In the coming years, more than 100 billion euros are expected to be spent on school and educational buildings in Europe. In the German-speaking countries alone, investments of more than 67 billion euros are expected by 2030.
Sustainable educational buildings of the 21st century need real and digital learning spaces in which pedagogy can flexibly help shape the architecture. But not only the responsible developers lack the know-how for such a cooperation. There is currently no sustainable, university-level transdisciplinary or application-oriented school construction training that combines the fields of architecture, education and administrative management.
And although more and more experts are emphasizing the important role that space plays in education, this topic has not yet appeared in an appropriate and structured manner in the individual disciplines either in architecture or in education. Just as little in the training courses offered by the chambers of architects or the administrative authorities that are responsible for the school buildings.
This is exactly where the Erasmus + project PULS + “Developing learning and space” comes in. It is developing such an education and training program. PULS + is an acronym and stands for professional support for learning space and school development.
PULS + is designed as a multi-professional pilot project. 11 partners from Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, i.e. all German-speaking countries, are working closely together on 6 different projects:
- Initial and continuing education
- Network for learning space developers (PULSkooperation)
- School building database (PULSatlas)
- Manual and learning materials
The training and further education program is specifically geared towards educational, architectural and communal practice: architects, representatives of communal building management and specialists for school development meet as a professional learning community – as do master’s students in architecture and education. Together they form a learning and research community (community of practice) that enables cross-border learning and work as well as intensive interactions between the various professions.
offers an interactive platform for everyone who wants to know more about innovative school construction. The target group are administrative specialists, pedagogues, school administrators, architects, funding providers, learning space developers, school construction advisors, parents, full-time employees … In short, everyone for whom school is important as a learning, teaching and living space and who Want to use space efficiently as a 3rd educator. The aim is to develop a public network for specialists and those interested in school construction as well as for learning space developers.
The message is that schools in the 21st century can be thought and lived differently than before. School is more than a space in which information is conveyed. School is the center of (community) life and part of society. School is the center of living together. Living together / learning in times of digitization and individualization is different than it used to be. That is why schools must also be rethought as a space and center.
In the public area, users can find out more about
- training for learning space developers (university course)
- the cooperation between the participants (organizations and their tasks within this cooperation)
- Contact persons for cooperation / university course
The PULS school building atlas is an interactive database under construction. Schools are not only represented by their buildings and facilities, but also by their pedagogical concept and how these are interwoven, influence each other and, in the best case, provide impetus for a constantly renewed development. In addition, it is made up of spatial and pedagogical modules that can be entered as individual components and therefore also accessed.
Interested parties can either obtain comprehensive information about individual schools or they can request information about certain individual modules that interest them and find a variety of answers to their current question. The resulting knowledge and results can then be further linked with what is available in the school construction atlas.
A manual and a textbook were created during the project period and will be available for download here from September 30, 2020.