Margunn Bjørnholt
NORENSE funding: 105.000 NOK in 2011

The project has explored the ideas of and use of space, rooms and architecture as part of Waldorf education and practice.

Background
Over the last decade, major changes of spatial and organizational character have taken place in working life as well as in Norwegian schools and kindergartens. The trend is towards larger units, looser and shifting group structures and open plan spatial structures, more virtual forms of communication and neoliberal management and teaching regimes. Compared to this development, Waldorf schools, with their fixed class structure, their aesthetic-tactile approach to learning and reluctance towards computerization of education, represent an alternative.

Design and methods
The study is based on case studies of one Waldorf school and one Waldorf kindergarten, which involved qualitative interviews with teachers, preschool teachers and architects, observation of localities, and review of research literature and key texts.

Findings
Waldorf schools are based on Steiner’s ideas on education, and Waldorf school buildings are often, to a greater or lesser extent, inspired by Steiner’s ideas as an architect, but the relations between Waldorf education, Steiner’s architectural ideas and school buildings, are only briefly touched upon in much of the research literature. This project has tried to bring them together. The findings presented are based on an analysis of the school case. Overall, there was a strong spatial involvement in the school, involving teachers and parents, institutionalised in a permanent building committee, and renovation projects with varying levels of participation and drawing on professional expertise. The teachers emphasised the importance of the aesthetic-spatial arrangements mirroring and supporting the growing and developing child, and there was an ongoing spatial reflection regarding the fit between the children, their age-specific needs and the education. The study concludes that spatial and aesthetic considerations are an integrated part of and interconnected with the Waldorf school curriculum and Waldorf teachers’ practices.
The classrooms, and even to some extent whole buildings were shaped and modelled by the teachers and the school community, to form a personalised space, aimed at reinforcing class identity and the teacher and class as a team. Aesthetic shaping and modelling was also used to modify spatial limitations actively. Some of the rooms had been visually modified, to appear less square, using particular painting techniques. The teachers also actively decorated and shaped the room to fit the class, the stage and the topic at hand. This general involvement around the buildings and aesthetics formed the background of the conceptualisation of the classroom as a physical structure and a common reflective space, providing the spatial and social structures for learning and thinking as a collective endeavour, and the class as a reflective community. The building structure as well as the class structure provide room, physically as well as socially, for collective reasoning in the class (-room), fostering the class as a reflective community and provide room for thinking.
Despite the architectural limitations of some of the buildings, the building structures are enabling: the combination of traditional classrooms and a large number and variety of special rooms, ranging from the large theatre to the smithy, enables the variety and the distinctiveness of the Waldorf curriculum, and special rooms for arts, crafts, and music support these particular activities in their specificity. The teachers argued that they needed these special rooms, and saw their school as a contrast to many public schools today, where rooms are designed for flexible purposes. In contrast to the ”flexible” architecture in many public schools today, the teachers saw their fixed structures as necessary frames. The existence of special rooms of different sizes and for different uses was seen as providing flexibility, such as teaching choir to several classes at once. Social space was also important. Some years ago the largest and best room was reallocated into a canteen, and, according to the teachers, it was now an important social space, which they referred to as the heart of the building. I think this example and the idea that buildings should have a heart is illustrative of the attitude towards the school as a space to be.
The spatial-educational dimension is not fixed finally, but is subject to ongoing negotiations, reflections and change. The integration of the spatial dimension in Waldorf education and vice versa, makes Waldorf schools a distinctive alternative to public schools, but Waldorf schools are also under pressure to conform to current trends in public school.

Implications
 The consistency of the spatial and educational dimensions of Waldorf education gives reason for Waldorf schools to be self-confident, and for others to look to Waldorf schools. On the other hand, Waldorf schools’ adaptations to the general pressure to conform to the test regimes and standards of public schools may undermine Waldorf schools spatial-educational distinctiveness.

Publications
Bjørnholt, Margunn. (2014). Room for thinking – The spatial dimension of Waldorf education. RoSE – Research on Steiner Education, 5(115-130). Link to pdf.