FCTUC Professor receives international award

Carolina Coelho, assistant professor at the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) has just received the international award “The Glen Earthman Outstanding Dissertation Award” for her Doctoral Thesis in Architecture, which identifies and evaluates adaptability in contemporary active educational spaces.

The award was delivered on the 16th of October by the International Society for Educational Planning (founded in 1970 in Washington D.C.) during the 49th conference of the institution. This prize aims to distinguish dissertations which approach planning in the educational area.

Presented at the University of Coimbra and developed at the Department of Architecture and in the Centre for Social Sciences, the thesis – with the title “Life within architecture from design process to space use. Adaptability in school buildings today – A methodological approach” was supervised by Professors Mário Krüger and Teresa Heitor.

According to the FCTUC professor and researcher, her thesis proposes “a methodology for identifying and analysing the adaptability of spaces in present schools. Bearing in mind that schools today are guided by more open pedagogical practices, to which both classroom space and informal environments and unscheduled activities contribute as a way of creating and transmitting knowledge among peers; spaces must not only allow these practices, but above all enhance them”.

Carolina Coelho claims that “an adaptable space allows us to broaden its uses and users, allocating more activities with pedagogical potential in a physically perennial building such as a school. This will enable school buildings to last longer and in a more sustainable way while meeting the curricular, social and functional needs that change over time.”

This international award “clearly motivates me to continue my research within contemporary active educational environments as means that enhance school success, teaching and learning and student well-being in schools. I consider these basic premises for the construction of today's society, in the foundation of young people with not only a strong education but also who are proactive and proficient,” says Carolina Coelho.

This distinction "shows the quality of our research at international level and reveals that architectural research is very significant both to academia and to the practice of the discipline as well as to contemporary society and the development of transdisciplinary knowledge," she adds.

^{Translation by Diana Taborda}