Redesigning the Classroom: An Act of Belonging
This report emerges from a double realisation. As a migrant woman from a working class background, who has lived far from home for more than half her life, who speaks English as an additional language, who is married to a person of colour and who is pregnant and soon to become a mother, I have long inhabited spaces that felt like they were not designed with me in mind. That experience of partial belonging, of navigating environments shaped by assumptions that do not include you, has formed my view of the spaces we create for education and constituted the ground of my teaching practice. It is also what I see reflected at me in the studio. My students arrive to London, having left behind the spaces where their knowledge was first formed, bringing with them a diversity of identities and realities: each one a form of situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988) that shapes the learning space in which we meet.
I teach BA Architecture at Central Saint Martins. There is something contradictory, I have come to feel, about training future spatial practitioners in spaces that were never fully designed with them in mind. In earlier posts, I described teaching in a context where studio culture is increasingly impacted by digital production, compressed timelines, students’ anxiety and fear to show unfinished work in studio settings. This seem to alienate students from their bodies, from each other, and from any sense of agency in shaping the spaces where their knowledge is formed. The studio, meant to be a space of collective making and dialogue, has quietly emptied out: students cannot leave any work in the classroom, large models are not permitted, walls remain empty, storage is fixed and limited. Students choose to work from home or in the library, rather than in the classroom with their peers, not only because of necessity, but because the space itself offers them little reason to stay.
At UAL, students come from over 130 countries (University of the Arts London, 2024). At Central Saint Martins 37% of undergraduate entrants identify as Black, Asian or minority ethnic, and 23% of students have a declared disability (UAL, 2025). Despite shaping the daily reality of the studio, this diversity is not matched by the spatial, pedagogical and institutional structures designed to receive it. This is what the classroom must be designed to respond to.
Table 1: Percentage of year 1 Home Undergraduate entrants by ethnicity by UAL College, Source: University of the Arts London (2025, p. 26). Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/561434/EDI-Report-2025.pdf
Table 2: Proportion of declared disability students by UAL College. Source: University of the Arts London (2025, p. 22). Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/561434/EDI-Report-2025.pdf
This report proposes and reflects on an intervention in which architecture students are invited to redesign their own classroom, departing from their lived experiences to co-create a learning space where they feel like they (can) belong. Within schools of architecture, as Calderoni, Gandolfi and Iorio (2024) observe, the classroom is intended as a physical device that makes explicit the relationships between ideas and values, pedagogical theories and spatial configurations. Classrooms are not a backdrop to learning; they actively shape what knowledge looks like, who produces it, and whose experience it reflects.
It is within this understanding that my intervention is grounded. Drawing on Freire’s (1970) critique of the “banking model” of education, the intervention aims to nurture critical consciousness, agency and belonging in students. Extending this further by taking hook’s concept of ‘engaged pedagogy’ (1994), the teacher must also be present as a person, committed to their own growth and vulnerability, alongside that of their students.
Here Crenshaw’s (1991) framework of intersectionality plays a crucial role, influencing the need to rethink the classroom so it may hold together the multiple, overlapping identities that students bring into the room, all of which contribute to shaping (and being shaped by) the learning environment.
This means moving away from the idea of the tutor as the authority figure, which has long shaped the legacy of traditional architectural education. Jos Boys (2014) argues that spatial design education tends to reproduce normative assumptions, because tutors position themselves as the experts on what good space is, marginalising students whose bodies, needs and experiences differ from that norm. The intervention proposes instead the tutor as a facilitator of dialogue and co-learner encouraging reflection, questioning and participation. This creates an invitation for students to move from passivity to agency, from being objects of their education to subjects who can shape their own learning and environments.
The intervention unfolds in five interconnected moments, each building on the last. Starting with a space for collective reflection and dialogue, students are invited to consider their lived experience of the classroom acknowledging what works, what doesn’t, what they need more or less of. This is grounded in Lorde’s (1984) insistence that we trust the knowledge that comes from lived experience rather than dismiss it as subjective or peripheral. From there, students look outward, researching at least three precedents of learning spaces drawn from history and global examples, from DAAR’s Tree Schools (Fig. 1) to Balkrishna Doshi’s design of CEPT University’s studios (Fig. 2; Fig 3), to Lemonot’s Moeca table (Fig. 4), where conviviality becomes a tool for reimagining pedagogical space. Precedents will offer a critical lens, and a reminder that the classroom as we know it is not inevitable.
Figure 1: Hilal, S., Petti, A. and Grupo Contrafilé (2014–ongoing) Mujawara/The Tree School [Mixed-media installation: tree, 12 chairs, 12 books]. DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research). Available at: https://www.decolonizing.ps/site/the-tree-school/ (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Figure 2: Doshi, B.V. (c.1970s) Balkrishna V. Doshi with students at School of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad [Photograph]. In: Scriver, P. and Srivastava, A. India: Modern Architectures in History. Cited in: ArchDaily (2023) Architecture as Celebration: The Philosophies of B.V. Doshi. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/995606/architecture-as-celebration-the-philosophies-of-bv-doshi (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Figure 3: Gennari Feslikenian, J. (n.d.) CEPT University, Ahmedabad — Balkrishna Doshi [Photograph]. Divisare. Available at: https://divisare.com/projects/381279-balkrishna-doshi-jacopo-gennari-feslikenian-cept(Accessed: 12 March 2026).
Figure 4: Lemonot (Morreale, S. and Perri, L.) (2024) Moéca [Mixed-media installation]. BASE Milano, Milan, 3 October 2024. Available at: https://base.milano.it/eventi/moeca/ (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Students then map and measure the existing room with their bodies, producing collective survey drawings and models of the space as it is, before envisioning their own ideal classroom in two and three dimensions. Design here begins by thinking through the hand (Pallasmaa, 2009): the student’s whole body becomes the site of the design task, linking lived experience directly to space-making. Individual visions are then brought into a collective sharing, pinned up in the room itself, making visible what is usually invisible. From this, students negotiate and co-design a shared, tangible vision for their classroom. Finally, they act: working within the real constraints of the space, they physically rearrange it, testing and negotiating until the room begins to reflect their collective vision. As Könings et al. (2023) argue, involving students in redesigning their environment fosters agency and ownership, repositioning space not as a fixed product but as an ongoing process shaped by those who inhabit it.
Throughout, every student’s body, with its needs, differences, and intersecting identities, becomes the starting point, connecting the affective and cognitive dimensions of learning (Hill and Singh, 2018). Their needs are not a problem to accommodate, but a generator of space: one that is representative of the people who inhabit it (Boys, 2019).
A key challenge is that the studio spaces used in BA Architecture are shared across multiple cohorts, meaning the room cannot be permanently modified. I see it as a productive design challenge: an opportunity for students to reflect not only on their own needs but on those of others who share and will inherit the space, welcoming conflict as integral to the design process. This also introduces the possibility of the classroom changing through time, evolving in dialogue with its users and their evolving needs, echoing hooks argument that “the engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but must be changing, evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself” (hooks, 1994, p. 11)
Peer feedback highlighted the possibility of anchoring the exercise to industry: using the research phase to show students what architecture and design studios look like in practice, where design work is co-created through models, sketches and precedents hanging on the walls. Linking to professional setting could help building their confidence of how to change in their own working and learning space, providing the students with practical examples to motivate engagement without it feeling like an abstract exercise.
Although, I initially conceived this intervention for Year 1 students entering the space for the first time, colleagues’ feedback and further reflection led me to revise this. The intervention requires students with enough embodied experience of the space to critique it meaningfully, through the lived memory of what the studio has and hasn’t given them. Requiring this level of experience may mean that Redesigning the Classroom may be better suited as an exercise for the second block in Year 1, or even Year 2. Students will need to design not just for themselves but for those who will come after them, striving for balance between flexibility and belonging, utility and identity. This could be achieved by using modular design that can be flexibly used, yet allows for appropriation and personalisation in response to different needs.
Despite considering the shared reality of the studios in BA Architecture, a peer mentioned that a similar approach is already been implemented in the BA Fine Art UAL course at Chelsea, where first years arrive and the studio is immediately handed to them as a design problem to rethink and re-design for themselves. Although these studios are only used by the very students of BA Fine Art, this provides a real-world precedent that this type of intervention can work at stage one level with students that enter the space for the first time.To implement this, I would develop a structured brief broken into scaffolded mini-briefs with clear guidance for each session, guiding students in different stages of work through reflection, research, mapping, model-making, drawing and co-design.
Figure 5: Central Saint Martins Spatial Practices (no date) A manifesto for spatial practices at Central Saint Martins. London: University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/190112/Spatial-Practices_Manifesto.pdf (Accessed: 26 June 2026).
I also see potential for this intervention to be integrated into the curriculum and to feed into the Spatial Practices Manifesto (specifically principles 1, 2, 3, 4) (Fig.5). Its implementation would require bringing the stage leader and course leader on board while the physical modification of the room would need to engage the infrastructure team to ensure compliance with internal regulations and risk assessments.
If this takes the form of an extracurricular activity, a key risk of the intervention is sustaining students’ engagement across multiple sessions, particularly given students’ working hours and caring responsibilities. In this case, students would need to be compensated for their time, recognising their input as a form of knowledge production, not extracurricular goodwill. This, though, would require extra funding that would need to be sourced.
Before implementing the intervention, I would pilot it with a small group of six to eight students, presenting the idea to them first and inviting their feedback, understanding whether it aligns with their own aspirations and needs. A short questionnaire before and after each session would help assess engagement, relevance and impact. The pilot would be refined iteratively based on student feedback, treating the design of the intervention itself as a live design process that is subject to the same co-productive logic it proposes. This first step could form the groundwork for the third unit (ARP) in my PG Cert.
Although there are aspects of this intervention that I have yet not fully figured out, the reflective process around it has highlighted aspects that I had not considered before. It has also shown me the limits of my initial thinking: the intervention is more complex, more time-intensive and institutionally entangled than I first imagined. The shared nature of the studio space, the rotating use of rooms, the question around compensation are structural constraints to design with.
In retrospect, it is revealing that this intervention enacts the very principles of the Spatial Practices Manifesto (Central Saint Martins Spatial Practices, n.d.). It offers ways of engaging creatively with the reality of the school around us and undertaking a live project that treats space as fundamentally social and political. In this way the intervention asks of students, what it also asks of me: offering ways of seeing and thinking that involve creativity and, as Orr and Shreeve (2017) argue of all creative curricula, engagement with values, and identity that can transform our understanding of ourselves and the world.
References
Boys, J. (2014) Doing Disability Differently: An Alternative Handbook on Architecture, Dis/ability and Designing for Everyday Life. London: Routledge.
Calderoni, A., Gandolfi, C. and Iorio, A. (2024) ‘Scuole, Edifici / Schools, Buildings’, Stoà, 11(4), pp. 1–1. Available at: https://stoajournal.com/Issue-11 (Accessed: 20 June 2026).
Central Saint Martins (n.d.) A Manifesto for Spatial Practices at Central Saint Martins. London: University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/190112/Spatial-Practices_Manifesto.pdf(Accessed: 6 July 2026).
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Haraway, D. (1988) ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies, 14(3), pp. 575–599.
Hill, V. and Singh, G. (2018) Critical Pedagogy #4: What does it look like in practice? [Online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ghTlyBDNk (Accessed: 15 May 2026).
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.
Kahn, L.I. (1961) ‘Form and Design’, Architectural Design, 31(4), pp. 145–154.
Könings, K.D., Bovill, C. and Woolner, P. (2023) ‘Towards an interdisciplinary model of practice for participatory building design in education’, European Journal of Education, 56(1), pp. 44–59.
Lorde, A. (1984) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg: Crossing Press.
Pallasmaa, J. (2009) The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. Chichester: Wiley.
Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. London: Routledge. Available at: UAL Library [e-book] (Accessed: 26 June 2026)
University of the Arts London (2025) EDI Report 2025. London: UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/561434/EDI-Report-2025.pdf (Accessed: 20 June 2026).
University of the Arts London (2024) About UAL. London: UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual(Accessed: 20 June 2026).
Table References:
Table 1: Percentage of year 1 Home Undergraduate entrants by ethnicity by UAL College, Source: University of the Arts London (2025, p. 26). Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/561434/EDI-Report-2025.pdf
Table 2: Proportion of declared disability students by UAL College. Source: University of the Arts London (2025, p. 22). Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/561434/EDI-Report-2025.pdf
Image References:
Figure 1: Hilal, S., Petti, A. and Grupo Contrafilé (2014–ongoing) Mujawara/The Tree School [Mixed-media installation: tree, 12 chairs, 12 books]. DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research). Available at: https://www.decolonizing.ps/site/the-tree-school/ (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Figure 2: Doshi, B.V. (c.1970s) Balkrishna V. Doshi with students at School of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad [Photograph]. In: Scriver, P. and Srivastava, A. India: Modern Architectures in History. Cited in: ArchDaily (2023) Architecture as Celebration: The Philosophies of B.V. Doshi. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/995606/architecture-as-celebration-the-philosophies-of-bv-doshi (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Figure 3: Gennari Feslikenian, J. (n.d.) CEPT University, Ahmedabad — Balkrishna Doshi [Photograph]. Divisare. Available at: https://divisare.com/projects/381279-balkrishna-doshi-jacopo-gennari-feslikenian-cept (Accessed: 12 March 2026).
Figure 4: Lemonot (Morreale, S. and Perri, L.) (2024) Moéca [Mixed-media installation]. BASE Milano, Milan, 3 October 2024. Available at: https://base.milano.it/eventi/moeca/ (Accessed: 22 May 2026).
Figure 5: Central Saint Martins Spatial Practices (no date) A manifesto for spatial practices at Central Saint Martins. London: University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/190112/Spatial-Practices_Manifesto.pdf (Accessed: 26 June 2026).