II. THE NEW SCHOOL BUILDING CODE.

2.1.Criteria and references for the new School Building Code: innovation versus standardization.

Due to the Reform process developed in Education during the last 25 years, the necessity to set up new principles and requirements for planning and designing school facilities became critically evident in 1996.In this year, the Italian Government passed the Law 23/1996 in which a new building code for school buildings and facilities was declared as the strategic goal to achieve for the next years. As anticipated by this law, the new code should have to provide the minimal and the maximum standards to rule the restoring, the retrofitting and the new construction of the public school buildings across the whole national territory. This directive revealed the necessity to define some references for the existing real estate that the old code didn’t consider. The introduction of maximum standards it also revealed the necessity to define a limit to the expenditures and to insure the same quality in different contexts of the nation.

Four years later, the department “Tecnologie dell ‘Architettura e Design P.Spadolini” of the University of Florence was in charge of a research to provide a proposal to update the 1975 School Building Code. For this commission the research team analyzed the concept of standardization and the performance requirement approach. A reconstruction of experiences and tendencies in education was investigated and an examination of the old building code was initiated.

Since the beginning, the main question for the proposal of the Code concerned the concept of standardization, its interpretation and how to define specifications with a long-life validity in a context where fast changes, decentralization of the decisional power, globalization and multidimensional opportunity for education represented the main features of the present situation.

“The subsequent discussion focused on the necessity to discard the old and static idea of the building regulation founded on prescriptive-based codes and predetermined square footage requirements. The key concept that the research-team developed was that the new building code should allow flexibility, creativity and innovation …”

The subsequent discussion focused on the necessity to discard the old and static idea of the building regulation founded on prescriptive-based codes and predetermined square footage requirements. The key concept that the research-team developed was that the new building code should allow flexibility, creativity and innovation while simultaneously providing general control concerning the results and the satisfaction of the national requirements.

To fulfill this goal the team started to work approaching the code under the performance-based standardization. With this approach, standards were designed as guidelines and criteria to support the planning activity of the local promoters through all stages of the construction process rather than generic and object-oriented specifications.

According to recent interpretations and applications of the performance-based standardization, a gradual decisional system was designed assigning specific roles, responsibilities, and procedures for collecting information and validating/approving the subsequent action in planning and designing. A coordinating function is reserved to the central authorities and prescriptive specifications are limited only for primary requirements concerning health, security and safety of the occupancy. For all the other specifications, the proposal assigned more duties and decisional autonomy to single schools and local communities. They will have the possibility to identify their needs, to define creative and alternative interpretations and to evaluate the results through the whole process

2.2.Criteria and references for the new School Building Code: the Italian Construction Process

The advanced phase of the research investigated how to transform these goals into effective actions. A task was assigned to explore the opportunities offered by the Italian laws that set the Public Construction Process.

Presently, the Italian rules on Public Construction Process are under revision to align them with the European Directive. This was passed by the EU government to support free competition among the Community ’s member countries. To fulfill
the Community requirements, a large part of the law review concerns the programming phase, tender procedures and, above all, the implementation of Quality Assurance. These innovations represented very useful references to support the proposal for the new School Building Code. The most important ones that the research singled out were:

• the autonomy of the local public promoter to decide and to manage the construction project investment;
• the Studio di Fattibilità ,the first compulsory document to demonstrate the convenience and technical feasibility of the project;
• the Documento Preliminare della Progettazione ,the official brief where the public promoter defines the budget, the project organization, the program and the design specifications;
• the Responsabile della Progettazione ,that identifies the role of the project manager as a function always related to the public promoter;
• the Project Financing, to support public projects co-founded by private investors.

2.3.Criteria and references for the new School Building Code: derogations and capital ventures to enhance Quality.

Using the opportunities offered by the Italian law concerning the construction process, the proposal for a new School Building Code designed a model where both the decision-making autonomy of local communities or schools and the control of the central authority are integrated. To insure this goal, prescriptive specifications are limited to general aspects and primary requirements like health, safety and security. Performance specifications are preferred and standards for old and new buildings (minimum and maximum) are defined in form of recommendations. The specifications are more oriented towards procedural aspects to allow regional authorities and local promoters to design their own standard specifications. The proposal asked the Regioni to define their local code and the Responsabile di Procedimento to include specific requirements inside the Documento Preliminare della Progettazione.

Derogations are also allowed for Regions, local authorities or schools when some specific circumstances occur and a full demonstration should be provided inside the Studio di Fattibilità. These circumstances are:

• restoring, adding or retrofitting old buildings;
• critical geographical and socio-economic conditions;
• insufficient level of the educational community facilities.

The proposal permits derogations also in “normal “circumstances to realize facilities or standards that exceed the maximum levels defined by the national code. However, local promoters and/or Regioni have to demonstrate the capacity to cover extra costs. An opportunity to enhance the budget allocation is offered by Project Financing that the research-team introduced, as a new way to integrate funds for school projects exceeding the national standards. In order to rule capital ventures between schools and private investors, the proposal defines specific procedures and restrictions. The main of these concerns the preservation of the educational purpose, the agreement for providing ceiling price educational services and the priority for the realization of media laboratories.

2.4.The specifications of the National School Building Code

According to the goals and the aims of the research, the proposal for the new School Building Code includes references to help the Regioni and the Responsabile di Procedimento, whom are asked to define: the Regional School Building Code, the Studio di Fattibilità and the Documento Preliminare della Progettazione .These references refer to:

• site requirements and other recommendations to evaluate useful integration with community resources;
• requirements of the school buildings with specific references to the three cycles of schooling (Pre-School, Primary and Secondary);
• specific roles and responsibility of the people involved in programming and developing the school building project;
• specific contents on the technical documentations produced during the process;
• methods and specifications for the design evaluation and approvals.

“The school location offers to increase the quality of urban environments, to re-store town ’s old quarters or degraded boroughs and, in general, to assign the school a significant relevance as a center of the community”

2.4.1 Site and building location.

In detail, the references concerning the site recommend explorations about the socio-cultural features and investigations about climatic and geo-morphological factors. The proposal also uses the building location requirements to define a list of top priorities to access the public financing programs. Some of these requirements are related to opportunities that the school location offers to
increase the quality of urban environments, to re-store town ’s old quarters or degraded boroughs and, in general, to assign the school a significant relevance as a center of the community.

“Specifications are provided to evaluate general aspects like security, way-finding, environmental sustainability, flexibility and integration with the context. … no functional or educational models are defined as prescriptions and every solution is demanded to the individual project.”

2.4.2.Building specification.

The proposal also included specifications to evaluate old buildings and to design new spaces for schools. Specifications are provided to evaluate general aspects like security, way-finding, environmental sustainability, flexibility and integration with the context. To achieve the best user satisfaction, the proposal asks a planning process able to involve the widest range of stakeholders.

In fact, no functional or educational models are defined as prescriptions and every solution is demanded to the individual project. To support this process, the proposal indicates some guidelines as to define user profiles. The guidelines are broadly influenced by Universal Design concepts. The classic user profiles (students, teachers, non teaching staff, parents, citizens, volunteers, mentors, visitors) were reviewed and integrated with other aspects like: age, cultural and religion identity, physic-physical attitude, socio-economic provenience, etc.

The solution for the information technology system shows this philosophy as well. No configurations or technologies are identified but it is prescribed a value-analysis to verify the effectiveness of the solution in term of total cost and its impact on users. The same approach was adopted for dimensional specifications where the minimum and maximum standards are only a range-reference to guide the more detailed specifications of the Regional Code and the Documento Preliminare della Progettazione. For this task, the proposal supplied distinct parametric factors, for new and old buildings, that the regional authorities and the Responsabile di Procedimento could use to define the
amount of space the school needs. To define the dimensional factors, the research team used criteria that support sharing resources between schools and local community, networks between schools and, above all, the size reduction of the school to promote personal relationships, sense of community and a safer environment.

“To leave creativity in planning and designing, as well as in defining the regional standards, the national code shouldn’t identify designated spaces or activity rooms for one particular set of functions. A new pattern approach defined the building as a “System of domains “directly related to the different educational functions.”

To leave creativity in planning and designing, as well as in defining the regional standards, the national code shouldn’t identify designated spaces or activity rooms for one particular set of functions. A new pattern approach defined the building as a “System of domains “directly related to the different educational functions. In the following tables are shown these “Educational Domains “.

The requirements of these domains concerned general education goals and functions related to the administration and management of the school as well. Their achievement can be realized providing different shapes or different numbers of rooms inside the minimum and maximum amount of space
the National Code should prescribe.

2.4.3.Procedural Specifications.

An important part of the proposal for the new School Building Code concerned procedural specifications. The research focused on some specific aspects
mainly related to the attribution of roles and responsibilities to the different subjects involved in planning, designing and managing the school facilities realization. According to these procedural specifications, the Public has
the following roles and related responsibilities:

• Regions are in charge of the designing their specific school building code;
• Local Communities (represented by the Dirigente della Programmazione Triennale )are in charge of the coordination of the feasibility studies (Studi di Fattibilità) developed by the different communities;
• Public project manager (Responsabile di Procedimento) nare della Progettazione )and the Quality Management of the whole process.

Important prescription assigns to the Responsabile di Procedimento the duty for a direct participation of the users and other stakeholders since the beginning phases of the planning. Stakeholders composition, time and resources to be allocated should be defined inside the Documento Preliminare della Progettazione.

Other specifications are defined to regulate Design Team. The proposal suggests an integration of the national code for the Italian Public Construction Process with some specific aspects concerning school design. The National School Building Code should detail the composition of the Design Team, which should be formed as an interdisciplinary group incorporating experts in education, universal design, environment, new technology and media communication.

2.4.4.Technical Document Specifications.
Other specifications concern the technical documentation since the feasibility
study. The Studio di Fattibilità should include an explicit evaluation of the site showing:

• how the users can access the site safely and easily;
• how the educational resources can be shared with the community;
• how the site location fulfill the education facilities program of the community;
• how the playground gives opportunities for a full “learning environment.”

The Documento Preliminare della Progettazione should include explicit criteria to select the Design Team and how to control the technical documents produced during the designing process. For this matter the research singled out some primary aspects that the Responsabile di Procedimento or the Regioni could integrate in relation to their needs and goals. The primary aspects the technical documents should contain and represent are synthesized in the table below.

Giuseppe Ridolfi is a professor in Project Management & Quality Control at the Department “Tecnologie dell ‘ Architettura e Design P. Spadolini” He participated as a team-leader of the research to define the new School Building Code for the Italian Government and he was the co-writer of the final proposal. For the Italian Government, he was also involved in defining guide lines and coordinating their applications for national construction programs in social health facilities.

Prof. Giuseppe Ridolfi,
Department “Tecnologie dell ‘ Architettura e Design P. Spadolini”
Via S.Niccolò 89/a
50125 Firenze. Italy
E-mail: giuseppe.ridolfi@dpmpe.unifi.it | tel: +39 (055)2491511

Tecnologie dell’Architettura e Design “Pierluigi Spadolini” is a researching and teaching department of Architecture from the University of Florence. Its interdisciplinary activities concern Sustainable Innovation, Designing&Planning, Total Quality, Project Management, and Economic Evaluation & Decision-Making on the fields of Environment, Architecture, Construction, Industrial Design and Visual Communication. http://www.dpmpe.unifi.it

© Giuseppe Ridolfi and Design Share 2001

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