Conference Program

School building processes are typically organised as linear, technical and administrative procedures, while schools themselves function as complex democratic institutions. This paper addresses this structural tension by reframing school construction and transformation as a form of democratic governance rather than a purely instrumental planning task. Following Lefebvre’s understanding of space as socially produced (Lefebvre, 1991), educational buildings are conceptualised as outcomes of negotiated social practices rather than neutral containers.

The theoretical framework combines perspectives from democratic participation (Arnstein, 1969), spatial justice (Soja, 2010) and school development theory (Biesta, 2011; Fielding, 2012). Participation is not treated as a single event but as a continuous relational practice embedded in institutional decision-making. From this perspective, school building becomes a pedagogical and political process in which power, knowledge and responsibility are distributed unevenly across actors and phases.

Empirically, the paper draws on an ongoing European practice-based research project that developed a visual school building compass (CLEAR, 2025). Using co-creation workshops as a design-research method (Sanoff, 2007), practitioners and researchers jointly mapped actor-specific process lines—such as school leadership, students, school authorities and external partners—across the full lifecycle of a school building, from early needs assessment (Phase 0) to long-term use and evaluation (Phase 10). A metro-map metaphor was used to visualise simultaneity, intersections and temporal asymmetries between actors.

The findings reveal that dominant linear planning models obscure the fact that actors operate with different temporal logics and degrees of agency. A comparative focus on Germany and the Netherlands illustrates how participation cultures shape these dynamics. While student participation in Germany is often limited to early consultation and post-occupancy feedback, Dutch practices more frequently integrate students through continuous information, reflection and contextualised engagement during planning and construction. These practices align with Fielding’s concept of democratic partnership, emphasising understanding and agency rather than constant co-decision (Fielding, 2012).

The paper argues that continuous intelligibility of processes—rather than maximal participation—supports democratic competence, spatial literacy and institutional trust (Biesta, 2011). By foregrounding participation as an infrastructural condition of governance, the proposed compass offers a transferable analytical and practical tool. It contributes to debates on democratic education by demonstrating how spatial transformation processes can actively cultivate democratic culture within and beyond schools.