All photos courtesy of Georgia-Pacific Building Products

Brentwood Elementary School in Austin, Texas, gets a modern upgrade.

Designing educational buildings is a complex and multifaceted endeavor that presents architects with both significant challenges and unique opportunities. These structures are not merely spaces where learning occurs; they are environments that must cater to the diverse needs of students, staff, and the community at large. An educational building's design must ensure safety, health, and comfort while fostering an atmosphere conducive to learning and growth.

Architects must consider safety, health and comfort when designing for educational buildings.

The experience of occupying an educational building will greatly impact the knowledge the students take with them. A student’s ability to concentrate on the task at hand and to feel secure and comfortable are critical ingredients for their success. In this course, we will look at some of the challenges associated with educational buildings that impact the learning environment for students, staff, and visitors, and explore options available to support a well-designed and constructed space for learning.

THE UNIQUE CHALLENGESOF EDUCATIONAL BUILDINGS

Educational buildings are as diverse as the students who walk their halls. These structures range from preschools to colleges, vocational schools to biological laboratories, sports centers to libraries. Each building type has specific requirements based on size, location, and intended use. Designing such spaces involves more than assembling classrooms, laboratories, and offices. Architects must create environments that accommodate various activities, from focused individual study to collaborative group work. High schools, for example, often combine multiple functions, providing spaces for students, support areas for staff and gathering areas for community use. Educational buildings must cater to diverse user groups, including students, teachers, administrators, and the broader community, ensuring that the needs of each group are met effectively. While one design style does not fit all user groups, there are common themes and attributes that apply to educational buildings as a whole and effectively address most requirements.

Educational buildings serve diverse user groups and need to accommodate various activities including individual study and collaborative group work.

Noise Control

Managing and reducing the amount of noise in educational buildings is crucial for creating an optimal learning and working environment. For students, a quiet environment is essential for concentration and effective learning.

A study conducted by the Acoustical Society of America found that poor acoustics and high noise levels in classrooms are linked to decreased student performance. The research uncovered that in many classrooms in the United States, the speech intelligibility rating is 75 percent or less. In practical terms, this means that listeners with normal hearing can understand only 75 percent of the words spoken in the classroom. Research also demonstrated that noise impacts short-term memory and comprehension, with younger children being particularly vulnerable to these effects.1

In non-auditory tasks such as reading and writing, noise impairs students and their ability to learn, especially for children. Depending on the nature of the tasks and sounds, students encounter difficulties with perceptual and cognitive processes or have a shorter attention span and problems with focus. These issues result in lower test scores and increasingly create problems with disruptive behavior in the classroom. Data also suggests that over the long term, excessive and uncontrolled noise in the classroom may affect children’s cognitive development.2

Uncontrolled noise in educational settings can impact students of any age. A study published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre found that exposure to noise in college classroom settings can negatively affect cognitive tasks. The research further emphasized that older students with chronic exposure to noise, such as traffic or construction sounds, can lead to reduced attention spans and lower academic performance, as well as lower GPAs.3

Teachers and staff also suffer negative consequences when noise remains unchecked in educational buildings. The Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research concludes that the vocal health of teachers was most negatively impacted by excessive noise. In quieter settings, teachers can deliver lessons without straining their voices, and students can hear and understand instructions more easily. This contributes to a more efficient teaching process and a healthier work environment for educators, reducing fatigue and improving job satisfaction.

A Safe Space

Safety is a paramount concern in educational building design, as the risks to students and staff come from many different areas. Fire is an ever-present concern, so educational buildings must comply with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards, such as NFPA 101 (Life Safety Code) and NFPA 72 (National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code). These are crucial for fire safety in educational buildings and cover areas such as fire alarms, emergency lighting, exit routes, and fire-resistant materials to ensure schools can be safely evacuated during emergencies.

Safe learning environments take concerns like fire risk, emergency routes, visibility, surveillance, lockdown capabilities, indoor air quality, and resiliency into account.

Related to access and egress, architects should consider standards outlined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that emphasize the importance of physical security measures in schools. Building layout and design both play a significant role in ensuring security in educational settings. Layout and design should include planning for interiors with clear sightlines, unobstructed visibility of hallways and entrances to reduce hiding spots, and even the installation of safe rooms. Additionally, architects may need to include features such as surveillance systems, secure entry points, and lockdown capabilities to protect against potential threats.

A safe space must also be a healthy space, which is why creating a healthy indoor environment—especially focusing on indoor air quality (IAQ)—is crucial for successful learning.

Architects must design spaces with optimal air quality to enhance cognitive function and well-being. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), IAQ significantly influences students’ health, cognitive function, and overall academic performance.4 Poor air quality in schools can lead to respiratory issues, increased absenteeism, and reduced concentration and cognitive performance among students. This is because pollutants such as carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and allergens can impair cognitive function and cause discomfort, negatively impacting learning outcomes. A large part of improving IAQ is to ensure the building envelope is designed, specified, and installed to prevent water migration, while also controlling air movement between the conditioned and unconditioned spaces of the structure.

esiliency is another key attribute of educational buildings and is related to safety. Schools are often used outside of educational programming to serve as shelters and community meeting locations during times of regional crisis, such as power outages or storm events. Educational buildings are expected to be more durable and structurally sound than other buildings in the community. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has published a design guide specifically on improving school safety related to high-wind events, flooding, and earthquakes. The guide, FEMA P-424, encourages a performance-based design process rather than a prescriptive path toward implementation. The performance-based design process explicitly evaluates how building systems are likely to perform under a variety of conditions associated with potential hazards, like natural disasters.5

Durable buildings are designed to withstand wear and tear from high-volume use.