Over the past period, we have been actively involved in the development of a generic design brief for Dutch school buildings, as part of a major innovation programme aimed at improving the quality of educational buildings in the Netherlands (in Dutch: Innovatieprogramma Onderwijshuisvesting (IPOHV).
Together with a multidisciplinary team of experts, a generic design brief has been developed for primary schools, secondary schools, sports halls and childcare facilities.
Why a generic design brief?
Every school is, of course, unique in terms of location and identity. However, requirements related to, for example, indoor climate, maintenance, sustainability and accessibility are largely the same. By working with a digital, generic design brief, there is no need to reinvent the wheel for each project.
That is the core idea. The next step is to see how this works in practice. In the coming period, 15 schools will start working with this generic design brief. This will undoubtedly lead to many new insights and lessons learned, which we can then use to improve the design brief.
More information about this innovation programme (in Dutch) can be found here: https://www.pohv.nl/innovatieprogramma/