i+D - September/October 2021 - 34

Class in Session - By Brian Libby
Berkeley Hall School:
Diversity of Learning and
Social Environments
To architect Anthony Poon of Los Angeles firm Poon Design,
" classroom " is an antiquated word that assumes education
only happens in certain places. " It makes you think of four
walls, a door, and a window, with a teacher at the front of
the class. A learning environment could be that, but it doesn't
have to be, " he explains. Instead, the operative phrase is
" learning environment, " for today, the connection between
student and teacher can happen anywhere. For much of the
past two years, that's meant online learning. But as students
do come back to school, learning needn't happen just between
four walls, Poon adds. " We're looking at the entire campus
as a canvas for learning. "
First, though, a designer must understand the client. Before
starting the design process-be it an elementary school,
high school, or university building- " we actually steer the
conversation with the educators away from the pragmatics, "
Poon explains. " One can always talk about square footage,
how much storage you need in the classroom, and how
many students there are. What's the thesis? Every school
teaches differently. Every student learns differently.
Some are more structured, some less so. We like to really
understand how teachers who teach at this particular institution
want to grow and then find a way to express that as a story
in the architecture. "
Take the Berkeley Hall School in Los Angeles, for which Poon
Design created a new master plan just before the pandemic.
At this private, preschool-through-grade-8 learning institution,
personal and social development is given as much importance
as academics. Therefore, designing spots for socialization
was as important as the learning environments, especially
for older students.
" Younger kids need structure. But as teens, they really start
to have that independence, " the architect explains. " Older
kids are allowed to roam this campus and find areas to eat
and socialize. We've got a plan for the spectrum of kids, from
the extroverts to the introverts: the big plaza spaces for the big
personalities on campus and private nooks where other kids
would just love to hang out and even escape for 20 minutes. ...
To design schools is to think about how you're designing
for every kind of student. "
Indeed, in a campus master plan like Berkeley Hall, designing
for every student means thinking about more than the
architecture. " In the old days when you planned a campus,
whether it was one building or a couple of buildings, it seemed
to be more about the buildings as objects. Planning is about
not just the buildings themselves but the spaces between
the buildings, and a third layer: these in-between spaces. "
At Berkeley Hall, an
entire glass wall opens
so the classroom spills
outside, blurring the
line between indoor and
outdoor learning spaces.
(Image: Courtesy
of Poon Design)
Berkeley Hall is an ongoing client-designer relationship,
as evidenced not just by the master plan but also the recent
Innovation Lab project, which provides maker spaces for
working with wood, metal, and plastic, as well as computer
and robotics labs. One entire glass wall of the building can be
opened, " so the classroom just spills outside, " Poon explains.
" It's not an indoor classroom and then an outdoor one. It really
is a blur between indoor and outdoor that becomes exciting,
that you're moving between the two. It isn't two buildings
and a pathway to get to the two; we're talking now about how
this pathway is also a learning environment. "
34
i+D - September/October 2021
i+D - September/October 2021

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