Building Fife's Future:
Schools for the 21st Century Design Day

Key Partners

School Estate Development Programme
Communication Team– Fife Council
Creative Links Team – Fife Council
Creative Art Works
Lunaria

Partners

View Forth Consultants
Gaia Architects
Edinburgh College of Art - Schools of Interior Design & Architecture

Audience

The project was aimed at 120 young people aged between 12- 17. A cross-section of school children, drawn from 6 schools in Fife, were invited to participate in a Design Day. The particpation on the day was as follows:

Madras High School (15 pupils attended)
Auchmuty High School (15 pupils attended)
Viewforth High School (13 pupils attended)
Kirkcaldy High School (18 pupils attended)
Dunfermline High School (15 pupils attended)
Learning Support (3 pupils attended)

In addition, adult groups were invited to participate in a workshop discussion with the School Estate Development Programme Communication Team.

Background

Over the next ten years, Fife Council intends to deliver a major public build spend of £126m for the refurbishment and build three new Secondary Schools. Fife Council is developing a design brief as part of their business strategy which will outline the minimum standards expected of these buildings. The design brief will also include suggestions and ideas derived from Building Fife’s Future-Schools for the 21st Century creative consultation. The brief will aim to ensure that Fife’s future schools are designed to compliment the Schools Curriculum for Excellence, and are ideal in meeting the children’s needs for the 21st century.

The creative consultation was designed as a pilot by Lunaria and Creative Artworks and commissioned by Fife Council Creative Links Team, and aims to improve methods of working, promoting direct active participation and informed engagement with the wider community and the Young People of Fife.

in the planning of our new schools we want to get it right for every child not just now but into the future. We want to create buildings which are an inspiration to present and future pupils.

Cllr Douglas Chapman (Chair of the Education & Children’s Services Committee)

Process/Activity

Online Survey

The creative consultation followed on from an online Pupil survey outlined below, which was used to obtain views of pupils about school buildings.

Creative Consultation

The creative consultation consisted of a design day in Fife with a range of Fife schoolchildren. The day started with an inspirational talk from Howard Liddell from Gaia architects. The talk was followed by workshops which enabled 6 working groups to explore their ideas for the ideal school for the 21st century.

Talk by Architect

Howard Liddell from Gaia Architects gave a talk on the key issues to confront in designing a school for the future. His talk was illustrated by examples and aimed to cover the most topical and pertinent issues and to broaden the debate amongst the children.

You are being invited by Fife Council, and that’s unique in Scotland in my experience – to become fully engaged in the building design of future schools. That means we have to think very hard about what the future is going to be.- ‘Today is an exercise of young people being in control of their own environmental design, and having that respected. That’s what today is about. This is an exercise in you being asked for your ideas, and for having them respected.

Howard Liddell, Gaia Architects

Workshops

The workshops involved 6 groups led by specially selected workshop facilitators and 9 assistants from Edinburgh College of Art- Interior Design students. The facilitators used mediums such as visual imagery, physical theatre and poetry to stimulate the children’s discussions surrounding their experience of school. Text mood-boards, posters and banners were used as a frame-work to translate the children’s ideas. The children where asked to respond to a series of questions about their schools and given the options to:

Bin it, Flatten it, Flush it away, Keep it

This process included visualisation techniques and informal chatting. The children were asked to think outside the box, to brainstorm their ideas.

Through these group discussions, the children’s issues with their schools were explored and themes were identified.

The Labyrinth of Ideas

The second half of the design day resulted in the presentation of the childrens ideas through the construction of a labyrinth. The labyrinth was conceived as an interactive experience where the children could come together to design, and create a multi sensory installation entitled ‘The Labyrinth of Ideas’.

Aim

The project aimed to engage young people and the wider community of Fife, to create opportunities for participation in the debate about Fife’s future schools, and to stimulate the national debate about learning environments. This project was piloted and designed to maximise the input from the schools participating, to identify young peoples needs, and to place young people at the heart of the planning and design process. The core aim was to feedback the findings to inform Fife Council’s building strategies and policy for improving the Future of Fife’s schools.

Objectives

The chief objective was to present in accessible way, young peoples ideas, concerns and aspirations with regards to building and refurbishing schools, to place young people at the heart of the design process, ensuring buildings are designed from the young peoples perspective. The creative consultation aimed to capture ideas about what young people feel is good about their schools and to create a forum for creative dialogue, assessing likes and dislikes, what they would like see changed or improved. A key task is to present young peoples views to the Fife Education department and the Fife Design team to influence and inform the architects design brief. Reporting mechanisms for feedback and quality checking were deployed at every stage of delivery to increase opportunities stakeholder engagement and participation. The working methods aimed to improve information sharing and to create public relations opportunities for Fife Council as well as direct contact with the community to promote the ongoing dialogue surrounding Fife’s Schools.

Methodology

Online Survey

8 secondary schools in Fife were asked to participate in an online survey in the form of a questionnaire. Meetings were arranged with each participating school to discuss how they would make class time available for pupils to log on and complete the survey. The survey ran from 6 October until 15 November, giving the schools a time-frame of four weeks to take part.

Workshops

Facilitators where specially chosen to stimulate the dialogue with a range of children. The children's ideas were presented in the form of text, drawings and mood boards.

Questionnaires

Feedback was gathered through a series of specially designed questionnaires with open and closed questions, aimed at capturing responses from a cross section of relevant stakeholders. The stakeholders considered were:

Participating Children
Workshop assistants from Edinburgh College of Art
Adult groups made up predominantly of Fife Council Design Team and accompanying teachers from individual schools

It should be noted that a policy to limit the children’s external influences was integrated in the approach to the design of the day. Workshops were intended to be unconventional and child-led environments. A chief aim is to provide uncorrupted data, and accurate reflections from the children. Given this, accompanying teachers were asked to participate in adult group discussions, as a relevant and complimentary activity alongside The Fife Council design team.

A newsletter has been designed by Lunaria and is principally aimed at reporting back to the participating children. The newsletter will be presented digitally in a PDF colour format. This format has the additional benefit of being adaptable to stakeholder needs and capacity for communications, i.e. colour & cost. The additional benefits of the Newsletter format are in providing opportunities for:

enhancing communications between Fife Council, participants and stakeholders
Publishing & communicating the initial findings from the Consultation
Historic documentation from the design day, illustrating the process and purpose in a child friendly way
Creating additional opportunities for stakeholder engagement by means of the competitions, and request for further feedback
Create a public interface and identity for Fife Council
Encourage ongoing dialogue by providing email contact
Stimulate debate Provide point of contact for ongoing dialogue

Conclusions: Reporting mechanisms and methodology

The methodology deployed by Lunaria as outlined above, allowed for structured feedback and evaluation. Electronic consultation methods were used and raw data collected from individuals by interviews and with discussion groups to capture relevant qualitative measures. This integrated approach successfully promoted active participation and engagement in the community, amongst a variety of stakeholders, whilst simultaneously maximising opportunities for further research.

Outcome

This project created opportunities for child led participation and engagement, whilst establishing new standards and methods of working. Created evidence based research to inform the Fife’s building policy. Widened the impact, involving new partners to help with the delivery: (i.e. ECA) which has generated stimuli for the national debate. This project provided the opportunity for participation and engagement, informed Fife Council’s strategy and Business Plan for Building Fife’s New Schools.

Achievement

Subsequently the Fife design team have looked at the benefits criteria within the business case and have adjusted the weighting to account for the children's views.