John Gray

Individual experiences, good or bad are not the issue here—we all could quote horror stories of arrogant architects and arrogant facility planners. Briefing persons are usually hard working and conscientious, but from my perspective as an architect charged with implementing Ed Specs, Ed Specs are poorly structured, unreferenced, incomplete, inconsistent, repressive and contribute very negatively to what should be the common goal—to produce a better Educational Outcome.

Even if Ed Specs could attain the utopian system goal of the perfect briefing object, it is my view that the more efficient and larger the Ed Spec could become, the less effective it would be in practice. One is reminded of Sir Humphrey Appleby in the British Television “Yes Minister” comment on the Hospital in Britain that consistently wins awards for efficient operation, efficient maintenance, and lack of Industrial Strife—the hitch—It has no patients. The System is working and expanding but what is it producing?

Ed Specs need to become more accountable, not less, and this does not mean that they have to enlarge their quantative scope but rather their qualitative content and their implementation context. At the moment they do not use research, or if they do, they don’t reference it. Ed Specs take the arrogant view that all knowledge and ideas are equal and can be appropriated for any purpose without recognition of the knowledge source.

This applies particularly to research from the social sciences. Rather than envisaging their role as facilitating the Design Process, Facility Planners, (the authors of the Ed Specs), see their role one of controlling those rascally architects and the mischievous school principals and staff who think they know everything and will get away with whatever they can cheat out of the system. This reminds me of another current British television series seen in Australia, “The Edwardian Country House,” in which the house rules attempt to totally control the sexual life of the footmen and scullery maids while permitting adultery “upstairs”

This is an extremely poor and miserly way of existence for the servants and the masters who are in a real way also controlled and rule bound and it reflects an extremely poor and miserable view of knowledge, education and what it is for. I for one do not believe that Education should be “pain and misery” and neither should the Building implementation process contain “pain and misery;” if it does, it will produce “pain and misery” as its outcome.

The fact is we all have to “deal with it”. “It” being the System. Facility planners have a responsibility to move from their current position of controllers to one of participants in and facilitators of information as teachers are doing. Architects will have to communicate in a more accessible language than obscure 2D drawings so as to fully document and share in the design process in an ongoing way.

This is the challenge. We need the Planning Design, and Implementation Process to expand, not restrict the keys to knowledge and actively enhanse communication through and between Stages. A promising way to begin to achieve both goals is to change the genre of our facility briefing documents. An early experiment in this genre was the Architect Christopher Alexander’s use of “A Pattern Language”(1). Jeffrey Lackney’s “THIRTY-THREE EDUCATIONAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR SCHOOLS & COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS” (2) as outlined at the last CEFPI Conference in May 2002 is another example that is grammatically structured to contain the clearly worded goal, explanation, rationale, recommendations and references in a complete package that is immediately understandable and accessible.

Clearly these examples are just a beginning, but access to Information and Information Technology Tools both globally and locally can affect positively our bureaucratic tendencies to instruments of control and “misery” on the one hand and flights of useless and unreferenced “artistic” whim on the other. Neither Architect or Facility Planners will be able to hide behind closed doors and to continue the metaphor further—if we all build glass houses, stone throwing shouldn’t be a problem.

John Gray is an architect employed principally on Educational Building Projects for the past 12 years in a Queensland Government Business Unit. He has past experience in fabric design, printing, teaching, and as a registered builder. John has been recognized this year for varying architectural roles for Emmaus Primary School - Designshare Recognized Value award and Bentley Park College - 4 Awards including a Designshare Recognized Value Award, RAIA and a Master Builders Regional Award.
johngray47@optushome.com.au

References

1) C. ALEXANDER, S. ISHIKAWA, M. SILVERSTEIN, M. JACOBSON, I.FIKSDAHI?KING, S. ANGEL: A Pattern Language, New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

2) Lackney Jeffery A. - THIRTY-THREE EDUCATIONAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR SCHOOLS & COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS. Paper delivered at CEFPI 2002
research paper sponsored by the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities(NCEF).

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