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I like the playfullness of this book corner, from the wall silhoettes to the rowing boat shelves - but the little beach hut open on just one side offers the privacy and visibility that seems to work so well - children within the "hut" are in the big learning space, but also in a more initimate "together" space
teenagers really do love these booths (this one in the State Library of Queensland) because the offer all the intimacy of booths in an American diner, but alongside all the visibility their teachers like too!
companies who create exhibitions and shows often also manufacture these rapid-to-inflate little rooms
children love them becuase the inflated walls dampen sounds a lot and offer a "nook" where they can work together
the airpump inflates them rapidly from the storage case, and sucks them right back down again when you want them out of the way - I have seen them implemented in some pretty tough places, but so far never seen one punctured by a student - that is how much they love them! (and repairs would be easy anyway)
see above - this is a smaller inflatable space, but still very effective and so easy to move / remove
inflatable nooks like these can transform a s[pace - a school hall, an examination room, even a room nearby - into a more agile learning space very quickly so that spaces which would otherwise be unused for significant amaounts of time can be more fully and reguklarly used as day to day learning spaces, but taken back to their "large scale function" very quickly indeed
see above - this is an even smaller inflatable space in the new Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, providing focussed intimacy - but with supervisable eye lines - for the smallest of children
note by the way how we these little nooks transform quite elderly and staid rooms into rather cool 3rd millennium places for minimal money
this little three sided space at the lovely Spruce House in Boston doesn't intrude but provides a very effective more private zone within the overall learning space
In Australia's wonderful Wooranna Park school, with a fair number of children who arrived in Australia recently by perilous routes more typical of a previous generation of waterborn explorers, this wondrous spaceship (and the dragon below) offer that important space withing space, is playful, offers the securitu of enclosure and the accountability of visibility... and just plain works
how could you not fall in love with a slogal that declares the spaceship is to "boldly go where no student has gone before"? especially given the journey some of the children made to arrive there in the first place.
...and here is Wooranna park's dragon: playful, semi enclosing, with a mezanine floor, with cultural resonance... and so much more. Fab school, cool dragon!
This transition space is in Poole, Dorset, UK - it lies between two phaes and allows primary and secondary age students to work together. It is interesting in a number of ways - these little three sied 'alcoves' being one of them but also notice the floor furniture and variations in natural light.
Hartlepool's stunning new school buildings for Jesmond Garden's School have a host of great features - but the school also has this digital yurt in the playground - it has an open side although can be closed right up when weather outside and teacher inside make that sensible, it has power, network, screens, tech inside too and a remarkable sound quality - the children love it - so do I!
By the way, a yurt is a portable, bent wood-framed structure traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia to live in on the move. This one is made in Suffolk though.