10th November, 2016Edinburgh Centre for Carbon InnovationPublic

SectorclientForum

meeting 4:

innovation in managing change

Background to Event As part of promoting wider learning and supporting capacity building in the built environment A&DS initiat-ed a forum for Public Sector Clients in 2014. The PSCF is intended to facilitate collective discussion across the public sector on issues of mutual concern, and encour-age sharing of experiences, learning and good practice across sectors.

Previous events have focused on lessons from briefing of NHS Healthcare Projects, Sustainable Procurement, and ‘Schools - Settings for Learning’. This event focused on ‘Innovation in Managing Change’ in the public sector estate, drawing on lessons from industry, learning sectors and public sector estate projects across the country.

This newsletter summarises talks and shared learning from the event, which was attended by 35 delegates from across the public sector learning estate. Links to presentations are available online from the A&DS web-site: www.ads.org.uk/public-sector-client-forum.

Introduction by ChairClaire Renton, Dumfries & Galloway CouncilThis event follows the successful session hosted by Vance Sinclair of South Lanarkshire Council at the Lighthouse in Glasgow in May earlier this year. I am particularly excited about this event in the innovative surroundings of the Carbon Innovation Centre in Edin-burgh with a range of speakers which will focus around change in our sector and other sectors.

A&DS are creating this space for us to meet as profes-sional colleagues to share concerns, fears, challenges

and successes. Also to debate and share solutions which will help us deliver the seemingly impossible that we have on our desks at the moment. The world around us has changed since our last meeting in May and will no doubt be significantly different when we meet again next time.

This emphasises the importance of networks like this with like minded people who have a common tasks and goals. We know resources are getting less and expecta-tions are increasing, we need to look at different ways of working and delivering to respond to these moving parameters but still deliver the best for all our children and young people.

At the event delegates were given the opportunity to explore SPARK Architecture and Design Scotland’s online image library for school spaces, in addition to the launch of A&DS’s new publication “Settings for Learn-ing: Identifying New Approaches”.

Talks

The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon InnovationCalum Duncan, Calum Duncan ArchitectsCalum Duncan was the Project Architect for the ECCI whilst at Malcolm Fraser Architects. Calum described the ECCI building as a site with a continuous educa-tional history starting in the middle ages, when the Blackfriars Monastery was founded. The historical fabric presented a challenge when the reinvention of the space as a hub for low carbon innovation was con-

Inspiring learning spaceDr Sharon Wright, The Learning CrowdSharon shared her experience of working with the education sector on briefing and procurement processes. She stressed the importance of building in sufficient time into brief development. A collaborative approach is needed to achieve good spaces. The brief needs to be seen as a living document that changes throughout the design process.

Should pedagogy drive spaces, or vice versa? Should schools label spaces, or is it better to make multifunctional, flexible spaces – and how do we create these? How do we design for the future? Do we understand what is meant by flexible and agile spaces? Drivers for school design should be about learning not procurement.

Small interventions can make a significant impact, and this can extend beyond the classroom. Sharon shared an example of an existing school at Charles Dickens Primary School, LB Southwark where with a limited budget staff space was reconfigured to create an attractive and pleasant environment for teachers, revitalising the space. This in turn helped to tackle a major issue with retaining staff at the school.

World Café Sessions

Brechin Community CampusRod Duncan, JM ArchitectsRod described the Brechin High School, a community campus in Angus, built on the same site as the pre-ex-isting school. The learning spaces are organised around an open ended “street” which connects the building to the outdoors, addressing the town.

An in-depth consultation informed the brief for this project, negotiating opposing opinions and benefiting from the mediation of Hub East, which helped re-view and discuss the project as it developed involving teachers, learners and the local community. Zoning diagrams were created to demonstrate how the spaces in the new school were to be used and to overcome the safety concerns of the parents. A post occupancy evaluation will be done after the school completes a year in operation, however even at this early stage, the local community has already embraced the new facility using the climbing wall, the dining area for communi-ty lunches, as well as the school theatre for amateur theatrical productions.

Other examples of focusing on access to functions rather than square metres included sheltered housing and office or co-working spaces, as well as a school in a densely populated city in China, where land to build on is too expensive.

For more on Espoo visit: www.aalto.fi/en/current/news/2016-08-12-002/ and www.espoo.fi/en-US/A_new_kind_of_learning_environment__Hauk(96425

Learning from industry – digital learningAndy Nagle, Microsoft EducationAndy gave a brief overview of SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition) – a model designed to show educators the impact of technology on learning. It was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura after a scheme to provide pupils with a laptop of their own failed to produce any improvements in attainment and creativity, showing that the circumstances technol-ogy is used in is as important as the access to hard-ware. Andy described the 4 steps that SAMR uses to measure change through the ‘technology adoption life cycle’. It is only when technology helps users to rede-sign tasks (Modification) or begin to express creativity (Redefinition) that attainment starts going up.

Next steps in the use of technology in learning could be gathering data and trends to better understand reten-tion and early signs of pupils or students more likely to drop out. With such analysis, those at risk could be identified early and receive instant feedback to support continued learning and show educators ways to inter-vene, rather than waiting until a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ test at the end.

sidered. This resulted in a “creative repair” approach, where the value of the best and the assessment of the worst building elements were discussed with the client.

The aspiration for the building was to be legible, flexi-ble, easy to use and enjoyable, not only now but in the future as well. This was achieved by reorganising the internal spaces, removing the existing stair and cre-ating an atrium. Also by considering the assets of the immediate environment at the same time, and opening up towards Arthur’s Seat and The Scottish Parliament building, while maintaining the earlier formal stone entrance. As a result of this sensitive approach the ECCI achieved a BREEAM outstanding rating - the first historic building to achieve this recognition.

The Story of Espoo: Learning City, FinlandProfessor Jarmo Suominen, Aalto UniversityJarmo spoke about a different way of understanding buildings and places through ideas of service develop-ment; as vehicles for value creation. He has been part of developing a school in Espoo, Finland sharing some spaces of a local university. Instead of being depend-ent on stand-alone solutions that need to contain everything in themselves to work, this thinking sees the resources needed for a school embedded in the com-munity and accessed from a home base – a heart that signals identity and gives a sense of belonging. Using spaces in the community works through project based learning, spending a whole day in a different environ-ment so that moving between ‘lessons’ is less impor-tant. Jarmo emphasised the importance of starting small – in the Espoo case collaborating with one partner and for an age group that is reasonably independent.

What happens next?The next event for public sector clients is scheduled to take place in May 2017. If you haven’t yet signed up for the PSCF mailing list and you are interested in taking part, either as a delegate and/or contributing as a speaker or chair, please get in touch with A&DS via steven.malone@ads.org.uk.

• Participation: parental involvement and cost

• Fairness: workforce development, fair pay

Initial work has included testing of co-location of co-working spaces and childcare; research into parent led service models and user engagement across city communities to drive an innovation challenge which launches in 2017. Radical Childcare are willing collabo-rators, interested in sharing data and research to date, and collaborating on prototyping.

For more on Impact Hub visit: www.impacthub.net/what-is-impact-hub/

Learning from EspooProfessor Jarmo Suominen, Aalto UniversityReflections over the opportunities and challenges of us-ing community resources for schools continued, ranging from issues of having too much space to how ‘service logic’ might be applied to rural schools, deprived city areas or at primary school age.

Find a situation where something needs to be done anyway. Start small and simple and build from there. Money can be a powerful driver. Look at the totality of resources needed. What do you really need to own? What can be used on demand? Buildings could become smaller if use is spread out over more time, expensive public buildings should be accessible for other uses.

We need models to understand how to do these things in practice, around decision making, planning regula-tions, charging mechanisms, security. Sometimes this is as easy as a school using a local community hall.

Standalone schools need big sites which mean new ones can rarely be built in a town or city centre. Service led thinking would put the school where people are already, involving community enterprises and local busi-nesses for real and lasting community benefits.

Even in deprived housing estates with apparently few public building resources there are opportunities if you look for them. Civic buildings as service platforms. At the centre of service logic is value creation – a key feature is that the functions need to be visible so that people can perceive the available resources.

ArchischoolsCalum Duncan, Calum Duncan ArchitectsCalum described the Archischools project which looks to engage different audiences with architecture and design through innovative approaches such as dance, imaginative mapping, experimentation and different techniques.

During the world café sessions participants discussed how consultations work for different age groups and the need to empower people of all ages as design informed individuals. The consultation as an open and flexible process which uses suitable, accessible lan-guage to communicate ideas as an experience rather than an abstract, theoretical story was also explored. Understanding architectural drawings is not always the best way of explaining ideas for new spaces and ways of teaching, so other tools such as 3D models and hol-ograms could be considered. Going forward, BIM was also discussed, recognising that at this point it’s still too complex for most small design teams. Finally it was noted that during consultations some professionals re-spond on what they already know and they are familiar with, rather than imagine a different reality that they would like to see in their schools.

‘Radical Childcare’ - integrating early years in placesImmy Kaur, Impact Hub BirminghamImmy is a social entrepreneur, and founder of Impact Hub in Birmingham. Impact Hub is a network of collab-oration spaces where ‘change goes to work’. The model is based on building a community of people who share skills, resources and spaces to build businesses, civic ventures and voluntary sector services. It is enabled by a membership approach and shared space. In Birming-ham, Impact Hub have become an anchor organisation to engage the diversity of the city’s population: public authorities bridge with Impact Hub on city vision and service design projects.

Immy presented work in progress on Radical Childcare which is prototyping a range of models for childcare based on community making and shared space around:

• Flexible patterns of provision: best experience for child and adaptable to parent work pattern

Reflectionsfrom the chairThis inspiring event succeeded in strengthening the network of strong professionals across the public sector by giving us a wealth of tools and experiences to respond to the challenges and opportunities we are facing. The conversations that have come out of today have been creative and constructive and I look forward to our next event and seeing what has been achieved as a result of this.

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A&DS offer these services, tailored to Public Sector clients:

Design Advice to Public Sector ClientsWe support procuring agencies in the public sector to deliver buildings, infrastructure and places of lasting quality, giving access to design advice from a highly experienced panel of experts

Re-purposing Learning Space: Tests of ChangeA prototyping service, re-purposing existing learning spaces to support change and improvement

Schools Design AssessmentThe Schools Design Assessment Service is offered to Education Authorities to support the briefing and options stage of new school investment and design

Contact: Steve MaloneT: 0131 550 0930E: steven.malone@ads.org.uk

Contact:Diarmaid LawlorT: 0131 550 0937E: diarmaid.lawlor@ads.org.uk

Contact:Diarmaid LawlorT: 0131 550 0937E: diarmaid.lawlor@ads.org.uk

This newsletter is produced by A&DS for the Public Sector Client Forum (PSCF). More information can be found at www.ads.org.uk/public-sector-client-forum