As a leading advocate of resilient and responsible architecture, especially in the education space, Jayne Harrison, founder-director of JDH Architects believes in engaging with people and communities to achieve excellent design outcomes.

Educational design

Having worked on billion-dollar infrastructure projects in Hong Kong and London, Harrison’s entry into designing learning environments was quite accidental – an introduction to Catholic Education by her daughter’s school principal. Since establishing JDH Architects in 2003, she and her team have helped several schools deliver long-lasting learning outcomes with solutions “informed by research, inspired by context and driven by human centred design”.

“Educational design has moved forward, particularly in Australia, and learning environments are very different to what you and I experienced,” Harrison says. Moving away from the traditional architectural approach, the JDH team engages with teachers, students and schools, and develops the ideas around human centred design.

“We really do get to build deep and meaningful relationships with the people that we're working for, and it just kind of really feeds my curiosity and we are able to gain insights that I don't think a traditional kind of methodology would actually uncover,” she explains.

Gender equality in the architecture industry

As a woman architect, what does Harrison think about the situation of women in architecture and construction from a gender perspective?

Observing that the architecture profession in New South Wales is not well supported, she believes that women in architecture in Australia need to be supported and encouraged to actually put themselves forward, and have opportunities to come together collaboratively.

Though nearly half (or more) of all architecture graduates in Australia are female, gender discrimination is rampant in the industry with many women architects remaining in junior level positions. Though Harrison believes the situation is changing, she says it's a very slow and difficult uphill battle.

“I think there is change, but it's really not happening quickly enough and it's perhaps not happening hard enough in the right direction,” she says. “There are many Australians who have outdated and harmful views on gender equality. It is a problem that needs to be addressed at the highest levels.”

“For me, I generally work on very large projects and whether by design or simply lack of commitment to equality, the room is always dominated by men. There're cultural issues within organisations and I'm talking about national and international companies that employ over two hundred people.”

According to Harrison, though many younger women are standing up, it's really difficult when the organisations are so biased towards the male workforce. Calling for massive systemic change, she says it’s going to take time and it's going to take measures that are literally that drastic to change the way people feel.

So would more women join the construction and architecture workforce if the environment is made more appealing?

Tier one builders, Harrison explains, deliver 90 percent of Australia's largest public infrastructure projects. The New South Wales Government projects total up to several billions of dollars a year. However, neither the tender schedules nor the process actually say anything about having a diverse workforce.

“There is no reward and there is no penalty,” says the architect. “So we need to look at how we make these changes and make workspaces and places more appealing and accessible to women from the top down.”

Aesthetics in the built environment

Architects understand and value the importance of aesthetics to the quality of the built environment, says Harrison. It’s a known fact that people work more productively in well-designed office spaces, get better more quickly in well-designed hospitals, and learn better in well-designed schools.

Good quality design is valuable; however, it’s very difficult for architects when they are put in a position where their skills are seen as a dollar commodity.

Environmental quality in post-pandemic design

Harrison observes that people are becoming much more aware of environmental quality following the pandemic, especially in internal spaces.

As architects, they are also committed to avoiding any more degrading of the planet, which means they are better focussed on sustainable output in everything they do and try to educate their clients about this aspect of design.

However, acceptance of sustainable design remains a hurdle due to the cost factor. “No one wants to pay for sustainable design and that's the unfortunate message that is out there because it is very, very poorly understood, both by the industry and by the general public. So it's really going back to the basics of looking at how we deliver quality environments,” explains Harrison.

To overcome the hurdle, JDH is focussing on designing to passive house principles, making it a win-win for everybody with buildings that are well insulated, have a constant supply of fresh air, and are cooled with a lot less energy.

“We're now able to push forward with what we've always thought should be fundamental design principles in education design to our clients.”

“We generally get inspiration from the people we work with. We have an extremely diverse team here at JDH. We have a lot of European and Asian influences. My inspiration comes obviously from everywhere and everything. We're taking a lot of inspiration at the moment from nature,” says Harrison.

Taking the example of the Reggio Amelia approach to early education, she explains how the philosophy lays out the best way to educate children: The child is the first teacher, the teacher is the second teacher and the environment is the third teacher – the environment referring to the school building.

“It's this kind of big picture thinking that really inspires me, looking at how people do things differently is where I actually get my inspiration from.”

If you want to hear more about Jayne Harrison's ideas on education design, listen to her podcast here