Blurock: I think the world divides into two major camps on that issue. One is where schools are built within existing communities in whatever form; secondly, is where schools are being built in communities that don't yet exist.

For example, there are rapidly growing places that are planning high schools where housing isn't even built yet. Basically, the effect of that is almost the way virtually everything is built in those kinds of environments: you have a template and everything is kind of standardized and built with very little connection to each other.

A more interesting world is where schools are built in existing communities; where there are a lot of stakeholders. In that case, school districts are often, because these places aren't always economically healthy, probably the primary developer in that area. And what they do is going to affect more communities than anything else.

That said, I think there is a natural antagonism between school districts and other governmental agencies, which often leaves the idea of “schools as centers of communities” as an unfulfilled promise.

Leonard: What we see typically in schools today is not really community use, or community sharing. It's using a gym occasionally; it's using the commons for a Boy Scout meeting; it really isn't true community use. It's not a community facility — it's a school facility that has some community functions that occur in it.

I would hope that there is a natural maturation of our society and that we get to the point where the school is just one part of a complex and rich social environment. I'm not so sure that in our American culture we're ready for that yet, and I'm not sure how soon in the future we're actually going to be ready to be able to take that on.

Blurock: Cities and school districts need to break down issues of political turf so they are not in competition with each other, but sort of pulling the same line. We still build in new areas buildings that are off on their own; that are separated. It's not just schools, but all kinds of land use. There are people who are trying to change that, particularly in the smart-growth movement. Schools need to become a part of that overall trend, become part of the smart-growth movement by integrating things rather than separating them.

Loeffelman: When you look at the success stories, there tends to be one common element, and it has to do with the planning process. Typically, there is always some community of thinkers that is pushing for something that is over and above a school just appearing on a site, or even the renovation of an existing school. It's not just the architect; it is a community of people pushing for an idea that is represented in that community.

Dyck: We live in a culture that is requiring more and more accountability. And I think we have discovered that engaging a community opens doors for greater validity to architectural solutions. They really do make good decisions. And I've found that the general community is usually more open to revisiting the question of “How do kids learn” than are some teachers.

Hendricks: One reason why true community partnerships don't happen more frequently is that they require a number of complex conditions be met by the client. The places where they have succeeded in creating partnerships that enhanced not only the social community of the school, but also enhanced the educational program, are those places where there has been stability of leadership within the school district over a period of time. In addition, the particular leadership has been one that is inclined to reach out beyond traditional borders — that is not so overwhelmed by their responsibilities in their district roles that they can't reach out beyond organizational boundaries and really build bridges over time.

It also requires a certain amount of continuity within community or other civic government — because all these things are really based on the relationships of individual people among organizations, and their ability to weave together and sustain rich program opportunities over time. Changes in that leadership, particularly in the early years of a partnership when it is dependent on a few people and hasn't been “institutionalized,” oftentimes results in the dissolution of the partnership.

Loeffelman: Innovation assumes risk. The difficulty is, particularly if you are dealing with communities or public funds, there is a certain fiduciary responsibility. So how do you balance being risk takers — pushing the envelope — with that kind of fiduciary responsibility? I think most communities are willing to take chances if they have examples of precedents that are aligned with what they are trying to accomplish and demonstrate a level of success in their implementation.

AS&U: Let's turn our attention to learning spaces. How do you see learning spaces — in regards to how they will look and function in the future — evolving based on some of the issues we've discussed?

Dyck: There is a whole culture to the learning environment. First of all, it's not what we call a “spreadsheet approach” to interior design anymore, rows and columns. It's not a lot of hard walls; it's not a lot of self-contained classrooms. There has to be integration and connectivity — from a learning perspective, from a program perspective, and from a spatial perspective.

Loeffelman: One thing we've learned from the open classroom of the past is that flexibility doesn't necessarily mean that it should just be a blank palette. There have to be signals of how a space can be used. And I think that when you look at some of the schools that are flexible, there are some very definite uses and signals that are built in to the design of the school, be it backup for power, be it acoustic, be it larger-scale gathering spaces.

There's always going to be a place for a classroom. The question is does it have tablet-arm chairs and what does it look like today, and how can it accommodate changes in the future. I believe that change is inevitable. The question is how can we best anticipate, best provide, for the flexibility that will allow for learning spaces to evolve over the next 20 years into a new learning paradigm that none of us can truly define.

I think part of learning is getting groups of people together to have that exchange, and so you're always going to have some version of a classroom, it's just how you define it and what scale you have those classrooms in when you have people get together. Certainly one doesn't want to do away with larger-scale rooms where the entire community is getting together; nor should smaller spaces that allow for one-on-one exchange be discounted. So it's more a definition of what those spaces can be used for.

Blurock: Virtually everything about schools needs to accommodate a multiplicity of function rather than a specificity of function; where lots of things can happen rather than specific things. Every time we start talking like this, everybody says “well you're talking about open-plan schools and they were a terrible failure, and how do we avoid the trap of creating architectural solutions for educational problems.” The way you do that is you have to get fairly specific about the things you want to have happen; the multiplicity of what you want to have happen. What's to go on there depending on the time of day and the type of activity, this will sort of naturally generate a multiplicity of activities. Architects are good at taking functions and creating spaces to accommodate them.

Dyck: Flowing space is different from open space. We do need definition. To create a big barn and put 150 kids in it and throw a bunch of teachers at them, that obviously was destined to failure. But I believe flowing space has a parallel to learning. This whole notion of flexibility is affected by how easily a multiplicity of teaching and learning settings can be utilized, created and recreated.

AS&U: Going beyond classroom and learning space, how do you see flexibility incorporated into spaces that are more conducive to community use?

Leonard: When designing spaces, you need to look at the variety of activities that could occur and the group sizes that are associated with those activities. We've all been in rooms that are so multipurpose that they don't work well for anything. And, in the name of economy, we've tried to consolidate functions that don't necessarily consolidate very well. There are functions within a building, and types of community use, and types of school use, that can be put together because they have similar characteristics or serve a similar group size.

There are a lot of pretty good buildings that were built 50 years ago that have been able to be adapted and modified to some of today's needs by the addition of specialty spaces that weren't originally necessary in those buildings. The question of whether those are good facilities for tomorrow still needs to be tested, but I think the key there is not to try and make a space do more than it is capable of doing. Look at the variety of spaces that you might need for a variety of functions, and make sure that you're providing enough of those, or the distribution of those, within a facility so that a lot of different things can happen in the future. You can't predict it [the future], but you can try to accommodate it.