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A study of movement in a school building
I sra Build. ScL Vol. 2, pp. 279-289. Pergamon Press 1968. Printed in Great Britain
(97)
U D C 727.2
A Study of Movement in a School Building O. M. A G R A A * B. W H I T E H E A D *
The authors (members of the Department of Building Science, University of Liverpool) have studied the movement of staff, pupils and others in a Secondary Modern School and have drawn tentative conclusions, which suggest that some assumptions generally made in planning the layout of such schools may not be valid. Suggestions leading towards a plan involving minimum movement cost are given. Table I
1. I N T R O D U C T I O N
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T H E M I N I S T R Y of Education in 1954 said that: ' Movement in a secondary school is frequent and c o m p l e x . . . So far as possible, all these movements must be analysed before planning work is begun, so that they can be taken into account in the layout of the accommodation '[1]. Nevertheless, no comprehensive survey of movement in a school building is known to have been published as yet. The following is a report on such a study carried out by the authors in a Secondary Modern school for boys, in Liverpool. The aim was to find out how the various parts of this type of school inter-relate functionally, and how the actual plan should ideally embody the inter-relationship. In general, the greater the number of schools studied, the more accurate are the inferences to be drawn; this study had, however, to be confined to one school because of the limited time and facilities available. Care was taken in selecting the school as fairly typical in size, type of education and contemporary plan form (figure la-c). The recent design of the building implied that changes were not likely to have taken place in its initial function and the original planner's decisions could be fairly appraised. Two different means were used in the collection o f d a t a " the portion of movement already recorded in the school timetable was extracted from that document, whilst the remainder was covered by a sampling survey extending over 40 working days. The number of journeys between 53 school spaces was recorded for each of 8 categories of people. The details of these categories are set out in Table 1. A computer program was used for the ultimate analysis of the recorded data because of the amount of arithmetic entailed.
Category Head Teacher Secretary Deputy Head Teacher General Teaching Staff Visitors and School Inspectors Caretaker Kitchen Staff Pupils
1 1 I 1 1 1 20 20 (change from day to day) 1 1 6 6 400 400
Also to be noted is the fact that all the results are given in terms of actual journeys and ' s t a n d a r d ' journeys. The former is the true, unmodified number of movements, while the latter takes into account the idea that different weightings need to be attached to the movement made by different categories of people. Several sets of weightings were experimented with. The one presented in Table 2 and discussed below is based on the annual salaries of the various categories of staff and on the annual costs of educating a pupil, the latter value being taken as the standard weighting,
Table 2
Category Head Teacher Secretary Deputy Head Teacher General Teaching Staff Visitors and School Inspectors Caretaker Kitchen Staff Pupils (Standard Weighting Y)
2. D I S C U S S I O N OF R E S U L T S It is to be noted that all the figures presented in this discussion apply to one complete work cycle, i.e. Monday to Friday inclusive.
Weighting Approximate annual salary or cost (X) Weighting (£) factor (X/Y) 2250 432 1760 1150 1150* 850 350 110
20.45 3.93 16-00 10.45 10"45 7"73 3.27 1"00
* Figure obtained by assuming that a member of thiscategory is as important as a member of the general teaching staff.
* Department of Building Science, University of Liverpool. 279 A
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23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.
Gymnasium Dining hall M.A.N.W.E.B. electricity sub-station Groundsman Apparatus store Bin area Kitchen Metalwork 2 Store Store
Fig. 1. A typical Secondary Modern School for boys.
33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.
(a) Ground Floor.
Laboratory 3 Cleaners room Preparation Store Hall Boys toilet 5 Woodwork 2 Metalwork 1 Store Woodwork 1 Store
A Study of Movement in a School Building
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Library Store Duct Flues Boys toilet 2 Classroom 9 Classroom 10 Staffroom
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Art room Art store Craft store Pottery store Generalpractical 2 (art and craft/pottery)
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KEY 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.
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87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.
Classroom 5 Music room store store store Classroom 6 Classroom 4
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Maths Store Store Duct Flues Store Boys toilet
2nd and 3rd Floors.
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Classroom 8 Classroom 7 Medical inspection store store Geography store
A Study o f Movement in a School Building
In the case of both actual and standard movement, the contribution of the caretaker, the visitors and inspectors, the kitchen staff, and the s e c r e t a r y (none of whom is directly involved in the activities of teaching and learning)--is comparatively very small. One would, therefore, expect their share in dictating the school plan as a whole to be in that same proportion. F r o m the actual movement point of view, the pupils are the indisputably dominant factor. But, when standard movement is considered, this dominance is shared with the teachers. The latter seems to be the more acceptable idea, since it provides a reasonable balance between the overall importance of movement by these two categories.
(a) Grand total o f all movement Table 3 shows that a quite formidable amount of movement occurs--at the rate of approximately 694 actual journeys per working hour. The justifi= able concern over this is increased by the fact that the teaching staff regard movement as a nuisance, since it generates noise and vibrational disturbances t o t h e school work, and, moreover, tends to result in an unwelcome delay in the start of lesson periods. Table 3 26,026 57,410
(i) Total, in actual journeys (ii) Total, in standard journeys
283
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(It is sometimes alleged that movement between spaces may be welcome as the only means of providing relaxation in the school; this view is firmly rejected by most of the teachers in this school who argue that ample relaxation can be obtained within many single spaces, such as the playground, the gymnasium, the staff room, etc.) I f it is assumed that this large amount of interchange between school spaces is necessitated by the nature of the school activities and is, therefore, inevitable, to its proper function; the only means to improvement seems to lie in the minimization of the total distance (and time) covered. This leads to the question of whether the variation in distance-costs of alternative school layouts is in fact large enough to justify the search for the layout of minimum cost, The answer can, however, only be found when the results are scrutinized in more detail.
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Table 4 shows how the various categories of people contribute to the total movement in the school and how their relative contributions are affected by weighting. This result can be more clearly seen in histogram form (figure 2).
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Fig. 2. Numbers of actual and standard journeys made by various categories of people over a representative period of time.
Table 4 Actual movement No. of percentage actual of total journeys movement Pupils General Teaching Staff Deputy Head Teacher Caretaker Head Teacher Kitchen Staff Visitors and School Inspectors Secretary
22,847 2131 313 257 169 135 109 64
88 8 1 1 1 1 0 0
Standard movement No. of percentage standard of total journeys movement Pupils General Teaching Staff Deputy Head Teacher Head Teacher Caretaker Visitors and School Inspectors Kitchen Staff Secretary
22,847 22,283 5006 3463 1987 1143 430 252
40 39 9 6 3 2 1 0
O. M . A g r a a and B. Whitehead
284
It m a y , a c c o r d i n g l y , b e a s s u m e d t h a t s a l a r i e s a n d education costs provide a reasonable pointer towards the correct weightings which ought to be u s e d in a s c h o o l o f t h i s type. I t is i n t e r e s t i n g t o n o t e t h a t t h e i n d i v i d u a l p e r s o n s doing the greatest amount of standard movement a r e in f a c t t h e D e p u t y H e a d T e a c h e r , t h e H e a d T e a c h e r , a n d t h e C a r e t a k e r in t h a t o r d e r . T h i s is
due to their additional supervisory capacities. But, s i n c e t h e r e is o n l y o n e o f e a c h o f t h e s e t y p e s o f person, the overall influence of each amounts to m u c h less t h a n t h a t o f t h e p u p i l s o r t e a c h e r s . The relevance of the contribution of the various categories of people to the planning process b e c o m e s m o r e a p p a r e n t w h e n m o v e m e n t is seen f r o m t h e p o i n t o f v i e w o f t h e c o n s t i t u e n t spaces.
Table 5 i
Actual movement
Standard movement
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c3~ External entrances Playground Assembly hall Boys' toilet 3 Head Teacher's and Secretary's office Dining hall and Kitchen Staff room Boys' toilets 4 and 5 Boys' toilet 1 Geography room Classroom 9 Classroom l0 Classroom 7 Changing and Gymnasium Classroom 1 Classroom 5 Classroom 8 Classroom 3 Classroom 12
7089 5066 2897 2119 2089 1894 1837 1708 1648 1596 1572 1428 1333 1324 1253 1230 1204 1129 1075
27 19 11 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4
20
Library
1022
4
857 844 834 810 790 783 778 714 706 703 668 649 637 529 360 321
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1
Staff room Head Teacher's and Secretary's office External entrances Playground Assembly hall Dining hall and Kitchen Male and Female Staff toilets Deputy Head Teacher's office Classroom 1 Geography Room Classroom 9 Boys' toilet 3 Classroom 10 Changing and Gymnasium Library Metalwork 1 and 2 Boys' toilets 4 and 5 Classroom 3 Classroom 5 Caretakers', Cleaners', "] Central store and Medical}Inspection rooms J Classroom 8 Boys' toilet 1 Woodwork 1 and 2 Classroom 7 Classroom 12 General practical 1 and 2 Science laboratories 1, 2 and 3 Classroom 4 Classroom 13 Mathematics room Classroom 14 Art room Classroom 6 Classroom 11 Classroom 2 Boys' toilet 2
257
1
253 41 2
t 0 0
Classroom l Classroom 6 Mathematics room Metalwork 1 and 2 Classroom 13 Science laboratories l, 2 and 3 Classroom 2 Woodwork l and 2 General practical 1 and 2 Classroom 14 Art room Boys' toilet 2 Classroom 4 Lecture theatre Male and Female Staff toilets Deputy Head Teacher's office rCaretaker's, Cleaners', "1 37 -~ Central store and Medical ~[.Inspection rooms _J 38 Boys' cloakrooms 1 and 3 39 Boiler house t40 Boys' cloakroom 2
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 l0 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
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19258 12362 10634 6525 4975 4505 3754 3630 2678 2432 2421 2338 2319 2253 2002 1961 1922 1915 1862
34 22 19 1I 9 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3
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1784 1743 1714 1702 1537 1464 1461 1344 1326 1218 1175 1161 1161 1148 1068 812
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 I
Lecture theatre
790
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Boys' cloakrooms 1 and 3 Boiler house Boys' cloakroom 2
345 314 2
1 1 0
* 1. The maximum percentage per space is 100 per cent of the total number of journeys. 2. The sum of percentages for all spaces is 200 per cent of the total number of journeys--because each journey is shared by 2 spaces. This explanation is necessary to remove the apparant ambiguity when reference is made to a number of spaces as totalling more than 100 per cent. 3. Percentages are given to the nearest whole number. ~"Notice that the total number of spaces has been reduced from the original 53-40 in Table 5, by grouping several spaces into one; this shortening of the list is merely a means towards simplicity of presentation.
A Study of Movement in a School Building (c) Spaces in order of generated movement The first thing to be noticed in Table 5 is the wide range in the amount of movement generated by the various spaces e.g. the staff room generates 34 per cent, whilst a number of spaces fall in the 0-1 per cent category. This means that the various spaces are far from being of equal overall importance from the movement point of view and, consequently, provides strong preliminary evidence that ~,ariations in the distance-costs of alternative layouts of the school may be large enough to justify the efforts entailed in seeking the layout of least cost. Another point to be noticed is that the Staff Room, the Head Teacher's and Secretary's office, the External entrances, the Playground, the Assembly hall, and the Dining hall and Kitchen occur at the top of both lists and between them are involved in 79 per cent of the total and actual movement, and 103 per cent of the total standard movement. (See * under Table 5.) One would, therefore, strongly expect these spaces to be located somewhere near the centre of the school plan. It is interesting to note that none of these spaces is used for teaching--they are actually either administrative or communal. The greatest concentration of actual movement involves the External entrances and the Playground, followed by the Assembly hall. When movement by the staff is emphasized by the introduction of weighting factors they are, however, definitely subordinate in importance to the Staff room and the Head Teacher's office. The competition to occupy the very nucleus of the plan is, therefore, restricted to these five spaces and the winner is decided by how important the staff's movement is considered to be in relation to the pupils' movement. In the detailed list of 53 spaces from which Table 5 is derived the Boys' cloakroom 2, the Female Staff toilet, the Medical Inspection room and the Cleaners' room were together involved in less than 1 per cent of the total (actual and standard) movement. As individual spaces they are, therefore, of least influence on movement cost and should apparently be placed in the furthest locations from the centre of the plan. (In fact, since the Boy's Cloakroom 2 is so little used in the particular school, it has been decided to convert it to a completely different function.) The remaining spaces, e.g. the Boys' toilets, the Teaching rooms, etc., lie in the middle of the table, each space being concerned with an amount of movement within the range of 1-6 per cent of the total. These would seem to claim locations round the central part of the school plan rather than within it. As a whole, the Boys' toilets contribute a substantial 25 per cent of the total actual movement. The ones on the ground and top floors are most used but those on other floors also justify their existence. This, plus the fact that there is hardly any movement at all between the various toilets
285
themselves (see figure 3), would seem to suggest that there should be a number of boys' toilets distributed around the school building, rather than one or two centralized units. The in-out traffic from the site (i.e. traffic entailing the External entrances) takes 27 per cent of the total actual movement and 19 per cent of the standard. This shows how important it is to think, not only in terms of relating the rooms to each other, but also to the external entrances and the site as a whole. The inferences drawn from the above table deal with the general priorities of various spaces to be near to the centre of activities in the plan. But planning entails also deciding the priorities of each pair of spaces to be near to each other. These decisions can only be made after seeing the movement figures in the form of an association chart involving all pairs of spaces. (d) Association chart for all spaces (see figure 3) It has been shown in some of the previous paragraphs that the total movement generated by each of the various single spaces varies enormously. This is now seen to be also true of the movement between each of the different pairings--the range being from 0 to 684 actual journeys, and from 0 to 4421 standard journeys. It is direct evidence that big differences are liable to occur in the movement--cost of alternative layouts of spaces in a school building and the case for using movement as a planning factor in school design with the intention o f minimizing its cost, is thereby strengthened. Another feature of the figures is that the majority of spaces have their links established with several rather than with one or two other spaces; the number and strength of links is particularly great in the case of the administrative and communal spaces, e.g. the Head Teacher's office and the Dining hall. This shows that the functional relationships between spaces are very complex and points to the inadequacy of guesswork in establishing such data and in interpreting it into a plan form. Attention is drawn to the existence of particularly strong links between the External entrances on one hand, and the Dining hall, the Assembly hall, and the Playground on the other. Strong links also occur between the Playground and the Boys' toilets. The links between the Head Teacher's Office and the Staff room, and between the latter and the Male Staff toilet are less than those mentioned above if comparison is based on the number of actual journeys, but are much greater if standard journeys are considered. Other links that increase in relative importance when standard movement is considered include those between the Head Teacher's office and the Staff room on one hand, and the Dining and Assembly halls on the other. The conclusion that might then be drawn is that the greater the weight placed on staff movement, the
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O. M. Agraa and B. Whitehead
greater is the tendency for the administrative spaces to outweight the influence of the Playground, External entrances and Boys' toilets in attracting the communal spaces in the plan to themselves. Yet another point worth mentioning is that the amount of movement between one classroom and another is quite small in comparison to that between classrooms and other school spaces. There seems to be no functional justification, therefore, for the currently fashionable practice of grouping the classrooms together, whilst separating them from the rest of the school plan.
3. PLANNING FOR MINIMUM MOVEMENT COST Possibly the best way to consolidate the above general comments is to produce an overall layout, taking all the data into account. A computer program has already been developed[2, 3] to translate the inter-relationships between activities into a logical, single-storey layout. The two main points of the concept behind the program are: (a) Any activity is considered for location in the plan only when it has a higher priority than any of Head teacher's and Secretary's office Deputy head teacher's office
2
Staff room
3
Staff toilet
4
M . I . Store. Caretaker's, Cleaners
5
Assembly hall
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i 6
Dining Hall and kitchen
7
Changing rooms and Gymnasium
8 1
Boy's cloakrooms (l&3)
9
Boy's toilet I
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II
Boy's toilet 3
12
Boy's toilet 4 (4&5)
13
Playground
14
External entrances
15
Boiler House
16
Library
17
Lecture theatre
18
Geography room
19
Maths room
20
Science labs (I.2&3)
21
Art room
22
GeneraP practical (l&2)
23
Metalwork (l&2)
24
Woodwork (l&2)
25
Classroom I
26
Classroom 2
27
Classroom 3
28
Classroom 4
29
Classroom 5
30
Classroom 6
31
Classroom 7
32
Classroom 8
33
Classroom 9
34
Classroom I0
35
Classroom I I
36
Classroom 12
37
Classroom 13
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Association chart showing 'standard' movement between locations in the school.
287
A Study o f Movement in a School Building
the remaining unlocated activities (by having the strongest links with previously located ones). (b) When it is the turn for an activity to be located, the vacant location which has minimum distance-cost at that particular stage in the development of the plan is selected. In effect, the program provides a systematic short-cut towards achieving the layout of minimum distance--cost by the quick elimination of all the unpromising, alternative layouts. It has been used with the weighted data presented in the association chart (figure 3), the minimum cost to be sought in this case being that entailed by movement only. The results, in the form of an abstract plan (i.e. a single-storey grouping of spaces without any corridors or windows--see figure 4), forms a suitable basis for making some generalizations as to the influence of movement on the planning of schools of a similar type. The abstract plan clearly embodies all the features suggested by the analysis in 2 above--i.e, an administrative and communal core, its strong links with the External entrances and the Playground, the scattered groups of classrooms, and the evenly distributed Boys' toilets, etc. As may be expected, the plan shows the need for attention to be paid to other planning requirements if a practical version is to be found; it illustrates how consideration of movement alone may unfavourably result in placing a quiet area, such as Classroom 9, next to a noisy one, such as the Dining Hall, Metalwork, or the Gymnasium; and how this may be accompanied by impractical conditions of daylighting and ventilation as various areas, if not subjected to restrictions in the computer program, tend to close in on each other and deprive many areas of their external walls. (Amendments are currently being
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(a) It is assumed to be necessary to adhere to the arrangement in the abstract plan as much as possible. This is most critical at the centre and, accordingly, the locations there--i.e, those occupied by the Administrative spaces, the Entrances, the Assembly hall, the Dining hall, and the Playground--are hardly altered. (b) Round the periphery, it is possible to bring some of the rooms nearer to the centre horizontally by raising them vertically to the first or second floors. This might be found to be necessary in order to provide particular rooms with some external walls to facilitate natural daylighting and ventilation. Moreover, it allows the reduction of the horizontal area of the building to fit a particular size and shape of site. (c) The administrative rooms, which should form the centre of the building, are placed in the first floor at a strategic position which is easy to reach from all points in the same or other floors. (d) The noisy Woodwork rooms have to be moved from their theoretical location near the quiet classrooms. A better place for them from the environmental point of view is the first floor over the Metalwork Rooms, near the Dining hall and the Gymnasium, all of which house noisy activities.
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
Sciencelaboratories 1, 2 and 3 Art room Boys' toilet 4 (4 and 5) General practical 1 and 2 Geography room Classroom 13 Classroom 7 Classroom 6 Maths room Boys' cloakroom 1 and 3 Classroom 8 Boys' toilet Classroom 2 Classroom 10 Classroom 4 Classroom 11 Entrance Assembly hall Classroom 1
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21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.
Staff room Male and female staff toilets D e p u t y head teacher's office Woodwork 1 and 2 Medical insp., store, caretaker and cleaners Classroom 5 Classroom 14 Boilerhouse Classroom 3 Boys' toilet 2 Metalwork 1 and 2 Classroom 9 Library Dining hall and kitchen Changing rooms and gymnasium Classroom 12 Boys' toilet 3 Lecture theatre
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General practical 2 General practical 1 Boys' toilet 4 Classroom 7 C l a s s r o o m 13 Boys' cloakroom Classroom 8 C l a s s r o o m 10 Classroom 4 Boys' cloakroom Classroom 1 Classroom 5 Classroom 3 Boys' cloakroom Caretaker Store M.I. Boys' toilet 2 Cleaners Metalwork 1 Metalwork 2 Dining hall and kitchen Changing rooms and gymnasium Entrance hall
25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.
Assembly hall Art room Science l a b o r a t o r y 1 Boys' t o i l e t 3 Geography room Classroom 2 C l a s s r o o m II Boys' toilet 1 Music room Staff toilet Deputy head teacher Staff r o o m Head teacher and secretary Library Lecture theatre Woodwork I Woodwork 2 Science l a b o r a t o r y 3 Science l a b o r a t o r y 2 Classrooms 6 Maths room C l a s s r o o m 14 Classroom 9 Boys' t o i l e t 5 C l a s s r o o m 12
A Study of Movement in a School Building (e) The Lecture theatre, the Library, and Classrooms 9 and 12 are repositioned in the nearest quiet zone. As a whole, however, it is remarkable how little change in the original relative positions of spaces is necessary even after the consideration of factors other than movement. 4. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS Movement in a school building is quite substantial. From a functional point of view, the most logical plan is the one that gives rise to the least distance-cost. Such a plan will, generally speaking, if conceived as a single-storey complex, display the following characteristics: (a) The centre will be occupied by the administrative rooms--i.e, the Staff room, the Head Teacher's and the Deputy Head Teacher's offices. The communal rooms--i.e, the Assembly and Dining hall, etc.--come next in importance, and are followed by the Playground and external entrances. The various Boys' toilets and Teaching rooms will form an outer ring to the above complex and the remaining spaces such as the Boiler house, Store, Medical inspection room and Cleaners' room, being themselves unimportant in the movement pattern, will be fitted into spaces in which they do not interfere with the interconnections of other activities.
289
(b) The Classrooms will not be grouped together in a separate block; they will instead form satellites round the central administrative and communal spaces with which they interact the most. The salaries of the members of the staff and the cost of educating a pupil together appear to form a fair basis for the relative weighting of movement by the various categories of people in the school. Generally speaking, when the weight of movement by the staff is increased with respect to that of the movement by pupils, the result will be a greater tendency for the administrative spaces to oust the communal ones from the central position in the plan. The relative positions of the teaching rooms, however, are hardly affected by such an increase. This study has dwelt exclusively on movement and function. The obvious fact is that these, important though they are, must not be considered to be everything in school planning. The best solution in any particular case must also be able to meet the restrictions imposed by the need for the control of noise, vibrations, smells, fire, and privacy; it must also meet those restrictions originating from the limitations of site dimensions, topography, soil formations, and any other unique qualities of the locality. When all this has been done, the plan can then claim to form an overall answer to the particular problem in hand.
REFERENCES 1. MINISTRYOF EDUCATION,Building Bulletin No. 2A, New Secondary Schools: Supplement, H.M.S.O. (1954). 2. B. WHITEHEADand M. Z. ELDARS,The planning of single-storey layouts, Building Sci. 1, 127 (1965). 3. E. HAFEZ,O. M. AGRAAand B. WHITEHEAD,Automation of data preparation in computer programme for the planning of single-storey layouts, Building Sci. 2, 83 (1967).
Les auteurs (membres de la Facult6 des Sciences des B~ttiments de l'Universit6 de Liverpool) apr~s avoir 6tudi6 l'activit6 du personnel, des 6coliers, ainsi que des autres appartenant ~t l'ensemble d'une Ecole Secondaire Moderne, sont arriv6s ~t une conclusion provisionnelle. Notamment, certaines suppositions pos6es g6n6ralement, ayant pour objet un plan d'ensemble des 6coles de la sorte se puissent r6v61er comme non applicable. Propositions ont 6t6 faites ayant pour but l'etablissement d'un plan comprenant les frais minimum d'organisation de l'ensemble. Die Verfasser (Mitglieder der Abteilung Bauwissenschaft, Universit~it Liverpool) haben die gesamte T/itigkeit des Personals, der Schiiler u.a. in einer Modernen H6heren Schule studiert und versuchsweise Schliisse gezogen, die darauf hindeuten, dab einige allgemein gemachten Annahmen beim Planen der Anlage solcher Schulen giiltig sein kSnnen. Hinweise auf einen Plan, der ein Minimum an T/itigkeitskosten einschilel3t, sind gegeben.
(97)
U D C 727.2
A Study of Movement in a School Building O. M. A G R A A * B. W H I T E H E A D *
The authors (members of the Department of Building Science, University of Liverpool) have studied the movement of staff, pupils and others in a Secondary Modern School and have drawn tentative conclusions, which suggest that some assumptions generally made in planning the layout of such schools may not be valid. Suggestions leading towards a plan involving minimum movement cost are given. Table I
1. I N T R O D U C T I O N
i
T H E M I N I S T R Y of Education in 1954 said that: ' Movement in a secondary school is frequent and c o m p l e x . . . So far as possible, all these movements must be analysed before planning work is begun, so that they can be taken into account in the layout of the accommodation '[1]. Nevertheless, no comprehensive survey of movement in a school building is known to have been published as yet. The following is a report on such a study carried out by the authors in a Secondary Modern school for boys, in Liverpool. The aim was to find out how the various parts of this type of school inter-relate functionally, and how the actual plan should ideally embody the inter-relationship. In general, the greater the number of schools studied, the more accurate are the inferences to be drawn; this study had, however, to be confined to one school because of the limited time and facilities available. Care was taken in selecting the school as fairly typical in size, type of education and contemporary plan form (figure la-c). The recent design of the building implied that changes were not likely to have taken place in its initial function and the original planner's decisions could be fairly appraised. Two different means were used in the collection o f d a t a " the portion of movement already recorded in the school timetable was extracted from that document, whilst the remainder was covered by a sampling survey extending over 40 working days. The number of journeys between 53 school spaces was recorded for each of 8 categories of people. The details of these categories are set out in Table 1. A computer program was used for the ultimate analysis of the recorded data because of the amount of arithmetic entailed.
Category Head Teacher Secretary Deputy Head Teacher General Teaching Staff Visitors and School Inspectors Caretaker Kitchen Staff Pupils
1 1 I 1 1 1 20 20 (change from day to day) 1 1 6 6 400 400
Also to be noted is the fact that all the results are given in terms of actual journeys and ' s t a n d a r d ' journeys. The former is the true, unmodified number of movements, while the latter takes into account the idea that different weightings need to be attached to the movement made by different categories of people. Several sets of weightings were experimented with. The one presented in Table 2 and discussed below is based on the annual salaries of the various categories of staff and on the annual costs of educating a pupil, the latter value being taken as the standard weighting,
Table 2
Category Head Teacher Secretary Deputy Head Teacher General Teaching Staff Visitors and School Inspectors Caretaker Kitchen Staff Pupils (Standard Weighting Y)
2. D I S C U S S I O N OF R E S U L T S It is to be noted that all the figures presented in this discussion apply to one complete work cycle, i.e. Monday to Friday inclusive.
Weighting Approximate annual salary or cost (X) Weighting (£) factor (X/Y) 2250 432 1760 1150 1150* 850 350 110
20.45 3.93 16-00 10.45 10"45 7"73 3.27 1"00
* Figure obtained by assuming that a member of thiscategory is as important as a member of the general teaching staff.
* Department of Building Science, University of Liverpool. 279 A
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12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
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23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.
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Fig. 1. A typical Secondary Modern School for boys.
33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.
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A Study of Movement in a School Building
281
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52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.
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60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.
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lstFloor.
67. 68. 69. 70. 71.
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KEY 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.
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87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.
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A Study o f Movement in a School Building
In the case of both actual and standard movement, the contribution of the caretaker, the visitors and inspectors, the kitchen staff, and the s e c r e t a r y (none of whom is directly involved in the activities of teaching and learning)--is comparatively very small. One would, therefore, expect their share in dictating the school plan as a whole to be in that same proportion. F r o m the actual movement point of view, the pupils are the indisputably dominant factor. But, when standard movement is considered, this dominance is shared with the teachers. The latter seems to be the more acceptable idea, since it provides a reasonable balance between the overall importance of movement by these two categories.
(a) Grand total o f all movement Table 3 shows that a quite formidable amount of movement occurs--at the rate of approximately 694 actual journeys per working hour. The justifi= able concern over this is increased by the fact that the teaching staff regard movement as a nuisance, since it generates noise and vibrational disturbances t o t h e school work, and, moreover, tends to result in an unwelcome delay in the start of lesson periods. Table 3 26,026 57,410
(i) Total, in actual journeys (ii) Total, in standard journeys
283
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(It is sometimes alleged that movement between spaces may be welcome as the only means of providing relaxation in the school; this view is firmly rejected by most of the teachers in this school who argue that ample relaxation can be obtained within many single spaces, such as the playground, the gymnasium, the staff room, etc.) I f it is assumed that this large amount of interchange between school spaces is necessitated by the nature of the school activities and is, therefore, inevitable, to its proper function; the only means to improvement seems to lie in the minimization of the total distance (and time) covered. This leads to the question of whether the variation in distance-costs of alternative school layouts is in fact large enough to justify the search for the layout of minimum cost, The answer can, however, only be found when the results are scrutinized in more detail.
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Table 4 Actual movement No. of percentage actual of total journeys movement Pupils General Teaching Staff Deputy Head Teacher Caretaker Head Teacher Kitchen Staff Visitors and School Inspectors Secretary
22,847 2131 313 257 169 135 109 64
88 8 1 1 1 1 0 0
Standard movement No. of percentage standard of total journeys movement Pupils General Teaching Staff Deputy Head Teacher Head Teacher Caretaker Visitors and School Inspectors Kitchen Staff Secretary
22,847 22,283 5006 3463 1987 1143 430 252
40 39 9 6 3 2 1 0
O. M . A g r a a and B. Whitehead
284
It m a y , a c c o r d i n g l y , b e a s s u m e d t h a t s a l a r i e s a n d education costs provide a reasonable pointer towards the correct weightings which ought to be u s e d in a s c h o o l o f t h i s type. I t is i n t e r e s t i n g t o n o t e t h a t t h e i n d i v i d u a l p e r s o n s doing the greatest amount of standard movement a r e in f a c t t h e D e p u t y H e a d T e a c h e r , t h e H e a d T e a c h e r , a n d t h e C a r e t a k e r in t h a t o r d e r . T h i s is
due to their additional supervisory capacities. But, s i n c e t h e r e is o n l y o n e o f e a c h o f t h e s e t y p e s o f person, the overall influence of each amounts to m u c h less t h a n t h a t o f t h e p u p i l s o r t e a c h e r s . The relevance of the contribution of the various categories of people to the planning process b e c o m e s m o r e a p p a r e n t w h e n m o v e m e n t is seen f r o m t h e p o i n t o f v i e w o f t h e c o n s t i t u e n t spaces.
Table 5 i
Actual movement
Standard movement
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c3~ External entrances Playground Assembly hall Boys' toilet 3 Head Teacher's and Secretary's office Dining hall and Kitchen Staff room Boys' toilets 4 and 5 Boys' toilet 1 Geography room Classroom 9 Classroom l0 Classroom 7 Changing and Gymnasium Classroom 1 Classroom 5 Classroom 8 Classroom 3 Classroom 12
7089 5066 2897 2119 2089 1894 1837 1708 1648 1596 1572 1428 1333 1324 1253 1230 1204 1129 1075
27 19 11 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4
20
Library
1022
4
857 844 834 810 790 783 778 714 706 703 668 649 637 529 360 321
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1
Staff room Head Teacher's and Secretary's office External entrances Playground Assembly hall Dining hall and Kitchen Male and Female Staff toilets Deputy Head Teacher's office Classroom 1 Geography Room Classroom 9 Boys' toilet 3 Classroom 10 Changing and Gymnasium Library Metalwork 1 and 2 Boys' toilets 4 and 5 Classroom 3 Classroom 5 Caretakers', Cleaners', "] Central store and Medical}Inspection rooms J Classroom 8 Boys' toilet 1 Woodwork 1 and 2 Classroom 7 Classroom 12 General practical 1 and 2 Science laboratories 1, 2 and 3 Classroom 4 Classroom 13 Mathematics room Classroom 14 Art room Classroom 6 Classroom 11 Classroom 2 Boys' toilet 2
257
1
253 41 2
t 0 0
Classroom l Classroom 6 Mathematics room Metalwork 1 and 2 Classroom 13 Science laboratories l, 2 and 3 Classroom 2 Woodwork l and 2 General practical 1 and 2 Classroom 14 Art room Boys' toilet 2 Classroom 4 Lecture theatre Male and Female Staff toilets Deputy Head Teacher's office rCaretaker's, Cleaners', "1 37 -~ Central store and Medical ~[.Inspection rooms _J 38 Boys' cloakrooms 1 and 3 39 Boiler house t40 Boys' cloakroom 2
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 l0 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
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19258 12362 10634 6525 4975 4505 3754 3630 2678 2432 2421 2338 2319 2253 2002 1961 1922 1915 1862
34 22 19 1I 9 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3
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1784 1743 1714 1702 1537 1464 1461 1344 1326 1218 1175 1161 1161 1148 1068 812
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 I
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790
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Boys' cloakrooms 1 and 3 Boiler house Boys' cloakroom 2
345 314 2
1 1 0
* 1. The maximum percentage per space is 100 per cent of the total number of journeys. 2. The sum of percentages for all spaces is 200 per cent of the total number of journeys--because each journey is shared by 2 spaces. This explanation is necessary to remove the apparant ambiguity when reference is made to a number of spaces as totalling more than 100 per cent. 3. Percentages are given to the nearest whole number. ~"Notice that the total number of spaces has been reduced from the original 53-40 in Table 5, by grouping several spaces into one; this shortening of the list is merely a means towards simplicity of presentation.
A Study of Movement in a School Building (c) Spaces in order of generated movement The first thing to be noticed in Table 5 is the wide range in the amount of movement generated by the various spaces e.g. the staff room generates 34 per cent, whilst a number of spaces fall in the 0-1 per cent category. This means that the various spaces are far from being of equal overall importance from the movement point of view and, consequently, provides strong preliminary evidence that ~,ariations in the distance-costs of alternative layouts of the school may be large enough to justify the efforts entailed in seeking the layout of least cost. Another point to be noticed is that the Staff Room, the Head Teacher's and Secretary's office, the External entrances, the Playground, the Assembly hall, and the Dining hall and Kitchen occur at the top of both lists and between them are involved in 79 per cent of the total and actual movement, and 103 per cent of the total standard movement. (See * under Table 5.) One would, therefore, strongly expect these spaces to be located somewhere near the centre of the school plan. It is interesting to note that none of these spaces is used for teaching--they are actually either administrative or communal. The greatest concentration of actual movement involves the External entrances and the Playground, followed by the Assembly hall. When movement by the staff is emphasized by the introduction of weighting factors they are, however, definitely subordinate in importance to the Staff room and the Head Teacher's office. The competition to occupy the very nucleus of the plan is, therefore, restricted to these five spaces and the winner is decided by how important the staff's movement is considered to be in relation to the pupils' movement. In the detailed list of 53 spaces from which Table 5 is derived the Boys' cloakroom 2, the Female Staff toilet, the Medical Inspection room and the Cleaners' room were together involved in less than 1 per cent of the total (actual and standard) movement. As individual spaces they are, therefore, of least influence on movement cost and should apparently be placed in the furthest locations from the centre of the plan. (In fact, since the Boy's Cloakroom 2 is so little used in the particular school, it has been decided to convert it to a completely different function.) The remaining spaces, e.g. the Boys' toilets, the Teaching rooms, etc., lie in the middle of the table, each space being concerned with an amount of movement within the range of 1-6 per cent of the total. These would seem to claim locations round the central part of the school plan rather than within it. As a whole, the Boys' toilets contribute a substantial 25 per cent of the total actual movement. The ones on the ground and top floors are most used but those on other floors also justify their existence. This, plus the fact that there is hardly any movement at all between the various toilets
285
themselves (see figure 3), would seem to suggest that there should be a number of boys' toilets distributed around the school building, rather than one or two centralized units. The in-out traffic from the site (i.e. traffic entailing the External entrances) takes 27 per cent of the total actual movement and 19 per cent of the standard. This shows how important it is to think, not only in terms of relating the rooms to each other, but also to the external entrances and the site as a whole. The inferences drawn from the above table deal with the general priorities of various spaces to be near to the centre of activities in the plan. But planning entails also deciding the priorities of each pair of spaces to be near to each other. These decisions can only be made after seeing the movement figures in the form of an association chart involving all pairs of spaces. (d) Association chart for all spaces (see figure 3) It has been shown in some of the previous paragraphs that the total movement generated by each of the various single spaces varies enormously. This is now seen to be also true of the movement between each of the different pairings--the range being from 0 to 684 actual journeys, and from 0 to 4421 standard journeys. It is direct evidence that big differences are liable to occur in the movement--cost of alternative layouts of spaces in a school building and the case for using movement as a planning factor in school design with the intention o f minimizing its cost, is thereby strengthened. Another feature of the figures is that the majority of spaces have their links established with several rather than with one or two other spaces; the number and strength of links is particularly great in the case of the administrative and communal spaces, e.g. the Head Teacher's office and the Dining hall. This shows that the functional relationships between spaces are very complex and points to the inadequacy of guesswork in establishing such data and in interpreting it into a plan form. Attention is drawn to the existence of particularly strong links between the External entrances on one hand, and the Dining hall, the Assembly hall, and the Playground on the other. Strong links also occur between the Playground and the Boys' toilets. The links between the Head Teacher's Office and the Staff room, and between the latter and the Male Staff toilet are less than those mentioned above if comparison is based on the number of actual journeys, but are much greater if standard journeys are considered. Other links that increase in relative importance when standard movement is considered include those between the Head Teacher's office and the Staff room on one hand, and the Dining and Assembly halls on the other. The conclusion that might then be drawn is that the greater the weight placed on staff movement, the
286
O. M. Agraa and B. Whitehead
greater is the tendency for the administrative spaces to outweight the influence of the Playground, External entrances and Boys' toilets in attracting the communal spaces in the plan to themselves. Yet another point worth mentioning is that the amount of movement between one classroom and another is quite small in comparison to that between classrooms and other school spaces. There seems to be no functional justification, therefore, for the currently fashionable practice of grouping the classrooms together, whilst separating them from the rest of the school plan.
3. PLANNING FOR MINIMUM MOVEMENT COST Possibly the best way to consolidate the above general comments is to produce an overall layout, taking all the data into account. A computer program has already been developed[2, 3] to translate the inter-relationships between activities into a logical, single-storey layout. The two main points of the concept behind the program are: (a) Any activity is considered for location in the plan only when it has a higher priority than any of Head teacher's and Secretary's office Deputy head teacher's office
2
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3
Staff toilet
4
M . I . Store. Caretaker's, Cleaners
5
Assembly hall
Fig. 3.
i 6
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7
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8 1
Boy's cloakrooms (l&3)
9
Boy's toilet I
I0
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II
Boy's toilet 3
12
Boy's toilet 4 (4&5)
13
Playground
14
External entrances
15
Boiler House
16
Library
17
Lecture theatre
18
Geography room
19
Maths room
20
Science labs (I.2&3)
21
Art room
22
GeneraP practical (l&2)
23
Metalwork (l&2)
24
Woodwork (l&2)
25
Classroom I
26
Classroom 2
27
Classroom 3
28
Classroom 4
29
Classroom 5
30
Classroom 6
31
Classroom 7
32
Classroom 8
33
Classroom 9
34
Classroom I0
35
Classroom I I
36
Classroom 12
37
Classroom 13
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287
A Study o f Movement in a School Building
the remaining unlocated activities (by having the strongest links with previously located ones). (b) When it is the turn for an activity to be located, the vacant location which has minimum distance-cost at that particular stage in the development of the plan is selected. In effect, the program provides a systematic short-cut towards achieving the layout of minimum distance--cost by the quick elimination of all the unpromising, alternative layouts. It has been used with the weighted data presented in the association chart (figure 3), the minimum cost to be sought in this case being that entailed by movement only. The results, in the form of an abstract plan (i.e. a single-storey grouping of spaces without any corridors or windows--see figure 4), forms a suitable basis for making some generalizations as to the influence of movement on the planning of schools of a similar type. The abstract plan clearly embodies all the features suggested by the analysis in 2 above--i.e, an administrative and communal core, its strong links with the External entrances and the Playground, the scattered groups of classrooms, and the evenly distributed Boys' toilets, etc. As may be expected, the plan shows the need for attention to be paid to other planning requirements if a practical version is to be found; it illustrates how consideration of movement alone may unfavourably result in placing a quiet area, such as Classroom 9, next to a noisy one, such as the Dining Hall, Metalwork, or the Gymnasium; and how this may be accompanied by impractical conditions of daylighting and ventilation as various areas, if not subjected to restrictions in the computer program, tend to close in on each other and deprive many areas of their external walls. (Amendments are currently being
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
Sciencelaboratories 1, 2 and 3 Art room Boys' toilet 4 (4 and 5) General practical 1 and 2 Geography room Classroom 13 Classroom 7 Classroom 6 Maths room Boys' cloakroom 1 and 3 Classroom 8 Boys' toilet Classroom 2 Classroom 10 Classroom 4 Classroom 11 Entrance Assembly hall Classroom 1
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General practical 2 General practical 1 Boys' toilet 4 Classroom 7 C l a s s r o o m 13 Boys' cloakroom Classroom 8 C l a s s r o o m 10 Classroom 4 Boys' cloakroom Classroom 1 Classroom 5 Classroom 3 Boys' cloakroom Caretaker Store M.I. Boys' toilet 2 Cleaners Metalwork 1 Metalwork 2 Dining hall and kitchen Changing rooms and gymnasium Entrance hall
25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.
Assembly hall Art room Science l a b o r a t o r y 1 Boys' t o i l e t 3 Geography room Classroom 2 C l a s s r o o m II Boys' toilet 1 Music room Staff toilet Deputy head teacher Staff r o o m Head teacher and secretary Library Lecture theatre Woodwork I Woodwork 2 Science l a b o r a t o r y 3 Science l a b o r a t o r y 2 Classrooms 6 Maths room C l a s s r o o m 14 Classroom 9 Boys' t o i l e t 5 C l a s s r o o m 12
A Study of Movement in a School Building (e) The Lecture theatre, the Library, and Classrooms 9 and 12 are repositioned in the nearest quiet zone. As a whole, however, it is remarkable how little change in the original relative positions of spaces is necessary even after the consideration of factors other than movement. 4. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS Movement in a school building is quite substantial. From a functional point of view, the most logical plan is the one that gives rise to the least distance-cost. Such a plan will, generally speaking, if conceived as a single-storey complex, display the following characteristics: (a) The centre will be occupied by the administrative rooms--i.e, the Staff room, the Head Teacher's and the Deputy Head Teacher's offices. The communal rooms--i.e, the Assembly and Dining hall, etc.--come next in importance, and are followed by the Playground and external entrances. The various Boys' toilets and Teaching rooms will form an outer ring to the above complex and the remaining spaces such as the Boiler house, Store, Medical inspection room and Cleaners' room, being themselves unimportant in the movement pattern, will be fitted into spaces in which they do not interfere with the interconnections of other activities.
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(b) The Classrooms will not be grouped together in a separate block; they will instead form satellites round the central administrative and communal spaces with which they interact the most. The salaries of the members of the staff and the cost of educating a pupil together appear to form a fair basis for the relative weighting of movement by the various categories of people in the school. Generally speaking, when the weight of movement by the staff is increased with respect to that of the movement by pupils, the result will be a greater tendency for the administrative spaces to oust the communal ones from the central position in the plan. The relative positions of the teaching rooms, however, are hardly affected by such an increase. This study has dwelt exclusively on movement and function. The obvious fact is that these, important though they are, must not be considered to be everything in school planning. The best solution in any particular case must also be able to meet the restrictions imposed by the need for the control of noise, vibrations, smells, fire, and privacy; it must also meet those restrictions originating from the limitations of site dimensions, topography, soil formations, and any other unique qualities of the locality. When all this has been done, the plan can then claim to form an overall answer to the particular problem in hand.
REFERENCES 1. MINISTRYOF EDUCATION,Building Bulletin No. 2A, New Secondary Schools: Supplement, H.M.S.O. (1954). 2. B. WHITEHEADand M. Z. ELDARS,The planning of single-storey layouts, Building Sci. 1, 127 (1965). 3. E. HAFEZ,O. M. AGRAAand B. WHITEHEAD,Automation of data preparation in computer programme for the planning of single-storey layouts, Building Sci. 2, 83 (1967).
Les auteurs (membres de la Facult6 des Sciences des B~ttiments de l'Universit6 de Liverpool) apr~s avoir 6tudi6 l'activit6 du personnel, des 6coliers, ainsi que des autres appartenant ~t l'ensemble d'une Ecole Secondaire Moderne, sont arriv6s ~t une conclusion provisionnelle. Notamment, certaines suppositions pos6es g6n6ralement, ayant pour objet un plan d'ensemble des 6coles de la sorte se puissent r6v61er comme non applicable. Propositions ont 6t6 faites ayant pour but l'etablissement d'un plan comprenant les frais minimum d'organisation de l'ensemble. Die Verfasser (Mitglieder der Abteilung Bauwissenschaft, Universit~it Liverpool) haben die gesamte T/itigkeit des Personals, der Schiiler u.a. in einer Modernen H6heren Schule studiert und versuchsweise Schliisse gezogen, die darauf hindeuten, dab einige allgemein gemachten Annahmen beim Planen der Anlage solcher Schulen giiltig sein kSnnen. Hinweise auf einen Plan, der ein Minimum an T/itigkeitskosten einschilel3t, sind gegeben.