David Medd, schools architect. From a seminar at University of Cambridge June 2009. Pedagogical issues in the design of primary schools.

1. Rob Walker
http://eastanglia.academia.edu/RobWalker

2. David Medd 1917-2009
Early in 2009, Catherine Burke arranged for David
Medd to visit some of the schools he had designed in the
1950s and 60s with his wife Mary. He was accompanied
by a group of architects and educationalists and the
visits were videotaped.
Each member of the team has developed ‘a treatment’
for editing, of which this is one.

3. Today’s Aerial Geography Lesson

4. Classrooms: theme and variations

5. Open classrooms = Open schooling?
‘Hard fun’ at Hennigan School

6. The Medds’ schools have inside and outside spaces

7. Inside there are typically bays designated for different
activities

9. Environments and
Activities
There is an isomorphism
between Medd the craftsman
and his view of schools as
places where children can
learn by making things

10. ‘Afraid of boring children, avid to present ever-different
stimulation, the enlightened teacher may avoid routine -
but thus deprives children of the experience of studying
their own ingrained practice and modulating it from
within.
Richard Sennett (2008), p38

11. Learning by repetition reconnects the mind with the hand and
the body
On being part of a skilled community
What is important, says Sennett, is that learning by repetition
should be in the context of an open system, not a closed
curriculum
Learning skills becomes empty if it is not also an act of the
imagination

12. Two forms of obsession
Two modernist houses in 1920s Vienna
Two architects: Wittgenstein and Loos

13. “I am not interested in
erecting a building, but
in[…] presenting to
myself the foundations
of all possible
buildings.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Even thoug h I admired the house very
much, I alway s knew that I neither wanted to,
nor could, live in it my self. It seemed indeed
to be much more a dwelling for the g ods than
for a small mortal like me”
Hermine W ittg enstein

17. The Good Craftsman:
(adapted from Sennett)
• Understands the importance of the sketch – that is ensuring
that you do not know too precisely what you are about when
you begin.
• Values contingency and constraint and knows when and how
to admit them to the design process.
• Needs to step away from obsession when a problem
becomes self-contained.
• Avoids pursuing perfectionism to the point where it becomes
purely self-referential.
• Learns when it is time to stop (short of over-design).

18. But doesn’t Educational Technology change
everything?
Sennett’s notion of ‘the sketch’ is key to understanding the
educational potential of the new media
Too often, computer applications are used in the classroom to
close the scope of activities and to limit the play of
imagination
But there are many ways in which software can be used to
‘sketch’ ideas: in words, in images, in sounds, but we need to
be alive to these possibilities and to encourage forms of
experimentation and playfulness that welcome risk and see
mistakes as opportunities for learning

19. Just as we see children’s involvement as critical to building
design, so too with technology
A good example is The Rug Room, where the students
worked with the software designers to create a VLE and a
media studio that did the things they wanted for their work,
to communicate and to express their ideas

20. Quote
Steve Hempel

21. Ursula Franklin
University of Toronto
• Physicist
• Engineer
• Expert on Chinese
bronzes and Inca
silver
• Educator
• Peace Activist

22. Buildings as Educational Technology

23. Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology
Since 1920. Teachers College Press, New York.