Personalization ranges from the large-scale arrangement of a learning community to the small-scale individualization of a learning setting. It may include way-finding and experiential graphics, layers of space entering into the school, and an environment where learners are able to individualize art displays, learning spaces, or their home base.

Design human-scaled space

• Small groups of varied learning spaces

Eliminate institutional feel

• Entry way-finding

• Streetscapes

• Gracious circulation space - navigate without touching others

Allow opportunity for personalized space

• Customization by learners

  • Art

  • Flexible furniture

Transparency is about being able to see your place within a larger space. It helps to create a feeling of safety by minimizing dark dead ends, and offers vantage, connection, and passive supervision. It can delineate learning pods or conference rooms within the greater learning community, helping learners feel connected. It also provides a glimpse into learning spaces so activities are visible to teachers or other learners, ensuring they always have access to caring adults.

Design two-way visibility between spaces

Create opportunities to see who’s coming and going

Balance transparency with areas of refuge

• Need to see but also need to feel secure

Avoid the feeling of being in a fishbowl

Flexible learning environments are one of the hallmarks of 21st-century education design. Whether in individual learning spaces, flex areas, or throughout the school, flexible spaces allow for a range of teaching methods and pedagogies that are adaptable to individual students. Flexibility to choose how to use the space and the flexibility to move between these connected spaces with no stigma attached to making these personal choices can go a long way in eliminating an ‘institutional feel’ and helping traumatized children feel in control, empowered, and able to self-regulate their emotions.

Design for multiple ways of using space

Allow equitable use by all

Adjust space for specific needs of kids

Create choice

• Seating/table types, locations, noise levels, light levels, group or solo

Utilize Technology

• Evolving technology requires access and reconfiguration

• Flexibility for students who need quiet, customized spaces to work

While the horror of active shooters grabs headlines, more pernicious challenges impact the safety of our students on a daily basis. Twenty-five percent of our children are bullied in school and 20% are abused. School safety is an all-encompassing concern.

School design can mitigate security issues and create positive environments that empower kids and give them agency.

Make spaces trustworthy and transparent

Adopt appropriate CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) design principles

Empower student voices

Create cultural, gender support

Use biophilic design

While daylighting is of primary importance for ideal learning environments, artificial light — which many times must supplement daylight — should be thoughtfully designed to minimize harsh shadows, flickering bulbs, and cold color temperature.

Design excellent daylight in learning areas

• Create areas of lower/ adjustable light levels

Augment natural light with artificial light

• High quality, warm values, task lighting

Avoid sensory triggers

• Harsh, flickering, buzzing lights

• Visual complexity – distracting patterns on walls and floors

At best, loud noise may distract students from their studies. At worst, it can trigger traumatic responses in learners who have experienced significant stress or PTSD. Absorbing and attenuating sound helps to create calming spaces where students can concentrate.

Create balanced acoustics

• Minimize unnecessary and overwhelming ambient noise

• Both sudden and steady noise can be stressful

Attenuate sound

• Tiled and/or portable carpets are a great option because they can be replaced and cleaned as needed to eliminate pathogens and dust

Provide variable sound options

• Music, calming sounds – water, birds

Display can consist of student work, experiential graphics, or commissioned art, and may include way-finding graphics. Adding a personalized touch to spaces helps create a sense of belonging and pride.

Display for visual interest and warmth

• Artwork: landscapes, organic color palettes

• Biophilic elements

• Hand-made features in high-traffic areas such as entryways to humanize a building

Ensure that art does not have a symbolic significance that may be interpreted negatively

Place positive messages in learning, gathering, and circulation areas

• Avoid punitive sounding messages

• Consider “can do” vs “can’t do”

Reduce clutter in visuals

• Avoid too much visual stimulus

Avoid overhead, hanging, dangling display – can spark hypervigilance

Furniture needs vary by spatial use. In general, providing a variety of seating options with space to move around them leads to more active learners. It allows students to organize the space to suit their learning styles.

Keep spaces uncluttered

Don’t overcrowd with furniture or visual stimulation

Ensure adequate space for navigation

Provide flexibility and choice

• Separate and varying chair and table options

• Wheels on tables, chairs - quiet and movable

• Optional locations, noise levels, lighting levels

• Socialization options, individual or group layouts

• Seating options may face into walls to give greater privacy

• Soft finishes, comfort

Provide a peace corner

• Focus, quiet, calm

Materiality

• Durable, easy to clean

Historically, toilet rooms have been marginally supervised areas in schools where many challenging behaviors occur. Bullying, drug use, sex, and suicide top the list. Toilet rooms need to be designed to provide privacy while promoting safety for all students. Different cultures and communities have strongly held opinions about toilet room design and thoughtful communication and questions need to be dealt with to address the needs of all. Critical questions include:

Lockable individual rooms with toilets and sinks vs stalls and common sink areas

Lockable toilet rooms with common sink areas

All gender vs binary

• Alternative approaches within a facility - traditional and progressive

Safety and support for LGBTQ+ students

Safety and support for traumatized kids

Passive supervision provisions

• Visually and/or acoustically open to corridors vs behind doors

• Cameras

Cleanliness - urinals vs all-toilets (boys pee on the seats!)

Address needs of homeless children

• Shower, lockers, laundry

Interaction with materials and finishes primarily involves touch and sight. Finishes should be calming, biophilic, and not contain harmful chemicals. It is important to work with individual stakeholders and communities to determine what is culturally appropriate. In selecting materials and finishes, consider that you are affecting all five senses.

Use soft, durable, easy to clean finishes

Design with biophilia in mind

• Avoid institutional, slick feel

Consider wall colors carefully

• Avoid bright white, gray, beige – stark or institutional

• Avoid sensory triggers – neon intensity, deep saturated colors

  • Red, yellow, orange

Consider light shades of blues, greens, purples

• Foster spaciousness

• Colors found in nature

• Pops of bright colors are okay

Be culturally respectful – finishes, colors, patterns

Use textured, naturally weathering materials

Use low VOC finishes to prevent off-gassing of design materials

• Consider a fragrance-free environment

Different students have varying spatial needs to find refuge, to recharge, or to rebalance from traumatic stress. While a quiet “peace corner” in a classroom may suffice for an elementary age student, adolescents often need to get away from a room filled with other learners to find a space to re-center their emotions. Barring approved calming space alternatives, traumatized learners may seek out default spaces such as a restroom stall, seldom used stairwell, or similar unsupervised retreats.

Consider developing a series of approved, passively or actively supervised spaces for kids experiencing stress to find refuge

• A portion of an office of a trusted adult – counselor, SPED supervisor, nurse, administrator, etc.

• A small conference room adjacent to a trusted adult’s workspace

• A quiet corner of a flex area, breakout learning area, or shared work space co-located with a group of learning spaces

• A quiet outdoor space (climate dependent) within sight lines of outdoor learning spaces or administrators. A calming garden, grove, or outlook tucked away from bustling activity zones

• Consider areas of refuge within or adjacent to large gathering areas (Library/Media Center, Commons/Cafeteria, Gym, Theater, etc.)

• Provide quiet edges, nooks, balconies, or adjacent rooms for retreat or passive observation rather than direct engagement

Consider flexible seating, soft seating, study niches, or counters that face a wall to develop areas of refuge without ‘calling attention’ to the need for retreat

• Beanbags and soft finishes

Consider separate, supervised options at whole-school assemblies or large gatherings for students experiencing trauma

• Provide shared video or sound of the events occurring in the large gathering space

Consider communication and supervision protocols for identifying and supporting student needs within the busy schedules of school personnel

Consider multiple spaces and options when trusted adults are unavailable or “things get crazy”

Biophilia, or using elements that are natural in form or material, helps to de-institutionalize learning environments. Connection to nature helps to calm and center students and staff, and can also create a sense of place for the school.

Create a connection to nature

• Outdoor connections can enhance emotional, problem-solving, critical thinking, and constructive abilities

Use biophilia in Design

• Use nature-inspired colors, textures

• Draw inspiration from the context of place

• Use vernacular design when appropriate

Design outdoor learning spaces that provide additional space to learn

• Create sensory patterns in natural environment

• Provide learning and teaching opportunities

Technology is capable of facilitating remote learning. This can allow students to learn from home when necessary, and it can also help to create individualized, trauma-informed learning experiences within schools. Interactive technology allows students to participate in larger events while allowing them to be physically present in a smaller, more personalized learning space.

Provide technology for children needing a quiet, customized space to work

• Give children a sense of agency over learning

Integrate technology into areas of refuge in larger spaces to allow students to sit away from the action while still participating

Spaces that invoke wonder, curiosity, inspiration, and fun, and those designed for exploration, creativity, and discovery via hands-on experiences perform double duty - not only do they enhance the learning experience for all children, but they also provide a grounding and calming experience for those experiencing symptoms of trauma. Unstructured play allows students to move at their own pace in a nonjudgmental setting, empowering them to use their agency and play to their strengths.

Use play as a means to learn

• Furniture that provides opportunity for movement in classrooms

• Allows for Whole Child awareness

Provide spaces that transition between structured indoor vs. unstructured outdoor, and formal teaching vs. informal play help with self-regulation of emotions and grounding

Design informal seating and gathering spaces to facilitate social interactions and initiate playfulness

• Sensory tables, building blocks, board games, reading nooks

Project-based learning (PBL) provides opportunity to develop solutions for specific projects. PBL is active, hands-on learning and it empowers students to personalize their learning experience. This can allow kids struggling with trauma to retreat from the larger group and still participate (either individually or with a small, trusted group) while working on a project.

Include spaces for hands-on learning

Provide opportunities for differentiated learning

• da Vinci Studios provide art and music integration

• Maker Labs

• Greenhouses, gardens, and vegetable patches grown by students offer sensory grounding and connections to natural cycles - these may be used as a connection to community initiatives

• Outdoor learning spaces

  • Provide learning and teaching opportunities for sustainable design

  • Greenhouses, gardens, and vegetable patches grown by students offer sensory grounding and connections to natural cycles - these may be used as a connection to community initiatives.