ABSTRACT
As Winston Churchill so memorably stated, ‘We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.’
This strategy is aimed at ensuring that all the elements of the indoor physical environment that may affect students’ ability to learn are optimal. It involves attending to such matters as the design and arrangement of furniture, acoustics, lighting, temperature, air quality and safety. It excludes consideration of the quality of the wider physical environment, such as the degradation caused by air and water pollution, natural disasters and conflict.1 I recognize, however, that such factors have serious deleterious effect on the physical health and neurologic development of children.2
