School architecture and landscape design can support adolescent identity development by providing: 1) Private nooks for students to experience different levels of social interaction and control their social environment. 2) Sheltered quiet areas that allow students the choice of solitude without feeling lonely. 3) Flexible and changeable environments that can suit students' varying moods and needs rather than single-use facilities.

1. WIKI GROUP 31 – IDENTITY
HOW SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE AND
LANDSCAPE DESIGN CAN PRO-ACTIVELY
RESPOND TO ADOLESCENT NEEDS FOR
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
(NATALIE WALL)

2. 1. PRIVACY – Provide nooks and settings where students
can experience privacy

3. Why privacy matters
• Designing opportunities for privacy into school
settings gives students the ability to control
the degree of social interactions with others.
• Spaces that enable students to see what is
going on in the distance, to watch other
people mingling but not necessarily to be
involved with them, to interact with two or
three close friends and not to be disturbed by
others.

4. 2. ALONENESS – Being alone doesn’t always mean being
lonely. Aloneness can be essential to student wellbeing.
The choice to
be alone does
not necessarily
mean a young
person is
lonely. Provide
sheltered, quie
t areas for
solitude.

5. Being able to change environments to suit
student’s moods and needs is far better
than single-use facilities and spaces that
require students to relocate themselves to
meet their needs. Good examples include
double rooms with moveable
partitions, moveable seating, open areas of
lawns where the choice can be made to sit
alone, in small groups or become a big mob.
3. Responsive and
changeable environments

6. •
4. PERSONALISATION

7. Why personalisation matters
• The ability to personalise their environment is an
important part of adolescents' developing
identity. Being able to express themselves in
personal workstations, student areas, classrooms
and home room means students can reflect on
their connections with home, school and
community. It also helps to affirm and develop
identity
• Schools should provide display surfaces or
spaces for kids' work, promotions and items that
are meaningful to the students.

8. 5. Social spaces

9. Why social spaces matter
• Social interactions are reliant on and highly
influenced by social spaces. Interactions
should happen organically and inclusively (i.e.
foster interaction between classes, year
cohorts, teachers and staff). Schools should
contain places for social interaction with visual
connection between spaces, indoor-outdoor
connections and areas for socialisation at
junctures of walking paths and within the hub
of the action.