The school is a working and learning environment for very many people, children, youth and adults, every day. Thus, the school is not just important as an educational institution in society, but also important as a space where this education take place. School buildings and facilities are some of many factors important in the pupil’s school day and the teachers work. School activities take place in specific material environments: classrooms, school grounds, books and learning materials. The physical school environment affects the social life and our experiences of schooling and is part of an interaction where relationships between people, activities and surroundings are important for the pupil’s education, socialization and learning at school. Schools, like other constructed spaces, are built environments that convey potent messages about how to think and act within a particular milieu. The social patterning and learning processes which take place within a school are therefore intimately joined to their material context.

The aim of our research is to contribute with knowledge about how school buildings can be designed both in light of curricula, expectations of how the school can promote future skills and competencies of the pupils, but not least to know how the physical environment in the school can create equality for various learning styles among pupils, diversity and functional impairments, and thus could compensate for an increasing segregation in school and society.