The document proposes a new "scale-free" model of schooling that is integrated into the local community and utilizes otherwise unused community spaces. It argues that traditional school buildings are underused 85% of the time and advocates distributing learning activities across various partner organizations' facilities. This would increase access to specialized resources while reducing upfront capital costs compared to building new schools. A supporting virtual network and student identification system would help coordinate students' personalized schedules across multiple locations.

1. SCALE-FREE
SCHOOLS
A New learning Architecture for the 21st century
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2. CONCENTRATED LEARNING ARCHITECTURE
LEARNING FACTORIES
Conventionally the architecture of learning exchanges is a concentrated, semi-industrial one,
whereby the various activites assocated with learning are subdivided into designated functions:
classroom, dining room, assembly hall, chemstry lab, common room, library, staff room etc, and
compressed onto a single site.

3. NEW BUILDING
A SCHOOL = A BUILDING?
This programmatic architecture is then effectively wrapped in a brand new institutional building,
conceived as a sudden, one-off capital investment. This requires a large amount of up-front
capital expenditure, both in terms of finance and in terms of embedded carbon.

4. 12 Midnight
6pm 6am
12 Noon
OUT OF HOURS & HOLIDAYS
Empty for 85% of the time
REDUNDANCY
One of the historical problems with this model, is that after completion this asset is heavily under-
used. Factoring in school holidays, evenings and nightimes, a typical school buillding may actually
be empty for 85% of the year.

5. COMMUNITY
GROUPS
YOUTH
&
SPORTS CLUBS
ADULT
LEARNING
OUT OF HOURS & HOLIDAYS
EXTENDED USES
In recent years, schools and local authorities have attempted to slightly mitigate this under-use
of physical assets by organising extended uses for the school building, including evening classes
for adults, youth and sports clubs and community groups. Often a lot of effort has to be put into
overcoming people’s resistance to the ‘institutional’ feel of the building, and in the case of adult
learning, helping people get over the feeling that they are being sent ‘back to school’.

6. PUBLIC VOLUNTEER
COURTS HOMES
SPORTS CENTRE
LOCAL CAFE
PARK
STARTUP STUDIOS
EMPTY BUILDINGS
LOCAL CINEMA
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
OFFICES PUBLIC WCS
THEATRE
LOCAL MUSIC SHOP &
BARS RECORDING STUDIOS
CHURCH HALLS
& COMMUNITY
CENTRES
OFFICE
URBAN REDUNDANCY
At the same time, most buildings in city and town centres are unused or under-used for many
hours a day. Particularly those places used primarily at evenings or weekends uses (such as
religious buildings, tourism venues, leisure-related spaces and public parks).

7. PUBLIC VOLUNTEER
COURTS HOMES
SPORTS CENTRE
LOCAL CAFE
PARK
STARTUP STUDIOS
EMPTY BUILDINGS
LOCAL CINEMA
STUDENTS
CAFE /
UNION
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
TECH SHOP
OFFICES PUBLIC WCS
THEATRE
LOCAL MUSIC SHOP &
BARS RECORDING STUDIOS
CHURCH HALLS
& COMMUNITY
CENTRES
OFFICE
A SCHOOL = A NEIGHBOURHOOD?
What if, instead, this redundant capacity could be used in a smart way? Could the various
learning exchanges which make up a school be matched with available spaces around a town
centre? By forming relationships with individuals and organisation in the neighbourhood, buildings
which tend to be underused during working hours (such as cinemas, public libraries, bars, cafes,
historic buildings...) could easily be seen as ‘readymade’ learning environments.
We would no longer think of a school as ‘a building’, but as a civic institution enmeshed into a
community, a part of the life of a town centre; designed around a soft, responsive, customisable
architecture.
Less ‘planned’, more ‘choreographed’.

8. MOBILE ICT STUDENT CARDS UNIFORMS
Timetabling Identification Visible Identity
GPS Locating Access to services and facilities All-year weather protection
Working Managed Payment Reflective
Teaching Material
Remote access to teaching
LOCAL BUSES SCHOOL MINIBUS SCHOOL BIKES
Transport to school Special transport needs Visible Identity
Transport within school Special transport destinations Anywhere, anytime transport
PUBLIC REALM LoCAL WI-FI
Parks Anywhere web-access
Toilets
Safety & Security
Cycle Lanes
CORE INFRASTRUCTURE
In order to allow this to happen, the network needs to be supported by a range or specific
infrastructures. The roles formerly played by physical devices, such as corridors, fences, notice
boards and the school bell, can now be performed by non-physical systems. Most obviously,
these involve information technology (textbooks in digital format, GPS location tracking etc), but
also include wider conditions in the public realm which have formerly been seen as part of general
council spending, such as cycle routes, public transport, bike sheds etc.

9. CAPITAL OPERATIONAL
FOCUS ON PHYSICAL CAPITAL
PERMANENT ACCESS TO STANDARDISED SPACES & FACILITIES REGULAR AC
DISCONNECTED FROM LOCAL GROUPS AND BUSINESSES STRONG RELA
NEW-BUILD MODEL
In the traditional new-build-school approach, the focus is on how the quality of the physical capital
(built environment and school-owned resources) in improving education outcomes. This presents
a ‘high-threshold’ prospect for potential new schools, where a heavy capital investment is
required up-front, and spaces and facilities provided within the school envelope are standardised
on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ basis in order to accommodate the budget constraints.

10. NAL CAPITAL OPERATIONAL
FOCUS ON SOCIAL CAPITAL
& FACILITIES REGULAR ACCESS TO EXTRAORDINARY SPACES & FACILITIES
INESSES STRONG RELATIONSHIPS WITH LOCAL GROUPS AND BUSINESSES
SCALE-FREE MODEL
With a scale-free school strategy, the focus is on building social capital (relationships with
businesses and organisations who own resources and spaces). This allows leaner, more
responsive provision of resources, with a much lower startup threshold. It also has the potential to
offer increased value to students, through the relationships with local professionals and groups,
access to a diverse range of high-quality spaces (often with a direct specificity to the subject) and
access to top-class facilities (such as recording studios) that a school would not be able to own.

11. FROM FIXED-CAPACITY
The fixed capacity of the traditional new-build school has shaped many of the dilemmas that face
education policy . Successful schools experience over-competition for places, and are forced
to be selective, either on the basis of academic performance, faith or address (the so-called
‘postcode lottery’).
SUCCEEDING SCHOOL
OVERCOMPETITION

12. At the same time, failing schools become deprivation traps for those left behind, worsening the
social inequality which education aims to alleviate.
FAILING SCHOOL
DEPRIVATION TRAP

13. SUCCEEDING SCHOOL
INTENSIFIES / EXPANDS

14. TO SCALE-FREE
With the capacity to incrementally flex, and adopt resources on an ad hoc basis, the scale-free
school negates this dilemma. Successful schools do not become selective, but simply grow, while
failing schools shrink.
FAILING SCHOOL
SHRINKS

15. A DAY IN THE LIFE

16. 09.30AM REGISTRATION
“Actually school doesn’t start when we arrive - it starts when we leave home. Basically registration
happens at nine-thirty, wherever you are. Once I’m logged onto the school network, my iPhone
marks my location, keeps me up to date with any school announcements or changes to my
timetable, and if I’m going somewhere I’ve never been before, it gives me directions on how to get
there.”

17. 10.00AM HISTORY
“It seems quite appropriate that we have history classes in a historic building - this place is an
amazing National Trust property - but it tends to be pretty quiet during the week. Our teacher
brings a projector and an ebeam - which means pretty much any wall can become an interactive
whiteboard.
We’re not allowed to use phones during class, but they beep at the end of the lesson - like a
school bell.”

18. 11.15 AM BETWEEN CLASSES
“Obviously we move around town quite a lot more than we used to. Its compulsory to wear
uniforms whenever we’re out and about - and actually they double as reflective jackets when
we’re cycling around. There are school bikes we can use, or our student cards work on all the
local buses.”

19. 11.30AM FRENCH
“Quite a few of the languages lessons are in the smaller screens at the local cinema. They have
these lecture theatre tables that fit into the drinks holders for us to work on.
It can be a bit weird because it always smells a bit of popcorn - but our teacher sometimes treats
us by showing us old black and white french films.”

20. 12.30PM MUSIC
“We have music lessons in a music shop in town - which is pretty cool because we can try
different things. The managers of the shop are a part-time teaching assistants, and they’re
usually around anytime to give tips - sometimes in afternoons there are tutorial sessions there,
and they’ve got a rehearsal space for bands. Nearby there are professional recording studios we
can apply to use for a few hours - and a couple of bands from our school have actually released
albums.”

21. 1.30PM LUNCH
“There’s no school dining room as such - we all eat all over the place. The local restaurants and
cafes put on a basic lunch for us. It’s not as posh as normal restaurant food, and there are usually
only a couple of choices, but generally we get quite a bit of variety.
We swipe for lunch using our student cards - so there’s no money involved - but there are
allocations, so we can’t always eat in the same place, we have to move around.”

22. 2.00PM PUBLIC LIBRARY
“As well as lessons, we also have library sessions timetabled in, quite often after lunch. The
librarians are really strict about talking and making noise, but it’s quite a good space to read a
book, catch up on coursework, or just mess about on my laptop a bit.”

23. 3.00PM TECH SHOP
“The Tech Shop is essentially a kind of workshop-come-laboratory space for making and
testing all kinds of ideas. It’s run by the school, but it’s not just for the school, local students and
businesses come in there making prototypes, models, all sorts. We have design, technology,
physics and chemistry lessons there usually.”

24. 4.00PM PARK
“In the afternoon there are quite a lot of school sports, and school teams. We usually use the
same pitches as everyone else - at the local park or sports centre - we just use them earlier in
the day before adults get out of work. There’s quite a lot of crossover with county teams, and
sometimes we get professionals come in as guest coaches.”

25. 8.00PM HOME
“The homework tends to be much tougher than my previous school - but there’s a lot of support.
In the evenings you can log onto online group tutorials on the school intranet, or request extra
sessions in the timetable if you’re struggling with something, or want to talk to someone on the
pastoral team if you’re getting stressed out, or bullied or anything.”

26. �Copyright Architecture 00:/
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