Sustainable schools as 3D textbooks: Safeguards of environmental sustainability

Abstract

At times when Serbia is planning to invest in improving the quality of learning environments up to a hundred million Euros through School Modernization Project 2010-2014, describing some of the trends in school buildings design in Western countries is regarded to be crucial. Schools are places where young members of our society are educated. School building design can have a direct influence on the way we assimilate, learn and integrate with other people, and can also affect the way we, as a society, integrate sustainability into our lives. A building is able to teach and convey new ways of materializing sustainable principles. Nowadays many experts claim that ?sustainable school is the most appropriate strategy for renovating educational processes and achieving quality education' [1]. Therefore, this paper deals with some of the aspects of school development in relation to environmental sustainability principles. Each aspect is supported by an example of a contemporary school that included one or more of those principles. Towards the end some of the benefits of approaching schools with environmental sustainability in mind are presented. It is hoped that the results of this article will act as an invitation and stimuli for architects and planners, especially in Serbia, to reconsider their previous practice and start observing school design through the prism of sustainable development.