In the past ten months or so, our Research Team has had the opportunity of visiting, listening to, and learning from numerous school principals, teachers, parents, educational experts, colleagues in the Education Department, planners, architects from the public and private sectors, and many others who do have their hearts on school design. Their active participation during our school surveys and consultation interviews, forums, design workshops help to materialize this research project - "Developing Innovative School Design Parameters in Hong Kong for 21st Century" supported by the Quality Education Fund. This document has been prepared out of their CONTRIBUTION of experience, ideas and visions.
The key objective of the research project is to develop an interactive document to provide school design parameters for the reference of school sponsoring bodies/ principals and their colleagues in undertaking future school building design or alterations in Hong Kong, in line with the latest development in education reform, community aspirations and international standards. This document is to be read with the advice from the design consultants.
This interactive document may be conceived as a design checklist sourcebook document, and contains a comprehensive list of fundamental issues and design case studies to achieve school design for quality education. Users may select up to a certain percentage of the total parameters in accordance with their own education goals, and specific designs may be evaluated for fulfillment of the objectives. It is interactive in the sense that schools and designers may freely choose the parameters which they consider important and essential to them, and develop/ incorporate into their own designs.
We advocate the close interaction of users and the designers to achieve the best-suited design. The preparation, as well as the future use of the document reflects this important principle.
The methodology of this project has involved (a) research and consultation; (b) surveys; (c) design workshops and seminars; (d) integration and design testing; (e) publicity, public exhibition space and consultation.
The development of the design parameters has adopted an open, interactive, participatory and community process involving:
- Educational / curriculum experts;
- Education administrators / School principals;
- Parents;
- Teachers;
- Students;
- Architects from private and public sectors;
- Building consultants and contractors;
- Urban Planners;
- Social Workers/ psychologists;
- Financial experts;
- Relevant statutory bodies and departments.
Our works have been carried out in collaboration with the Education Department and the School Design Committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects.
We are indebted to the extremely enthusiastic support from the many individuals and organizations, in particular, the School Councils, the Architectural Services Department, the Education Department, the Quality Education Fund Secretariat, the Arts Centre, the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, the Expert Speakers and Panelists of our Symposium on 3 March and various forums, respondents to our "Consultation Document" whose continuous support and advice have brought to us:
- generation of new, creative and effective design ideas;
- gathering forum for suggestions and proposals from cross sectors;
- integration of expertise advice and users vision;
- interaction of the schoolcommunities and professionals (in education, planning, architecture, etc.)
Continual improvement and reviews among sponsoring bodies, users and design professionals etc are essential and any further feedback and comments on this document to our Department is welcomed.
Bernard V. LIM
Associate Professor,Department of Architecture,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Hon. Treasurer,Council,The Hong Kong Institute of Architects
Chairman, School Design Committee,The Hong Kong Institute of Architects
June 2001
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