Day 2: Breakout Sessions / Workshops 4

Director of Maurie Novak Architecture

The Feedback Loop - Weaving Inspiration and Practicality. 

A Guide to Educational Space Design:

Designing successful educational spaces is a complex process. New designs face both the practicality of the need of the moment and also they need to speak to the future, the aspirations of students, the pedagogy and their school.

There are new and old ideas- the new ideas are fresh and exciting, but can often take you too far into a fad, whereas old ideas are rigid and unchanging. It takes inspiration and pure design but also careful consideration, collaboration and humility to weave a path to success.

You do not design a successful space on day one and it doesn’t have to be done alone. It is a constantly evolving process involving design inspiration, blue-sky thinking, theory and practicality. But also communication, lots of communication! Teacher, administration, stakeholder, council, student... the design process is a constantly evolving loop from day one through to the end point when the space is completed and in use.

Maurie Novak has been working with Bialik College for many years across projects of all sizes from simple refurbishments to their new Creche, Library and Science facilities. He has been pivotal in integrating the school's cornerstone philosophies of Regio Emilia and Cultures of Thinking into physical spaces.

Maurie will share his ideas, insights and perspective on this process through the example of recent projects and general educational design thinking.