engleski

School outdoor spaces in COVID-19 pandemic restrictions - Osijek’s primary schools’ analysis

Throughout the history, schools aspired to be viewed as a second home for children, a living place where they would spend time not only for educational purposes but also for play and leisure. In the last few decades, the importance of school outdoor spaces and its architecture has become increasingly visible to educators, architects and to the community. Research and advances in pedagogical science increase awareness of their importance in childrens’ education like the development of social skills, fine and gross motor skills and psychomotor development of children with various health difficulties. Additionally, COVID pandemic transformed the traditional spatial relationship between school buildings and school grounds, based on epidemiological restrictions and directed towards sustainable use of school space in changed circumstances. The pandemic also encouraged architects, scientists and users of educational institutions to actively consider the use of school outdoor spaces. This paper presents an analysis of existing primary schools’ outdoor spaces in the city of Osijek, Eastern Croatia, and a projection of their future sustainable potential, based on planning and design adapted to pandemic constraints. Numerical parameters of school outdoor spaces were researched such as area, ratio between indoor and outdoor spaces and the number of students, combined with data acquired through a survey on the status of outdoor spaces before and during the COVID pandemic. The results of our research recognized the large potential of outdoor spaces of most primary schools in Osijek, creating a basis for their sustainable transformation.

Covid ; school outdoor spaces ; outdoor classroom ; Osijek

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