Active learning environments tailored to pedagogical principles: a spatial design tool for school workshop spaces

The diverse and ever-evolving landscape of active learning environments increasingly present in schools is often perceived and treated as another ephemeral trend. However, research shows that the fundamental propositions of these hands-on environments—such as makerspaces, innovation centres, and STEM or STEAM labs—have been in the making for over half a century. Situating those active learning spaces within broader pedagogical traditions goes beyond the historiographical exercise, since such a framework reveals the need for a critical revision of the utilization of space among active pedagogies through both their literature and built environments. This paper seeks to address that gap by making explicit and examining in three pedagogical programmes—the Montessori method, the Waldorf-Steiner pedagogy, and the Reggio Emilia approach—the connections established between educational principles and the design of their learning spaces. Within those, the workshop area at preprimary and primary levels will be specifically addressed. These layers are brought together in an original design tool, intended to foster a productive dialogue in the common ground of architecture and pedagogy by means of situating pedagogical ideas and design strategies within a common framework. The tool may be used by educational researchers as well as by school teams, which endure the task of (re)thinking their environments amidst the complex system of education while remaining aligned with their pedagogical vision.