Giarola Architects’ promotes inclusivity in education, by design
We are excited to announce the launch of our new website, an inspiring digital space that reflects our evolution as a practice, and our ongoing commitment to inclusivity and creativity.
A defining characteristic that has always been at the forefront of our work is our commitment to inclusivity and creativity. With an increasing number of children being diagnosed with neurodivergences, it is more important than ever that we ensure the learning environments we are designing cater to the diverse needs of neurodivergent children.
For many years, Giarola has been advocating for inclusivity within mainstream schools and creatively coming up with design solutions that facilitate and underpin these outcomes.
We believe that if you design schools for the majority of the population – and 80% of students are neuro-typical – you unwittingly alienate 20% of students who are neuro-divergent. But if you design schools for the 20% of students who are neuro divergent, then ALL students benefit.
Diagram showing 20% of students alienated when designing for the 80% of students who are neuro-typical (left) and diagram showing all students benefiting from designing for 20% of students who are neuro divergent (right).
Working with organisations and special schools including Autism Queensland and Mancel College, we have identified gaps in the ways that how typical built environments and standard design solutions address and cater to the diverse needs of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. And from our own investigations and research, we’ve discovered that there has been insufficient formal research undertaken to establish, test, and refine appropriate design principles. Much of the information that is available to educators and architects is anecdotal and/or not analysed in detail.
For us to develop comprehensive and conclusive design guidelines for Autistic learners – in both special education and mainstream school settings – we first required access to substantiated and robust evidence. To achieve this, we embarked on a 3-phase process over many years, involving and cross pollinating ideas from Theory to Practice, leading to ongoing refinement and Improvement, as follows:
Phase 1: Research (Theory)
Giarola Architects has undertaken extensive desktop research into the needs of neurodivergent children and the impact that the built environment can have on their educational outcomes.
This research included finding and analysing journal articles and case studies from across the globe (including the United States of America, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Italy, Netherlands, etc). We found that, unfortunately, much of this research was anecdotal, so while it provided valuable insights, we needed a way to formalise and test the assumptions we discovered.
Phase 2: Research-led Design (Practice)
After years of collating and distilling this research, we formulated a series of hypotheses and then implemented them as inclusive design elements into the Mancel College Master Plan project. From this Master Plan, we designed oversaw the construction of our first research-led building: Mancel College Building 1, completed in 2022.
This is a pioneering project in the realm of educational architecture, as it brings to life the intentions and aspirations outlined in the school’s innovative pedagogy and masterplan, coupled with our extensive and thorough research. Building 1 was conceived as a prototype to establish standards for future learning spaces, and as such, this project enabled us to test and refine certain elements.
Phase 3: Post-occupancy Evaluation (Improvement)
To ensure alignment with current best-practice in Autism research and knowledge – and to gather high-quality POE data – we partnered with Kate Simpson, Associate Professor at Griffith University, Autism Centre of Excellence. The questions in the POE that we developed together identified which design strategies were rated most important by the educators, and whether the strategies that we had implemented into the design of Building 1 made a difference to student engagement.
We were grateful to receive feedback and inputs from 39 educators at Mancel College, who completed our POE questionnaire. Photo: Highshots Photography.
We analysed these findings to rate the most important design strategies in Building 1 and their impact on student engagement, and the results validated much of our earlier anecdotal research and enabled us to fine-tune some of the design strategies we had tested.
Our principal architect Ray Giarola co-presented these findings with Kate Simpson at the Australian Association of Special Education 2024 Conference, held in Perth in September 2024.
Would you like to partner with us to deliver your next project?
We plan to use the findings of our research to inform future architecture projects for education clients to enhance inclusivity for all students, by designing and delivering environments that allow students of all abilities to flourish academically and socially.
If you’d like more details about how we can help to enhance inclusivity at your school by design, we invite you to explore our services, including:
Our Inclusive Education Evaluation service (email us here to find out more)
Our Signature Vision Process (email us here to find out more)
Or call our studio on 07 3878 3330 to find out more about how we can collaborate to bring your vision to life.
Featured Projects:
Autism Queensland - Classroom and Amenities
Mancel College - GLA Building 1