Looking for Educational Environments. Rising Design Attitudes to Shape Contemporary Interior Spaces

In this essay, focused on the analysis, coding and mapping of the architectural features characterising a wide selection of international school building projects—both new and adaptations of existing ones—the theme of the quality of interior spaces for educational environments is confirmed as a central element for the design of school architectures able to respond to the needs for some inhabiting guarantees, such as comfort, hospitality, recognition and belonging to the school community. Starting from the qualitative and quantitative mapping of paradigmatic projects and with the support of exclusive interviews with some of the designers of the founding quoted case studies, have been identified some ‘recurring projects attitudes’, able to offer one projective interest on real topics. In fact, they propose solutions aimed at those questions essential to a qualitative leap in school buildings, towards the creation of educational environments. We have called them: the school as a place of relationship, the highly specialised school, the equipped school; the recognisable school, the customized school and the open school.