Thursday 27 April 2023
Active Learning Environments
& Learning through Nature
Speakers
Suzi Longstaff - Parks School
Helen James - David Morley Architects
Peter Owens - Colour
Andy Mytom - David Morley Architects
Clare Bowman - RCZM Architects
Venue: The Building Centre, Store Street, London WC1E 7BT
Time; 7.45 - 10.15am
Children in the UK are less active than ever before, spending more time playing in virtual online environments than natural ones. Parents are often scared to let young children out to play unsupervised compounding the problem. With students typically spending 20% of their waking hours at school the side-lining of PE as a subject, and the overall reduction in physical exercise, is leading to serious consequences both mentally and physically that can become lifelong issues.
A recent environmental study also highlighted the benefits of natural landscapes in schools, and made recommendations to diversify the use of nature through the introduction of additional green infrastructure to support health and wellbeing in schools.
Come and join us as our expert panel discuss:
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How has this problem come about?
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What improvements can be made to learning environments to encourage physical activity
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How can biophilic design increase student connectivity to the natural environment?
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Translating learnings from higher education into schools.
Speakers
Helen James
David Morley Architects
Helen James is an associate at David Morley Architects. She leads the education sector for the practice and has a passion for designing school projects that provide exemplary learning environments which support children to flourish and succeed. Notable award-winning school projects include the Campus School at Weston super Mare, and The Plimsoll Building, a multi-storey school and residential development at King’s Cross. More recently Helen led the design of the new Claremont Primary School for Argent Related at Brent Cross, in addition to projects at Wycombe Abbey, Charterhouse and Abingdon School.
Peter Owens
Colour
Peter Owens is the founder and chief designer at Colour; a multiple award-winning Chartered Landscape Architect with over 30 years’ expertise of immersing people within nature so as to create places that help deal with national and global issues at a local level.
Notable work all related to activity and movement include Sport England’s exemplar Loughborough University Active Campus, the environmentally led landscape strategy for a recently held global tournament in Qatar and the Landscape Institute’s Best Large Scale Development for the £440 million redevelopment of the Royal Stoke University Hospital.
Clare Bowman
RCZM Architects
Over 20 years experience advising on sustainability by working closely with stakeholders to identify requirements and aspirations in order to deliver unique holistic solutions.
In 2014 co-founded RCZM to support research into building performance analysis to mitigate the IMPACT of design on the environment and more recently this has expanded to green infrastructure solutions and biophilic design for learning environments to support wellbeing, which was awarded RHS Chelsea Gold Medal in 2021.
Both holistic design approach and biophilic research are published in ‘Designing Places for People’ by Professor Derek Clements Croome
Andy Mytom
David Morley Architects
Andy has over 25 years architectural experience creating environments that support sport and active lifestyles from increasing public participation in local leisure facilities and parks, to performance venues for the Olympic Games.
He believes design has an important role in enhancing lives, and the spaces between our buildings can do more than they currently are for the physical and mental wellbeing of our communities. He specialises in the development of ‘Active Environments’, where buildings and landscapes, people and programmes work together to enhance lives.
Andy works with clients and users to define what success looks like from an organisational and person centred perspective, and translates these into a clear brief and development strategy that use design to create nudges for behaviour change to positively enhance health and wellbeing.
He is an Ambassador of Place for the International Physical Literacy Association, provides thought leadership to industry and Government funded organisation on active environments, and consultants with UK Sport on designs that improve performance outcomes for athletes and coaches.
Suzi Longstaff
Parks School - Dukes Education
Headmistress and education professional with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) focused in Economics from Durham University, PGCE in Mathematics from Cambridge University, Diploma in Computing from Oxford University and MA in Education from Bath University.
Coxswain of the British Women's VIII and member of the 1996 Olympic Rowing Team (Atlanta).
Over 25 years in education, with 8 years as Head of Putney High School, one of the UK’s leading independent schools until April 2023. Working with Clare has been lifechanging for the school as she has led Putney High School on its biophilic journey. Understanding both cognitive and emotional wellbeing in our learning spaces has been key and is now a fundamental and strategic focus at all levels within the school.