'I recommend belfast sinks - you can get as grubby as you want and still there's enough room to wash it all off.'
Helen Charman
Education Curator for Schools
Tate Modern

Users of creative spaces

The learning needs of those who use creative spaces should determine the design and equipping of those spaces. This applies as much in schools as it does in galleries and museums. In its white paper Schools Achieving Success (Cmnd 5230, 2001), the government sees the future of the school as 'a focus for learning for the whole community, accessible to all, with modern and attractive learning facilities for families and people of all ages'.

The challenges are to define who those users are and will be, and then to decide how best to accommodate the diverse, and often competing, needs of different groups and individuals. For example, children come to venues in various guises: as part of a school group, or with the family, or on their own. Can the space accommodate these different aspects?

Of course, children are not the only users of creative spaces. For example, other users might include teachers, families, HE and FE students, older people, adult learners and more specific groups such as disaffected young people, holiday-makers, and so on.

This means that schools, galleries and museums may have to address such wide-ranging issues as:

Of course, some elements are common to all users, such as feeling comfortable and safe, gaining a sense of ownership, being in a welcoming and well-signed environment, and being encouraged to try something new as well as to do familiar things.

The reality, though, is that many spaces will be able to cater more successfully for some groups and less so for others. One space listed its potential users as 'children, families, elderly people, retired people, holidaymakers, academics from London, looked-after young people, asylum seekers and refugees, and disaffected young people'. This means agreeing a priority for users and planning ahead rather than being floored by the unexpected. When there are unexpected users, the gallery, museum or school should be able to treat it as a positive rather than a negative experience, and ensure that it is the same for the user.

The content of creative spaces

What happens in a creative space should help to determine its design, and should be determined by the users. It is up to each school, gallery and museum to consider, and to interpret in their own ways, the experiences they offer to their users of all ages, interests and capabilities.

The Project focus groups offered some general guidance, emphasising the importance of:

How these elements are turned into activities depends on the diverse needs of the particular users and the human, material and artistic resources of the school, gallery or museum.

A particular issue that exercises schools, galleries and museums is getting the balance right between activities for talking about art and those for making art, between analysis and expression. Workshops are a staple diet of many creative spaces, but there is also a demand from all age ranges and types of group for discussion and lectures. The key question is: Can a creative space be designed and run to provide both?

One approach, cited by teachers and gallery and museum staff alike, is to reproduce the artist's studio. This has been done in schools, for an artist-in-residence, and in galleries and museums. On one level this can combine the needs of looking, discussing and making, in ways and locations that match the artist's life. One teacher regarded the working requirements of an artist and a learner of any age as being complementary:

'... an area for rough work, an area for finished work, and an area for keeping the bits and pieces of being an artist.'

Another issue, which arose through the focus groups, is how far a gallery or museum should base what they do for children and their teachers on the requirements of the national curriculum. Some feel that is the school's job. However, many teachers still want a range of projects and other activities that often include an emphasis on curriculum requirements - partly as a way to justify gallery and museum visits for the children and in-service training opportunities for themselves.

The logistics of creative spaces

The logistics of a creative space (how it is organised, equipped and run, and where it is located) should be determined by what the users and staff want to do in the space - rather than the content (what happens) being dictated by the logistics.

The needs of and problems faced by schools, galleries and museums are often very similar. For example, several teachers commented that the 'ingredients for a creative space apply to both locations'. The problems arising from an inadequate space can be mundane but critical. One teacher reported: 'There are no serious facilities for clearing up in my school, so not much wet work goes on.'

One focus group of teachers, gallery and museum staff together listed such mutual needs as:

Overall, most people want a space that is flexible in terms of both activities and facilities. That can come at a price. It can be more expensive to equip and organise such a space; it may also require more staff, and with particular expertise, including being strong enough to move about equipment and structures. It can also be more trouble to keep well-maintained and clean - a vital concern for users and staff. One gallery staff member listed staffing as 'the biggest problem in terms of adequate numbers and hours'. Again, this is also very much a school issue, especially as technical support for art and design departments has declined significantly.

Some challenges tend to be specific to galleries and museums. For example, many education staff want spaces that are adaptable enough to cater for large groups, accommodate the needs of both the group and the individual visitor, and ensure that children can engage with original art works in a secure environment for both. One gallery staff member posed the dilemma: 'Can we have children splashing things about in front of valuable works of art?'

Another gallery education team wanted it to be 'easy to change the atmosphere and appearance of the room to have an effect on its users'. In terms of activity, the space had to accommodate lectures and seminars, and music and dance events - requiring sound-proofing, portable seating and a sprung floor; as well as different ways of learning, requiring active and quiet areas. While all this may be possible, the architectural response is that if a space is designed to do six things, it is likely to do two of them very well and the rest not so well. In effect, gaining flexibility in one aspect can reduce it in another. The users' and managers' responses should be to check the validity of what can and cannot be done, to set priorities for activities, and to be in on the final decisions.

The process of equipping and managing creative spaces presents considerable challenges to schools, galleries and museums alike. But it is clear from our focus groups that greater collaboration between teachers and gallery and museum staff can offer valuable solutions to some of the difficulties. It is equally clear that education and curating staff should make more regular opportunities to discuss together the issues related to creative spaces raised in this report.