sven became headmaster of the German School, Pudong. As part of this role, he was given the opportunity to plan and design a new school building in the Yangpu District, which opened to students in 2020. Sven will soon be returning to Germany, where he will become Principal of the Buxtehude-Süd secondary school, Buxtehude in August 2021.

Daniel Heusser studied architecture at the ETH Zurich and Southeast University in Nanjing. In 1994, he came to China to set up a Joint Venture for a Swiss architecture firm. Daniel has been in charge of the architecture and project management company VIRTUARCH since 2003. VIRTUARCH has offices in Shanghai, Bangkok, and Zurich and encompasses a team of 80. Daniel and his team have worked on over 120 school projects in China and Southeast Asia, including the Eurocampus projects in Shanghai, the German School Pudong, and school campuses for Dulwich in Shanghai, Suzhou, Beijing, and Zhuhai, to name but a few.

The German School in Shanghai was founded in 1995. There are now two locations: the Eurocampus Hongqiao, opened in 2005 and the Eurocampus Yangpu, opened in 2020. Both schools are operated in conjunction with the French School. Sven Heineken has been headmaster of the German School Pudong (now known as the German School Yangpu) since 2014. As such, he was responsible for the expansion of the school in Pudong and the new campus in Yangpu. Daniel Heusser and his team oversaw the planning and project management of the various expansion steps in Pudong, acting as client representatives for the Eurocampus Hongqiao from 2003 to 2005 and for the Eurocampus Yangpu from 2015 to 2019.

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