DG00

Overview

Title

Compliance Level

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00.01

Overview

N/A

Educational facilities should be designed:

To be supportive of DoE general educational principles
To be flexible so as to support current and evolving pedagogies and technologies
To be adaptable to suit a range of learning and teaching strategies (modalities). Spaces should be designed to support multiple purposes where practical.
To be ergonomically suited to the age of the users
Facilitate inclusivity and accessibility
To incorporate ecologically sustainable principles
Offer Value for Money within a Whole of Life framework

Before starting to design a new school facility or a major upgrade to an existing facility, it is important to assemble the necessary background information in order to ensure that the design as it is developed is appropriate for:

The school functions proposed, and
The local environment and conditions of the selected site.

Therefore investigations should be made into the local site conditions, which is included in the following sections.

00.02

Objectives

N/A

The overall objective is to develop each school site in a rational, coherent and coordinated manner, to gain the maximum long term benefit from the developed site, with consideration of:

Site specific physical and contextual characteristics
Availability of infrastructure services to the site and adjacent areas
Principles and criteria embodied in the Educational Facilities Standards and Guidelines
The need to maximise useability of internal and external space available so as to gain maximum efficiencies
The need to minimise on-going grounds and building maintenance, in a whole of life approach to development
School cost budget procedures
Potential need and location of supplementary demountable facilities
Potential staging of works
On-going maintenance procedures
Where existing buildings, post-construction occupancy evaluation

00.03

Guiding Principles

N/A

Within a systematic whole of life, value for money framework that takes into account enhancement of learning and teaching, planning and development, sustainability and facilities management, provide functional and durable facilities that:

Provide locally responsive design appropriate to the physical and social environment of the school community
Create activated spaces that enhance learning and support learning purpose
Provide designs that consider the whole of a space as well as the interrelationship and use of all spaces
Provide a balance of dedicated and multi-puprose spaces (loose fit) to ensure flexibility while maintaining specialisation
Design reconfigurable facilities for a long life span that can be adapted over time with minimal costs
Provide designs that contain inbuilt adaptability to accommodate changes in technology and pedagogy
Design agile learning environments with flexible furniture to allow intuitive and easy rearrangement for different purposes.