Naturing the Education Estate - Joe Clancy, Green Infrastructure - Sustainability Design Advisor, Department for Education

Green infrastructure is key in delivering biophilic schools, as is understanding this role in the context of Urban Greening Factor and Biodiversity Net Gain. This talk will set the scene for the current state of biophilic design and access to nature within the DfE Estate. It will then explore what are the hurdles and strategies to creating a biophilic school, whether new build or retrofit. As such, this presentation will also discuss the early stages of work the DfE is undertaking to increase access to nature for improving health and wellbeing.

H-FARM Campus: a new design approach to education - Antonello Barbaro, CEO-General Manager, H-FARM Education & Tracy Meller, Senior Partner, RSHP

H-FARM educational project has introduced an innovative approach, aiming at guiding people’s potential development through dynamic teaching, transversal skills building, and new technological tools training. Its offer embraces a very wide age range, from nursery to college, for a total of almost 2000 students today in a unique place: H-FARM Campus. Overlooking the Venetian lagoon, it occupies a total area of 51 hectares of which over 40 are dedicated to park and woodland. The buildings have been designed to ensure a non-invasive landscape, which blends in with the local area, thanks to buildings of moderate height that create a low-impact architecture.

Biophilic Design of Schools: Exploring Children’s Views - Dr Rokhshid Ghaziani, Lecturer in Architecture and Interiors, University of Portsmouth

The application of biophilia would be a design resolution in schools because of its impact on children’s health and well-being, which has been more important since the pandemic started; however, it remains quite unexplored in school design in the UK. This study presents the findings of five case studies. It also highlights how the connectivity between design of schools and nature can promote children’s wellbeing by presenting views of children in a primary school in England. Finally, this study suggests how primary school children could be involved in a co-design process in order to evaluate biophilic design patterns.