(Picture: Land Sterling/LinkedIn)

The pandemic has played a massive role in revisioning schools and their design.

This was pointed out during a recent panel discussion hosted by CoreNet Global Middle East Chapter titled ‘Project Management in the Education Sector’.

The panel was moderated by Hamza Betraoui, Managing Director of Land Sterling and included Steve Hextall, Head of Project Management & Cost Consultancy at Land Sterling; Kevin Offin, Managing Director of Graphite Architecture & Interior Design; Elaine O'Connor, Head of Fit Out at JLL; and Shaun Robison, CEO of BBD Education.

While the spread of Covid-19 brought about huge challenges to the education sector in terms of diminished social interactions and lack of amenities, it also transformed the sector to make it more sustainable and technologically advanced.

For one, it has forced schools to make the best use of the spaces available to them. "When the school started to repopulate the school buildings, there was an immediate demand for additional space because of regulations. Instead of having, say 20 pupils per classroom, it was 10. As a project manager, and the design team, we had to fast track modular solutions to meet that demand," Steve said. 

Connecting spaces like corridors and foyers are being reconsidered to provide more value to the building’s operations and functions.

“From a design perspective, 20% of school buildings comprise space for circulation, such as corridors. That is now changing in quite a big way. So that the entire space in the building is utilised. Covid has forced us to look at every possible space within the school," Kevin said.

Besides, there is also a focus on making spaces more flexible and fitting for remote learning.

“With the onset of online learning, children may go to school only one or two days a week and do the rest at home. So the space has to accommodate that type of thinking, and be flexible. Some of the most innovative schools around the world have already built this into their designs," Shaun said.

There has also been an increase in the focus on the health and well being of students and the important role schools can play in this regard.

“Post the pandemic, we have seen a lot of improvements in air filtration efforts, as well as other factors like acoustics and lighting at schools," Steve said.

Traditionally, the focus of design for school buildings went from out to in. Post the pandemic, this has moved from inside out.

"The focus now is really building a school and designing a school from the inside out. In the past, people would look for architectural masterpieces from the school, designing it from the outside in. Now, essentially, a school is a vessel for delivering the curriculum. It doesn't need to be an architectural masterpiece. The briefing we received from our clients is that they don't want to worry about the architecture. They want it to function well and ensure that they are spending money in the right places," Steve said.

Kevin agreed, but states that interior design still plays a crucial role in schools.

"Children, like adults, react to the environment. And with the changes that are happening, there's a huge push towards giving students the choice to choose over resources and curriculum and make decisions about how they will learn. Some of the top schools in the world have simple rooms like we have today. But the room is organized in such a way that children can choose where and how they're going to learn. All the furniture is flexible; spaces are flexible; technology is flexible. That puts the ownership into the hands of children. And by doing this, you're actually doing what schools promise," he said. 

Besides these, sustainability is being given due importance in upcoming school construction projects.

Students nowadays are well aware of environmental challenges and a lot of credit goes to them in pushing the sustainability agenda at schools. 

"It is a consideration when they're actually choosing a school or university. Because it's so important to the kids, the parents are very interested in the sustainability agenda and what the schools are doing about it. So the students are pushing that agenda as well,” Elaine said.

Furthermore, more and more developers themselves are considering the operational costs of running a sustainable building. “We are asked to provide the building’s life cycle costing analysis averages as good as possible. Operators know what the payoff is in terms of energy usage within the next 25 years if they spend a little bit more upfront," Shaun said.

The decision they take affects what goes in the building, right down to the flooring and the other finishes. 

Sustainability features of the building can be used as part of the curriculum. "When you get an accredited building into the classroom on a daily basis, that brings a level of responsibility and awareness to students. I think it's really important that as an industry, we're trying to kind of use the building as an education device,” Kevin said.

However, the biggest challenge to sustainability measures continue to be budgets. 

“Up until now, I would say 90% of people are not even looking at the environmental side. It's only the very, very specific pilot schools that have that particular mindset,” Shaun said. The investors or the people that I deal with have high aspirations, but when it comes to really digging deep into it, they're just not able to finance those sorts of things.”

However he thinks that with the UAE hosting the 28th international climate summit Conference of the Parties (COP28) in 2023, there will be a push for greener schools from the government. 

“There has already been a raft of initiatives from the government, related to sustainability, so we will see this filter through into the school curriculum, and it will become a reality that everybody has to deal with it, whether they like it or not,” Shaun said.

In addition to these, schools must also serve the community in which they are located. This is particularly true for community-focused schools. People might decide to purchase a property in a particular community because of the presence of a school nearby, and the school must keep up in the facilities and amenities it provides to students.

They must also be spaced out properly to reduce pressure on infrastructure. “When there's four or five schools all clustered together, it's a pain to drive though the area in the mornings,” Steve said

All in all, the pandmedic has been a catalyst for huge transformations in the education sector.

“Because in 30 years time, we might be changing how we educate children all together. It might not be in schools as we see it today,” Shaun added.

Hamza Betraoui, Land Sterling’s Managing Director and panel moderator, said that the panel discussion was timely event as the region emerges into a post-COVID revival.

“The need for synchronicity in project management has always been a core essential across the board, but we are now witnessing a spike in interest in supporting the region’s commitment to a knowledge-based economy, and that has spurred a surge in the development of real estate projects for educational institutions, from kindergartens to universities. Land Sterling, as a knowledge partner of CoreNet is delighted to be sharing the latest trends and solutions in Project Management in the Education Sector, and today, our panelists gave their valuable insights on the advantages of engaging a professional consultancy to monitor every element of a project and achieve economies at scale, while examining how the industry has adapted or adopted new approaches in the latest trends," he said.

Ali Lalehparvar, Chair of CoreNet Global, Middle East Chapter, said, “Our organization promotes the practice of corporate real estate, where an asset property is used by a company for its own operational purposes. It is through professional development opportunities such as this panel that we can reach out to a significant portion of the sector, and I am delighted that we partnered with Land Sterling to share industry-specific information about how expertise in the domain of project management for real estate leads to more awareness of shifting trends and accurate project forecasting.”