Co-designing the Classroom
The Method
Fighting post-pandemic absenteeism by making 10-12 year-olds equal partners in the design process.
Exhibited at nycxdesign 2025
Role
Designer, Co-Author, Co Facilitator
Timeline
30 weeks
Skills
Cooperative Inquiry, Participatory Design, Workshop Facilitation, Academic Research
INTRODUCTION
Since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism has emptied classrooms nationwide. Students are missing the academic and social connections that school provides. While administrators treat this as a policy issue, it is also a spatial one: children spend most of their daily lives in schools, yet have almost zero influence over how those spaces are designed. To rebuild a sense of belonging, we have to change who holds the pen.
How can Cooperative Inquiry break down adult-child power dynamics, turning students into the architects of their own educational spaces?
of public school students were chronically absent post-pandemic.
A crisis of disconnection.
PROBLEM
The Power Dynamic Gap
The built environment has a profound impact on learning and social engagement. Yet, students are typically treated only as test subjects or brief observational data points, leaving the spaces they inhabit completely controlled by adults.
01 · The Agency Gap
Children spend 7 hours a day in classrooms designed without their input. When they have no ownership over their space, they lose their connection to it.
02 · The Power Gap
Traditional design research treats children as subjects to be studied by adults, rather than treating them as experts in their own lived experiences.
03 · The Belonging Gap
Standardized classrooms assume all students learn, focus, and socialize the exact same way—alienating those who don't fit the mold and driving absenteeism.
PROCESS - Cooperative inquiry
Designing with the Experts
Over the course of five collaborative sessions, a team of four adults and nine children (ages 10-12) worked as equal design partners. By dismantling traditional power dynamics, we mapped the spaces, activities, and moments that fostered—or depleted—their sense of belonging in school.
A Spectrum of Activity
Providing moments to be calm, active, social, and alone.
Freedom of Movement
The physical flexibility to shift between these activities seamlessly as they see necessary.
Personal Ownership
Opportunities for customization and agency within the shared space.
"Together but Different"
Celebrating individual differences while feeling accepted in the school community.
Final Outcome
Designed by the Experts
The Active Desk Chair
"People are fidgeting in class anyways." — Violet, 11
Redesigned for personal ownership and energy release. Students choose their own colors and assemble the chair on the first day of school. Built-in "covert fidgets" under the seat and on the footrest allow students to move and self-soothe without distracting others.
The COZ (Chill Out Zone)
"It makes me feel like there's a safe space." — Penelope, 11
A modular furniture system that satisfies the need for a spectrum of activity. Students can actively reconfigure the blocks to create nooks for quiet isolation, tiered seating for socializing, or use the integrated dry-erase surfaces for creative expression.
Fluid Privacy Screens
[You] can still learn but in a way that makes you comfortable." — Violet, 11
A dynamic partition system that allows students to divide space for focus or reduce overstimulation. The translucent, textured fabric maintains teacher sightlines for supervision, while integrated magnets turn the dividers into vertical collaboration boards.
Reflection
The Designer as Facilitator
This project proved that the most effective way to interpret a system is to hand the tools over to the people who live inside it. Industrial Design is often viewed as the act of a solo author creating objects. Cooperative inquiry reframes the designer as a facilitator—dismantling power dynamics and translating the lived experiences of a community into the built environment.
