For my next trick I am going to make architecture disappear into space. My sophomore year roommate at UCLA was a structural engineering major who wouldn’t shut up about how engineers made buildings stand up and architects just made them pretty. He could ruin a perfectly good day at the beach just by going on and on about engineering. Pouring sand in a pile and talking about angles of internal friction. Whining about how architects get all the credit.
He wasn’t necessarily wrong, though. You may know terms like “Mid-century modern” (I’m surrounded by it here in Palm Springs, CA) or all-star architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, but how many structural engineers can you name?
I never did escape the logic of his argument. Years later, when I was invited to judge graduate school design charrettes and collaborate with architects and scholars in the field about “next-generation learning spaces,” I finally lost my patience with school architects.
The design models all looked Jetsons-esque. Lots of futuristic open spaces with high ceilings, glass walls, and miniature figures of people purposefully walking somewhere. Literally and figuratively pointless (except, I suppose, to earn a grade from their professors). There was no focal point, nowhere to direct our attention – to borrow Gertrude Stein’s sense of disconnection from her childhood home, I found myself thinking, “There is no there there.”
School design – past, present, and future – is mostly garbage. The acoustics are as bouncy and garbled as airports. The angles, colors, and materials are psychiatric hospital chic. In the last school where I taught, the security fencing and concrete entrance courtyard was a banner that proclaimed, “Hi and welcome to minimum security prison!”
Learning spaces are by definition spaces where learning happens. Generally speaking, school isn’t it. But it doesn’t take much. The room in my house that I use as an office suits the purpose. There are shelves for books. Drawers for supplies and files. A standing desk (sitting is the new smoking). A sitting desk (sometimes I get tired of standing but I want to keep writing). A knockoff Eames lounge chair with an ottoman (which I received as a birthday gift and looks so cool that I sometimes think it makes me think cool thoughts). Right now as I type I’m listening to the Oscar Peterson Trio softly fill the room courtesy of a Cambridge amplifier and JBL L52 bookshelf speakers with orange grills. Given K12 and university budgets, these are not big ticket expenses. The world would be a happier place if everyone had a pair of JBL 52s in the room where they like to think interesting thoughts. I’d also like to see a lot more wood paneling and/or acoustic panels for sound dampening in every classroom and lecture hall.
Schools don’t look or feel conducive to learning. Since most schools were built to make an imposing impression at a distance, and/or control the behavior of students and staff, and because apparently architectural students have very little understanding of actual learning and even less empathy or imagination for how people interact or use their spaces for learning, we shouldn’t depend on architectural design to enhance our educational experience. We should build the internal learning spaces that really matter to us. That’s the mental fitness of Open-Source Learning, and it helps us learn better everywhere.
I can learn in a garden shed. Or on the median of a freeway.
Recently I’ve become aware of people using the word “space” a lot. They use it instead of academic fields or market niches, as in “the architectural space.” And they use it as a term to illustrate their conversational or relationship techniques, as in “holding space.” My favorite use, apart from the “final frontier” introduction to Star Trek, is headspace. The app is good but the concept is better – whether you are in an overpopulated part of the world, or out in nature on your own, or in a dingy classroom, or (fill in the blank), there is only one space where you can ensure that your design and practice will support the structure of your (neural) architecture and prevent the cognitive ceiling from caving in – and that is the space between your ears.
(Having said all that, I’m still looking forward to watching The Brutalist.)
What is your favorite learning space? Drop me a line – I’m curious!
Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription.
Here is a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about.
What I’m Reading (online) –
Just as I was starting to explore new ways of telling stories to support the book I’m writing and the work I do (Q: What DO you do, David? A: I help schools, companies, and individual clients create value by building high-performance learning communities – which is the sort of thing you can really bring to life with a good story), I ran across a post on LinkedIn from former IFTF staffer Jason Tester sharing his latest project, Insurrection: An American Future. Check it out and let me (and Jason) know what you think! From the site: “Insurrection: An American Future challenges audiences to reflect on how speculative fiction—and the emerging practice of speculative journalism—can help us anticipate and engage with the disruptions reshaping democratic norms. By integrating generative AI into its creative process, the project demonstrates how emerging tools can democratize who gets to tell stories about the future. These technologies enable individuals to craft visions of tomorrow with enough emotional impact to catalyze public discussion about the kind of nation we are becoming and the choices we face in shaping its future.”
What I’m Reading (in print) –
It seemed like a good time to crack Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires, & Riots: California & Graphic Design 1936-1986 by Louise Sandhaus, which I picked up a few years ago at Hauser + Wirth’s Artbook in the DTLA Arts District. From the introduction: “So what makes California design deserving of special attention, and what, in the first place, makes it by definition “Californian”? Here’s my theory: California has no terra firma–earthquakes, mudslides, fires, and the occasional civil uprising cause incessant upheaval and change. California is fluid. It has a sense of humor. It is a place of boundless reinvention and innovation, where the entertainment, aerospace, and high-tech industries all found a cozy home. A mecca of consumerism, it is also a place of great creativity, freedom, and social consciousness, where the status quo undergoes constant renovation. Without solid ground, tradition lacks secure footing; old rules go out the door and new motivations rush in, resulting in new and vibrant forms.”
What I’m Bookmarking –
Wikenigma describes itself as "a wiki-based resource specifically dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge" that lists "scientific and academic questions to which no-one, anywhere, has yet been able to provide a definitive answer." Some of the “known unknowns” that are covered on the site include: dark matter, plant communication, dreaming, whether or not the universe is a computer simulation, chemical bonding, and how drugs create “psychedelic” experiences. Enjoy!
Quotes I’m pondering —
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
– Groucho Marx
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David Preston
Educator & Author
Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE
Header image: “Emma Willard's Maps of Time” via Public Domain Review

