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Lessons from the Mall: A School with a Commercial Aesthetic
Turn your school into a marketplace of ideas.
by Randall Fielding
Annalise Gehling
Check out the full article with pictures and links to related subjects: Â Redesign
Space Age: Just as malls use large common areas to evoke a sense of "Main Street," Apple Valley High School, in Apple Valley, Minnesota -- with its tall windows, soaring ceilings, and open plan -- gives students the kind of organized freedom that may lift their sights. Credit: Courtesy of
DesignShare
Seeing Is Relieving: In the way a successful mall design energizes the customer, a mix of colors, textures, wall art, lighting, even indoor plants, keeps boredom at bay at Apple Valley High School. Credit: Courtesy of DesignShare
What Goes Round: In the relaxed, inviting style of a mall food court, round tables and comfortable chairs create an atmosphere of collaborative study at Apple Valley without the old-school regimentation of desks in rows and harsh fluorescent tube lights. Credit: Courtesy of DesignShareÂ
Any educator walking through a well-designed mall will see kids of secondary school age who are far more actively engaged with their surroundings than when they're in school.Â
A large part of the appeal of a mall is that there is no obligation to do anything other than hang out, see friends, eat, window shop, and enjoy the show. In most American towns, malls have replaced the town squares and main streets, places where teenagers congregated in the Back to the Future era.
And clearly, buying a T-shirt at the Gap is easier, and more immediately gratifying, than grappling with the theory of quantum mechanics or the rigors of iambic pentameter. But there are lessons to be learned from the modern shopping scene. In design terms, some of the calculations of mall planning can be replicated in schools, whether for new construction or renovations, with significant results.
Decoding the Design
Malls are machines for making money; they are intended to entice and captivate. The arrangement of goods in display windows and spilling out of shop fronts, carefully lit for maximum allure, is a specially calibrated invitation to invite us into that shop. The eye-catching signs proclaiming "Sale!" or "Bargain!" generate more interest. The mere presence of so many stores side by side means we're guaranteed to find something we like, somewhere, sooner rather than later. The mall is like one big, craftily designed signal to come in and hang around.
Typical high schools rarely entice and captivate. Students are there by decree, so no invitation is deemed necessary. Classroom furniture is usually standard issue and rarely comfortable, though teachers often do what they can to make their classrooms more appealing. And outside the classroom, there's rarely any furniture at all. Walking into a school can't be the same as walking into Abercrombie & Fitch. The store shouts, "Buy!" and the school says (hopefully) "Learn." But if a school is simply a place students want to get out of as soon as possible, it has to be considered a design failure.Â
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