The person who said this made me laugh, but they were right: a brand new school building, one of the most innovative today, and the builders had done something that set the tone for learning.

It would take thoughtful, pedagogical intent for everyone to correct the mistake they’d made.

The problem was this: every classroom had the chairs and tables for students laid out in rows, facing the teacher's podium set at the front. Every classroom.

It’s a problem because it sends a message from institution to educator: this is how we do things here. But if your intent is not to do things like that, it is a grave problem.

But the issue isn’t limited to builders just replicating what they saw when they were at school - that’s forgiveable. The problem sits with some architects, too.

Builders follow plans. Look at the default seating options on an architectural plan for a school, and you’ll generally see little seat and table icons in either rows or groups, illustrating that the space of the room is adequate for 25, or 33, learners. Classroom spaces are designed to be as efficient as possible for the maximum number of learners possible. That means rows or, if you’re lucky, some groups. We have such a limited default vocabulary to describe the supports for how we learn.

When we work as the bridge between schools and architects, we try to make that square-foot-per-student number the starting point, not the target.

More space equals more room for experimentation with furniture. New furniture, more of it, less of it, more standing around whiteboards on the walls in maths class, more zoning of the space for interdisciplinary projects, more varied options that can change throughout the year, as students and teachers become more aware of how they learn.

We don’t want a space to cater for how we teach today - we want it to support the kind of learning and teaching we aspire to (but which our space today maybe hinders). We write it all down in a letter: Dear Architect…

And there are other designerly cues that steer whether a teacher is going to think twice about their practice or reinstate old habits quickly:

Are there three or more places for attention to be directed - projectors, display screens or whiteboards for student thinking? Or is all the gear demarcated for the teacher?

Are plants and greenery given as much importance as glass and steel, or is that an afterthought that the school can sort out with its likely beleaguered pedagogy R&D budget?

Is there space for movement without bruising your thighs? Or is the space ‘just so’ for the number of kids likely to be in the room when it’s at top capacity, meaning scrapes and bumps against tables and chairs will be standard?

And is the acoustic set up for the person with the worst hearing and poorest attention span? Or is it look and feel above hearing?

The upfront investment of adding a few square metres, some greenery, some real and total design is worth it for 30 years of potential innovation to come.

Taking the care to consult deeply and push practices before you design costs about 0.05% of the building budget. But it makes the difference between a space people talk about and one that people moan about.