ABSTRACT
A major influence on school design generally was the appearance of open-air schools, whose success received wide publicity, so that some of their features were incorporated in ordinary elementary schools. The central-hall schools had met a pressing problem by making it possible to accommodate large numbers in one school, particularly after the introduction of compulsory education. The rest period became an important feature of open-air school life, as the illustration from a London school suggests. From the point of view of organization, George Widdows stopped short of a revolutionary approach to school design, and experimented with several plans which included a central hall, although in each case the rooms were arranged to ensure that all were cross-ventilated. In some towns innovation was precluded by the problem of finding suitable building land, and many new schools had to be built on cramped, unsuitable sites.
