Giulia Virgato

Supervisors: Dr Pippa Soccio and Dr Ben Cleveland

_

SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES

Traditional didactic learning settings insufficiently provide for the expanded demands of experiential education (Tanner & Lackney, 2006), where worldly skills are developed within a greater community through ‘pleasant relationships between people of different ages’ (Malaguzzi, 1984).

As the demands for learning environments increase, (Wood, Thall, & Parnell, 2015) this thesis argues that effective design (Marley, 2000) may be predicated on maximising purposeful space through applying an affordance and perception based approach to architecture.

Taking inspiration from psychology and the works of Herman Hertzberger (1998, 2008), the project will explore the varied and central roles that perception and perspective offer when designing environments that can accommodate varied action possibilities.

Investigating this central role of user perception in a small-scale mixed use building aims to explore the role of design in creating ‘more from less’ to deliver a series of environments offering multiple users; varied settings and social interactions to meet their learning needs.

1.   Hertzberger, H. (1998). Lessons for students in architecture. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.

2.         Hertzberger, H. (2008). Space and learning. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.

3.         Malaguzzi, L. (1984). Reggio Emilia Approach. Retrieved from https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/loris-malaguzzi/- [Accessed 25 September 2020]

4.         Marley, J. (2000). Efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency. Australian Prescriber, 23(6), 114-115.  https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/articles/efficacy-effectiveness-efficiency

5.         Tanner, C. K., & Lackney, J. A. (2006). History of Educational Architecture (Chapter 1). In Tanner & Lackney, Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture, and Management. Pearson Allyn and Bacon.

6.  Wood, J., Thall, T., & Parnell, E. (2015). The move: Reggio Emilia‐inspired teaching. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 12(1), 98-108.