theory toolkit

Inclusion was uniquely conceptualised through capability and salutogenic theories. Inclusive environments were more evident when they were meaningful, made sense, and were easy to manage. Students highlighted the importance of choice, comfort, and spaces for resetting. Aspects where students had to work harder to manage the learning or themselves in the environment point to challenges in achieving SDG4a, where facilities need to be inclusive for all. The new conceptual approach extends current theory on designing for inclusion with intentionality in a holistic way to guide greater realisation of inclusive aspirations in school environments.

Vertical schools have an important role to play in the revitalisation of cities. They also are an invitation for city planners to think differently about the amenities and transport and facilities to support more young people and families in the city.

The importance of student voice in designing and evaluating school spaces is explored in this short magazine article.

Written together with partners in the project, this discussion paper proposes questions worth investigating, to inform and extend evidence-based design and educational leadership in vertical schools. This document is based on a scoping review of literature to identify what conversations are already occurring about vertical schools. It found very little published peer reviewed literature specifically examining vertical schools, while media reporting was facilitating public awareness and raising a range of issues.

How can you gather stories from students in an inclusive way? This paper proposes it is by enabling students to share stories in multiple modes. The power of video is described and also some of the impact that stories had for our industry partners.

Student voice research recognises students’ roles as knowledge makers in cultural institutions like schools. Gathering rich qualitative data from large groups of students in schools using such participatory methods can be challenging, becoming methodologically “messy” for philosophical and practical reasons. This paper links high-level research principles and pragmatics of on-the-ground research strategy and improvisation to provide ways of managing the ‘mess’ of student voice research at scale.

Voices of young people are essential in civic discourse about thriving futures. Yet dialogue can be complicated when the experiences of adults and young people are vastly different, for example in school spaces designed by adults in cities designed for adults. Vertical, highrise inner city schools represent this intersection. A new genre of school in Australia, vertical schools symbolise aspirations for young people and livable cities as designed by adults. This paper draws from data collected in the Thriving in Vertical Schools project to explore the importance of affective learning atmospheres for students, and the value of digital stories to prompt dialogue between young people and adults. 204 secondary students created 96 one-minute digital stories about what it takes to thrive in vertical schools. A close analysis of 4 representative videos shows how students communicated a wide range of affective, embodied experiences and used the friction inherent within digital narratives to highlight issues of importance, which promoted dialogue with adults in audio-recorded screening discussions. The power of digital stories to mediate civic discourse with adults, and new insights like the importance of unscripted, edge spaces as spaces for young people to learn to thrive, have implications for thriving schools and cities.

This chapter suggests that design patterns are a valuable way to share complex design knowledge about student-school interactions. It builds on prior work suggesting that design patterns, in a pattern language, are able to cross disciplinary boundaries and do work for design and education practitioners. It applies design patterns in an example of salutogenic (health promoting) design of vertical schools where research needed translating into actionable knowledge. The chapter provides a case study in initiating a pattern language, a set of design patterns, following a three-year participatory study of students in vertical schools in an Australian context. It describes the process of creating the patterns, their utility, the theory behind their efficacy, and the proposed value of design patterns more broadly within human-building interaction (HBI). It contributes a set of five design patterns for salutogenic student-school interactions.

Urban vertical schools in Australia represent a novel approach to education, necessitating a reimagining of traditional school designs to accommodate growing urban populations and innovative pedagogical practices. This study reveals how aspirations guided the design of three vertical secondary schools, highlighting a collective narrative of "doing things differently" that emphasizes collaboration, creativity, and adaptability in educational environments.