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Educator for an Hour: Why Hayball is sending architects back to school

07 March 2018

Authored by Hayball

While educators understand basic design principles, many architects are unaware of the fundamentals of learning. Creating world-class education environments requires an in-depth understanding of how they work – something not always prioritised in the design process. Hayball’s Fiona Young decided to rectify this situation, and recently signed her team up to volunteer at her daughter’s kindergarten classroom.

Architects spent an hour facilitating reading and maths sessions, observing how space can influence learning –picking up on key insights that would not have been possible without face-to-face student interaction.

Although Hayball champions research-led design across all projects, Fiona noted that “experiencing the struggles that classroom environments place on real-world learning was invaluable. We need to be designing spaces that help our educators do their job, rather than restrict their practice. Let’s start by putting ourselves in their shoes – even just for an hour.”

Hayball is now encouraging immersive experiences like Educator for an Hour across all future projects, helping architects understand the needs of unique spaces before designing solutions.

Read the full Educator for an Hour research paper here