Rethinking the High School Classroom: Human-Centric Design
Using design to support learning, social connection and psychological well-being
I’ve often found myself thinking about the school classroom. The layout, the lighting, the acoustics, the atmosphere, the rows of desks and, perhaps most importantly, the assumption that a room designed in one particular way can work for a whole class of completely different people.
We know so much more today about psychology, neurodiversity, sensory processing, mental health and the relationship between our physical environment and our wellbeing than we did when many of our schools were originally designed. Yet walk into a typical classroom, and you may still find harsh overhead lighting, fixed furniture, visual clutter, poor acoustics and a layout that is largely centred around the teacher standing at the front of the room.
It makes me wonder whether the classroom itself could be doing more to support learning.
We tend to talk about education in terms of curriculum, teaching methods, exams, technology and academic achievement, but the physical environment is often treated as a backdrop rather than part of the learning experience. What if we started looking at the classroom differently? What if, instead of asking what furniture we need to put into a classroom, we asked who is actually going to use the space and what those people need from it?
This is where my interest in human-centric design comes in.
What is Human-Centric Design?
Human-centric design is essentially about putting people at the centre of the design process. Rather than beginning with the room itself, we begin with the people who will inhabit it: how they behave, how they feel, what they need, what makes them comfortable and what might make it more difficult for them to function within that environment.
When we apply this thinking to a school classroom, it becomes immediately obvious that there isn’t one type of student.
There are outgoing students and quieter students. There are children who thrive on discussion and interaction and others who need periods of calm to concentrate. There are students who are highly sensitive to noise, light or visual stimulation; students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or anxiety; and students who simply have their own individual preferences and ways of working.
And, of course, most people don’t fit neatly into one category.
This is important because I don’t think the answer is to start labelling every child as an “introvert”, “extrovert”, “visual learner” or something else. Instead, perhaps we should be designing environments that allow people to move between different modes of learning depending on what they need at that particular moment.
The classroom becomes more than a room containing desks and chairs. It becomes part of the learning experience.
We Don’t All Learn in the Same Way
One of the things that initially got me thinking about this was the idea of different learning preferences.
You may have come across VARK — Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic — which is a model that looks at different preferences in how people engage with information. Modern educational research is more cautious about the idea that every person has one fixed “learning style”, and simply teaching someone according to a particular labelled style isn’t considered a universal solution.
However, I still think there is something valuable in the wider idea that people don’t all engage with learning in exactly the same way.
Some students thrive through discussion and interaction. Others need quiet concentration. Some learn particularly well through practical activity and doing, while others respond strongly to visual information. Some need to move, while others prefer to sit still and focus. Some students are energised by a busy social environment, while others can find the same environment exhausting or distracting.
The same can be said about personality. Some people gain energy from being around others, while others need periods of solitude and reduced stimulation.
So rather than deciding that a child is permanently an “extrovert” or “introvert”, perhaps we should design classrooms that allow for both social and solitary modes of learning.
That is the principle behind the concept I wanted to explore.
My Own Experience of School
This subject is particularly interesting to me because it is also quite personal.
I struggled at school. When I was young, I was placed in what was then called a remedial class. The terminology has obviously changed over the years and schools have become much more aware of additional needs, but I remember the experience very clearly.
You knew you were in the “bottom set”, and the other children knew it too. Being removed from the main classroom for additional support could make you feel different or, worse, inferior.
Today, additional support is often provided within the classroom, with teaching assistants and SEND support working alongside students. In many ways, this is a positive development. But I sometimes wonder whether we are still approaching the problem from the wrong direction.
We identify the child who is struggling and then provide additional support within an environment that may itself be contributing to the difficulty.
My own children have both struggled with aspects of school and have needed additional support. They sometimes had extra lessons before school, which I suppose was partly a way of avoiding the stigma of being pulled out of class. But that brings its own problems: the child has to arrive at school earlier than everyone else, effectively making an already long school day even longer.
It has made me question whether we should be looking not only at the child, but at the environment in which that child is expected to learn.
Why do we keep adapting the child to fit the classroom, rather than asking whether the classroom could adapt to the child?
The Creative Mind
There is another pattern I have noticed within my own family.
We are creative people. I became an interior designer, my daughter is a tattoo artist, my son is studying carpentry and my brother is a fine artist. Yet several of us found traditional education difficult.
Of course, this isn’t evidence that creative people cannot thrive within conventional education. Plenty of creative people do. But looking at my own family has made me question whether traditional academic environments can sometimes fail to recognise different ways of thinking.
Perhaps the issue isn’t always that a child “can’t learn”; sometimes the environment simply isn’t helping that child learn.
That distinction feels quite important to me.
Looking Beyond Interior Design
This is where my own design background has led me into something that I find increasingly fascinating.
Having studied interior design and holistic design, I’ve become interested in the much wider field of human-centric design and the various disciplines that sit beneath or alongside it.
There is actually a fascinating amount of overlap between these different approaches.
Neurodesign, for example, looks at the relationship between the built environment and the brain, behaviour and emotional responses. Lighting, colour, acoustics, spatial organisation, textures and wayfinding can all influence how we experience a space.
Biophilic design focuses on our innate connection with nature. Natural materials, plants, daylight, views of nature, organic forms and natural patterns can all help create environments that feel more comfortable and connected.
Sensory-inclusive design considers the way different sensory inputs affect people. Sound, light, texture, smell, movement and visual stimulation can all become particularly important when designing for people with sensory sensitivities.
Then there is active design, which encourages movement and physical engagement rather than designing environments around prolonged periods of sitting still.
One concept that was newer to me was salutogenic design, which I found particularly interesting. Rather than simply responding to illness or problems, salutogenic design is concerned with creating environments that actively support health and wellbeing.
In simple terms, instead of asking, “How do we treat the problem?”, we ask, “How can we create an environment that supports health in the first place?”
And this is where all of these disciplines begin to overlap.
Holistic design, for me, has always been about looking at the whole person and the whole environment. Human-centric design gives that philosophy another, more evidence-informed lens.
So I started wondering what might happen if we applied some of these ideas to a very ordinary environment: the high-school classroom.
Case Study: Rethinking the High School Classroom
I decided to take a fairly typical high-school classroom and experiment with it. I want to make it clear that this isn’t a finished architectural proposal. It isn’t intended to replace educational research, specialist SEND consultation, accessibility expertise or professional school design. I’ve deliberately kept it relatively simple.
Think of it as an initial sketch concept — a starting point from which a much more detailed design could eventually develop.
The question I wanted to ask was simply:
What might happen if we designed a classroom around different human needs?
I wanted to bring together elements of biophilic design, sensory-inclusive design, neurodesign, active design and holistic design, all sitting within a wider human-centric approach.
Creating Different Zones for Different Needs
The first thing I considered was the layout.
Rather than having every student sitting at an identical desk facing the front of the classroom, I divided the room into two broad zones. One side is designed for more social learning and interaction, while the other provides an environment for quieter, more individual concentration.
I’m deliberately not calling these the “extrovert” and “introvert” sides because I don’t think people should be permanently categorised in that way. Instead, I see them as different modes of learning that students could move between.
The zones wouldn’t be fixed, either. The whole point of the design is that the classroom can change according to the activity taking place and the needs of the students.
The Quieter Learning Zone
On the quieter side of the classroom, I have arranged desks in pairs. Each workstation has two chairs, with an acoustic screen between neighbouring desks.
The screen isn’t particularly high. I don’t want to create individual cubicles or completely isolate students from one another. Instead, it provides a little privacy, reduces visual distraction and helps to soften the sound travelling between workstations.
Each desk also has its own adjustable task light. This gives students a degree of control over their immediate lighting environment rather than making everyone completely dependent on the same overhead lighting.
That might seem like a very small thing, but personal control over your immediate environment can be incredibly valuable, particularly for someone who is sensitive to light.
The Social Learning Zone
On the other side of the room, desks are arranged in groups of four, with two desks opposite two others.
This creates a much more social arrangement, encouraging discussion, collaboration and peer learning.
I’ve deliberately kept the groups relatively small. If you put too many people around one table, the potential for distraction increases, particularly in a busy classroom.
Moveable acoustic screens can separate the social and quieter areas when necessary, but can also be moved aside to open the room up.
Again, the important word here is flexibility.
A Classroom That Can Change
Perhaps the most important element of the concept is that nothing is permanently fixed.
The desks move. The chairs move. The teacher’s workstation moves. The acoustic screens move.
The classroom can therefore change depending on what is happening.
The teacher might open the entire room for a group discussion or presentation. For individual work, students could move into quieter configurations. For collaborative work, desks could be grouped together, while practical or active learning could involve moving furniture out of the way altogether.
Instead of the room dictating what happens inside it, the room becomes something that can respond to the activity.
This is also something that connects with ideas I’ve explored through holistic design. When everything is fixed in one position, there can be a sense of stagnation. Movement allows the environment to shift and respond to the people using it.
It also means that the same student doesn’t have to be confined to one particular way of working.
Why Flexible Furniture Matters
This is particularly important when I think back to my own experience at school.
I was often placed in the bottom set, surrounded by students who were struggling in different ways. Some were noisy, some were disruptive, and some were simply disengaged.
And I wasn’t quiet either — I was definitely chatty! But I was also a good kid, and the environment was chaotic. There could be so much noise and disruption that I simply couldn’t concentrate or learn properly.
I remember situations where furniture was even being thrown around. For someone trying to concentrate, I didn’t stand a chance.
Yet the assumption was still that I should be able to learn in that environment in exactly the same way as everyone else.
My children were very different. They were both extremely shy at school, and one teacher even described my daughter as “painfully shy”.
So within one family, you can have very different personalities, different ways of interacting with the world and different experiences of education.
Why should one classroom arrangement have to work for all of them?
Lighting: Designing for Sensory Comfort
Lighting would be one of the biggest areas I would address.
The classroom would make maximum use of natural daylight wherever possible, with blinds kept open during the day whenever practical. Blackout blinds would still be available when they were needed for presentations, projection or screen use.
Rather than relying on harsh fluorescent-style overhead lighting, I would use softer artificial lighting, supplemented by individual task lamps at workstations.
This means the overhead lighting doesn’t necessarily have to be doing all the work.
I would also divide the overhead lighting into separate zones, allowing different sections of the classroom to be illuminated independently. If one side of the room is receiving plenty of natural daylight, for example, there may be no reason for that section to have exactly the same level of artificial lighting as a darker area.
It seems like a relatively simple intervention, but it could make a significant difference to sensory comfort.
As someone who is personally sensitive to light, I know how distracting uncomfortable lighting can be. If you’re already physically uncomfortable in a space, part of your mental energy is being used to cope with the environment. That leaves less energy available for concentration and learning.
Acoustics: Designing for Sound
Sound is another major consideration.
A busy classroom can be incredibly stimulating. Voices, chairs scraping across the floor, doors opening, movement, equipment and general background noise all compete for attention.
For some students, this might simply be irritating. For others, particularly those with sensory sensitivities, ADHD or autism, it can become genuinely overwhelming.
The acoustic screens between workstations would therefore have a practical purpose, rather than simply being decorative. Acoustic wall panels could also help reduce reverberation and soften the overall sound within the classroom.
The objective isn’t to create silence. A classroom obviously needs conversation, discussion and interaction.
The aim is to create a space where sound is controlled rather than chaotic.
Colour and Visual Calm
The colour palette would use soft blues and greens, creating a feeling of calm and connection with nature. Of course, colour psychology is complex and individual responses can vary, so I wouldn’t want to suggest that blue or green will automatically make every student feel calm.
Instead, I would use colour deliberately and selectively, perhaps helping to define different zones or support wayfinding without overwhelming the room.
I also wouldn’t want the classroom to become visually bland.
For example, I imagined honeycomb-shaped acoustic panels on the walls. These could provide a strong visual element and introduce some dynamic geometry into the room while also serving a practical acoustic purpose.
This is one of the things I love about good interior design: the things that make a space function better can also make it look better.
Natural Materials and Biophilia
The classroom would incorporate natural elements wherever practical. Natural daylight, plants, timber tones, natural textures and organic forms would all help bring some connection with nature into what could otherwise be quite an artificial environment.
For the floor, I imagined a light natural oak-effect LVT. It provides a warm visual foundation against the cooler blue and green tones, while remaining a practical and durable flooring choice for a busy educational environment.
Plants would also help soften the classroom visually.
Biophilic design doesn’t have to mean turning the classroom into a jungle. Sometimes it can be as simple as bringing in more daylight, using natural materials, introducing plants and incorporating natural shapes and patterns.
The intention is to make the classroom feel less institutional and more connected to the natural world.
Reducing Visual Clutter
Storage is another small but important consideration.
Open shelving filled with books, equipment, bags and miscellaneous classroom materials can quickly create a huge amount of visual information.
For some people, this may simply look untidy. For others, visual clutter can become another source of distraction and make it more difficult to focus.
I would therefore incorporate generous enclosed storage wherever possible, keeping the everyday visual environment as calm and organised as possible.
That doesn’t mean sterile or boring. It simply means intentional.
Everything doesn’t need to be on display.
The Teacher Needs a Human-Centric Environment Too
It is easy to focus entirely on the students when thinking about classroom design.
But the teacher is also a human being who may spend several hours a day in the same environment.
For that reason, the teacher’s workstation would also be mobile and height-adjustable. This would allow the teacher to alternate between sitting and standing rather than being permanently positioned behind a desk.
It would also make it easier for the teacher to move around the room depending on the activity taking place.
Again, the principle comes back to flexibility.
The classroom isn’t designed solely around the person standing at the front of the room. It is designed around everyone using the space.
What About Separating Students?
I did question this part of the concept myself.
Could dividing the room into social and quieter zones create another form of segregation?
Absolutely.
That is why I wouldn’t want these zones to become permanent labels.
The intention isn’t to say, “You are an introvert, so you sit over there.”
Instead, the question should be, “What does this student need right now?”
The same student might spend one lesson working collaboratively with four other people and the next lesson choosing a quieter workstation.
The room changes according to the activity and the individual.
Most of the time, the class would still interact together. The zones are simply another tool available to the teacher and the students.
Designing for Neurodiversity
We are increasingly aware of neurodiversity and the many different ways people experience the world.
Dyslexia, ADHD, autism, anxiety, sensory processing differences, light sensitivity, noise sensitivity and chemical sensitivities can all affect how someone experiences their environment.
These aren’t simply issues that exist independently of the physical world around us. The environment can sometimes make things easier or harder.
If a student is distracted by uncomfortable or flickering lighting, struggling to process excessive background noise, overwhelmed by visual clutter or simply unable to concentrate because they feel physically uncomfortable, then the learning environment has become another barrier.
Good design cannot remove every difficulty, and it certainly can’t replace appropriate educational or medical support.
But perhaps it can remove some unnecessary obstacles.
And that is what interests me.
The Bigger Question
This little classroom experiment has made me think about something much bigger.
We spend an enormous amount of time talking about children’s education. We talk about curriculum, exams, teaching methods, technology and academic performance.
But perhaps we should also be asking what the physical environment contributes to learning.
Could the classroom itself become part of the support system?
Could we design schools where students have more control over light, sound, movement and social interaction? Could flexible environments support different ways of learning without labelling children? Could we design spaces that help students feel calmer, safer and more comfortable before the lesson has even begun?
I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think an interior designer should pretend to.
But I do think these are worthwhile questions.
A Starting Point, Not a Finished Solution
This is very much a sketch design case study.
I haven’t gone to town on the architectural detail, technology, educational methodology, accessibility requirements or the practicalities of implementing a scheme like this within a real school.
That isn’t really the point.
Instead, I’ve tried to take a familiar environment and ask a slightly different question:
What if we started with the human being rather than the furniture?
What if we considered psychology alongside aesthetics? Sensory needs alongside functionality? Wellbeing alongside education? Nature alongside technology? Individual choice alongside collective learning?
That, to me, is where human-centric design becomes really interesting.
It takes us beyond simply asking whether a space looks good and into the much more interesting territory of asking how a space makes people feel, behave and function.
And perhaps that is something we should be thinking about much more carefully when we design environments for children and young people.
What Do You Think?
I’d genuinely love to hear other people’s experiences.
Did you enjoy school, or did you struggle? Did the classroom environment help you concentrate, or did it make things harder? Would you have benefited from having somewhere quieter to work? Would flexible furniture and different learning zones have helped you?
And importantly, do you think there are problems with my approach?
Perhaps some of these ideas wouldn’t work in a real classroom. Perhaps some would work brilliantly. Perhaps there are good concepts here, but they need much more investigation, research and collaboration with teachers, students, SEND specialists and educational designers before they could become a practical solution.
That’s exactly why I’ve shared it.
This isn’t a finished answer. It’s a conversation starter.
Because if we are serious about creating better learning environments for the next generation, perhaps the first thing we need to do is start asking different questions.
