Biophilia and Adolescents’ Sense of Place in Australian Vertical Schools

Author:

Baber Tim1ORCID,Cleveland Benjamin1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN), Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia

Abstract

This article describes the place relationships adolescents have with natural elements in recently developed ‘vertical schools’ in Australia: a relatively new school typology in the country, generally considered to be over four storeys high. Vertical schools are being built in Australia’s largest cities in response to the need for new schools where land is scarce. Drawing on qualitative research into the place relationships that adolescents have with their learning environments in two Australian vertical schools, this article explores the ways young people seek closer associations with nature in multi-storey educational settings. The research adopted a phenomenological approach to ‘place research’, asking what makes a place a place? Further, it recognised that places have the capacity to shape the ‘becoming’ of a person, that ‘becoming’ happens when there is a certain resonance between a place’s cycles, and that identity is created out of difference. As such, ‘place as complex adaptive assemblage theory’ was employed to study the interplay between location and experience in selected vertical schools, also drawing on the earlier theoretical work of Relph (1976), who suggested that the essence of a place lies in the unselfconscious intentionality that defines places as profound centres of human existence. Photovoice was employed as a method to elicit insights into the relationships adolescents have with their school as place. Students created photo essays to document their place relationships, revealing deeply insightful personal reflections on their school as place and the meanings they associate with it. Specifically, the article reports on what thirteen adolescent students communicated about the biophilic experiences afforded by their vertical school, including how it influenced their ‘becoming’. The findings demonstrated that the participating students not only valued relationships with natural elements, but actively sought biophilic experiences on a regular basis. The desire for more frequent and more significant interactions with natural materials and cycles was common across most students, indicating that the relatively limited biophilic experiences available to students in vertical schools is a challenge that should be addressed in future multi-level educational environments.

Funder

University of Melbourne

Publisher

MDPI AG

Reference57 articles.

1. Greater Sydney Commission (2020, March 03). Central District Plan, Available online: https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-04/central-city-district-plan.pdf.

2. Blandy, S. (2021, May 02). Is Your School Feeling the Pressure? The Population Experts. Available online: https://blog.id.com.au/2018/location-analysis/is-your-school-feeling-the-pressure/.

3. Goss, P. (2021, May 02). Should You Worry about a School’s Shortage? It Really Depends on Where you Live. The Conversation. Available online: https://theconversation.com/should-you-worry-about-a-schools-shortage-it-really-depends-on-where-you-live-53296.

4. Carroli, L., Willis, J., Franz, J., Barker, S., Bone, N., Brown, A., Chisholm, N., Gibson, A., Gillett-Swan, J., and Harth, S. (2022). Conversations about Vertical Schools in Australia, Queensland University of Technology.

5. Taylor, H., and Wright, S. (2020). High-Rise Schools. Urban Schools: Designing for High Density, RIBA.

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