Lieux scolaires fkexibles et adaptables

Abstract

Following the World Education Forum held in 2000, Algeria launched, in 2003, a national educational reform aiming at enhancing the quality of education as well as students’ performance at school. This reform advocates for active and differentiated learning methods, encourages interdisciplinary work, student's environmental awareness, and promotes integration of new information and communication technology in education. The reform has been accompanied by development plans aiming at constructing a large number of public primary schools to tackle the significant shortage in the school estate. However, we note the lack of a study that reviews the architectural design of public primary schools in Algeria according to the new pedagogical requirements. On this basis, our research focuses on the identification of ways and means to support the new pedagogical requirements, through the development of a set of conceptual patterns for flexible and adaptable settings which support the new educational requirements and facilitate adaptation to change. Our research has been divided into two main parts: The first helped, through a literature review and diachronic studies of flexible architecture and school architecture, formulate a set of variables of flexibility and adaptability specific to school spaces. The second has used the predefined variables as tools for evaluating flexibility and adaptability of new public primary schools in Algeria, and more specifically in Algiers, through a qualitative study of three school case-studies constructed as part of the five-year development plan 2005- 2009. The study has revealed a lack of flexibility in these schools, and highlighted design and planning shortcomings, which questions the ability of these schools to support the requirements of teaching methods imposed by the new reform, and stresses the need for a design language of flexibility for public primary schools. In order to meet such a need, a set of thirty conceptual patterns for flexible and adaptable school spaces has been formulated, based on the empirical analysis, the literature review and the diachronic studies results, as well as using Alexander's patterns principles. The proposed patterns can be used as a basis for producing specifications and design guidelines of primary schools in Algeria, after a subsequent verification that could be commissioned by local authorities. In addition, an examination of the construction process management of public primary schools in Algeria has pointed out some management shortcomings. We therefore stress that the improvement of the architectural and functional quality of public primary schools in Algeria requires the development of a new spatial and functional programme based on the models formulated and adapted to the Algerian socio-economic reality, as well as the improvement of the construction and management process of these schools.