ABSTRACT

School buildings have undergone significant changes in their structure, layout and interior organisation over the last centuries. This chapter recognises the importance of corridors and interspaces and aims to shed light on the configurational properties of corridors as well as the relationship between classrooms and corridors. It asks which pedagogical approaches are supported by the spatial structure of the school building and which role corridors play in this. The chapter argues that school buildings can be regarded as a pedagogical tool. It maintains that a nuanced understanding of configurational properties of school buildings analysing degrees of openness in order to understand their educational and social consequences is required. The chapter focuses on one spatial element and proposes that the relationship between corridors and classrooms give rise to different classifications of school buildings, which differ according to two dimensions: choice of movement and the connection between movement and occupation.