Learning spaces and classroom design

Learning environments, from traditional classrooms to hybrid and immersive virtual settings, fundamentally shape educational experiences. Classroom architecture is therefore far from neutral. It embodies pedagogical assumptions about authority, interaction, and learning itself.  

The rise of open-plan and flexible 21st-century learning spaces has reconfigured how education is organised and delivered, yet research suggests that such innovations also introduce new challenges. At the same time, digital and virtual learning environments, from Zoom classrooms to virtual reality (VR), create immersive contexts that can enhance presence, interaction, and inclusion.  

This Collection seeks to map these developments through an interdisciplinary lens, exploring how spatial design and technology intersect with pedagogy, power, and equity. 

Educators, architects, and scholars increasingly emphasise the need to study learning spaces holistically. Educational environments extend beyond physical classrooms to include digital, hybrid, and informal spaces across contexts from early childhood education to higher education. We therefore welcome contributions drawing on diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, including sociomaterial perspectives, spatial sociology, environmental psychology, and postcolonial studies, to examine how space is co-produced with learning practices and relations of power. 

We invite submissions on, but not limited to, the following themes: 

Theoretical and sociomaterial frameworks 

Studies drawing on spatial, ecological, sociomaterial, or posthumanist perspectives on education. How do concepts of space and place inform learning theory? Relevant approaches may include actor-network theory, postcolonial spatial theory, or assemblage thinking. 

Flexible and innovative environments 

Analyses of open-plan classrooms, modular furniture, mobile learning spaces, makerspaces, learning commons, studio-based learning environments, and cooperative learning hubs. What pedagogical practices do these designs enable or constrain? How do they reinforce or challenge traditional teacher-centred classroom arrangements. 

Digital, virtual, and hybrid spaces 

Research examining online classrooms, VR and AR learning environments, blended learning models, and “space agnostic” pedagogies. How does technology mediate spatial experience, including presence, interaction, and access. Contributions may address learning management systems, serious games, immersive telepresence, or campus digital infrastructures. 

Equity, inclusion, and accessibility 

Work exploring universal design, disability access, cultural responsiveness, and spatial inequalities in educational settings. How do design choices such as seating arrangements, noise levels, or visibility affect marginalised or diverse learners? Topics might include sensory needs, gendered uses of space, or spatial segregation. 

Agency and participatory design 

Investigations into how teachers and students actively shape their learning environments. This could include participatory design projects, classroom refurbishment initiatives, or teacher-led experimentation with spatial layouts and technology. 

Wellbeing and environmental factors

Empirical research examining how lighting, acoustics, ventilation, thermal comfort, and connections to nature influence concentration, stress, health, and learning outcomes. Research on biophilic or sustainable educational design is particularly encouraged. 

Policy, governance, and economics 

Analyses of how funding structures, regulations, curriculum policy, and commercial interests shape educational space. Topics may include infrastructure investment, sustainability mandates, the role of technology companies in educational architecture, or global trends in school design. 

Global and comparative perspectives 

Cross-cultural studies of learning spaces across countries, economic contexts, or climate zones. Comparative work might examine Western open-plan schooling alongside more traditional classroom models, or contrast urban and rural educational environments. 

Submissions are welcomed from scholars in education studies, architecture, environmental psychology, sociology, human geography, design studies, policy studies, and related fields. Interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse contributions, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, theoretical, design-based, and practice-oriented research, are particularly encouraged.