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9:30-10:00 Inscription at the Ruusupuisto entrance

10:00-11:30 Session 1

10:00-10:15 Welcoming words and introductions 

10:15-10:25 Teachers’ perceptions of learning environments fostering learning and wellbeing by Tiina Mäkelä, Postdoctoral Researcher, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, Ģ��ֱ��

10:25-10:35 Architecture students designing school buildings by Pirjo Sanaksenaho, Dean of the Department of Architecture, Aalto University 

10:35-10:45Schoolscape: the linguistic landscape of educational spaces by Tamás Péter Szabó, Senior Lecturer, Department of Teacher Education, Ģ��ֱ��

10:45-10:55 Participatory approaches to designing educational spaces in Uruguayby Paula Cardellino, Senior lecturer, Faculty of Architecture, Universidad ORT, Uruguay

10:55-11:15 Collaborative Redesign with Schools - Survey on Students' School Spaces by Carolina Coelho, Assistant professor, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies and Bruno Gil, Assistant professor, Centre of Architectural Studies - From Territory to Design, Department of Architecture, University of Coimbra, Portugal

11:15-11:30 Discussion

11:30-12:55 Networking lunch at Ruusupuisto (also possible to familiarize with the building)

13:00-14:05 Session 2 

13:00-13:10 Tools to support educators to think about educational space by Pamela Woolner, Reader in the Use and Design of Educational Space, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, the UK

13:10-13:20 Diverse participation structures in Finnish open learning spaces by Kreeta Niemi, Academy Research Fellow, Department of Teacher Education, Ģ��ֱ��

13:20-13:30 The Emergence of Learning Spaces Through Teaching Practices by Siv stavem, Educational planner, Norconsult, Norway

13:30-13:40 Designed environment into practice - Finnish classroom teachers' experiences of ILEs by Riikka Alakoski, Faculty of Educational Science, University of Helsinki, Finland 

13:40-13:50 Optimizing Learning Environments: A Triple-Fold Strategy to Enhance the Coherence of Learning Situations by Erfan Heidari, PhD Candidate, Architecture, Art university of Isfahan, Iran 

13:50-14:05 Discussion

14:05-14:20 A short break

14:20-15:20 Session 3 

14:20-14:30 An environment that supports learning,  creativity and physical mobility by Jukka Sinnemäki, Project researcher, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, Ģ��ֱ��

14:30-14:40 The significance of user involvement in school design by Kati Räisänen, Designer at CDM Design & Involver Oy

14:40-14:50 Inclusive design of school buildings - Analysis of basic and general upper secondary education institutions  in Finland by Raija Kattilakoski, Consultant and Educator at Positiimi

14:50-15:00 Acoustics in innovative learning environments by Collin Campbell, Global Education Lead and Pauli Pallaskorpi,Concept developer, Ecophon

15:00-15:10 Time-lapse methodology in Post Occupancy Evaluation by Markku Lang, Consultant, Oppimaisema and Doctoral researcher, University of Lapland

15:10-15:15 Discussion

15:15-16:00 Networking coffee break

16:00-17:00 Session 4 

16:00-16:20 Is there a common research agenda for learning environments? The Scoping Study that started ILESE by  A/Prof. Julia Morris, Associate Professor in the School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Australia

16:20-16:40 Where is the evidence? Explaining the development of ILESE’s ARGO learning environments tool by A/Prof. Wesley Imms, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia 

16:40-17:00 Final discussion

Dr Tiina Mäkelä works a Postdoctoral Researcher at Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) research group at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research (FIER, )at  the Ģ��ֱ��. Her main research area is participatory design of psychosocial and technology-enhanced physical learning environments fostering teaching, learning, and wellbeing. Mäkelä is leading various learning environment research projects funded by the Finnish Foundation for Municipal Development and National Agency for Education involving teachers and learners from early childhood, primary, and secondary education. She also forms part of an “Healthy spaces” initiative funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, in which her role is to evaluate how indoor and outdoor school spaces support learning transversal competences. Mäkelä also collaborates with various learning environment experts nationally and internationally, including strong European and Nordic networks as well as collaboration with Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Mäkelä coordinates the Nordplus Horizontal funded project Impact of Learning Environment Design on Teaching, Learning, and Wellbeing: A Nordic Perspective ("LED Nordic") with participants from all Nordic countries.

Dr Tamás Péter Szabó is Senior Lecturer of Multilingualism and the Internationalization of Teacher Education in the Department of Teacher Education as well as Adjunct Professor of Linguistic Landscape Studies in the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the Ģ��ֱ��, Finland. He teaches courses on multilingual pedagogies, translanguaging, linguistic landscapes, creativity and qualitative research methods. He has applied a linguistic landscape approach to learning environments and developed ethnographic research methods. Having membership and organizing roles in a wide range of European and global expert networks, Tamás has been Alliance level Coordinator for FORTHEM Alliance’s Multilingualism in School and Higher Education Lab, co-chair of the FORTHEM Labs and Co-creation Mission Board and co-chair of the Forum of European Universities Subgroup Multilingualism. He has led and contributed to several research and development projects on learning environments and multilingual pedagogies, mainly with partners from Europe and the US.

Dr Carolina Coelho is an architect, graduated from the University of Coimbra (DARQ-UC), where she presented her doctoral thesis “Life within architecture from design process to space use. Adaptability in school buildings today – A methodological approach”, which was awarded the Glen Earthman Outstanding Dissertation Award. She is invited assistant professor at DARQ-UC, and is an integrated researcher and member of the Scientific Coordination Board of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Coimbra (CEIS20). Her research focuses on the living experience in space and in co-creation processes for active learning environments, developed in the Erasmus+ project “CoReD: Collaborative Re-design with Schools”, in which she was coordinator for the Portuguese research team.

Dr Bruno Gil is an architect and assistant professor in theory, history and research seminars at the Department of Architecture of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He is subdirector of the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra, the director of the Centre of Architectural Studies – from Territory to Design (CEARQ-TD), and was the co-principal investigator of the research project ‘(EU)ROPA – Rise of Portuguese Architecture’, at the Centre for Social Studies, where he is also a collaborator researcher. He is editor in-chief of ‘JOELHO – Journal of Architectural Culture’ and his research has been widely presented in international conferences and publications, including ‘Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal’, ‘arq: Architectural Research Quarterly’, ‘Writingplace Journal’, and ‘Docomomo Journal’. In 2017, he concluded his doctoral thesis ‘Architectural Research Cultures: Lines of thought within research centres, 1945-1974’ at the University of Coimbra, awarded with the Nuno Teotónio Pereira prize and mentioned by Fundación Arquia’s “Concurso bienal de Tesis de Arquitectura”. 

Dr Pamela Woolner, Reader in the Use and Design of Educational Space at Newcastle University, UK, has been researching educational environments for two decades.  Her work includes investigations of underlying issues for the design of learning environments and explorations of schools in use, enabling her to develop an overview of the potential for school premises to support change.  Through a range of collaborative and participatory projects with schools, she has also developed knowledge and experience of methods to support the engagement of stakeholders, including staff, students and the wider community. Pam’s published work includes a seminal review (The Impact of School Environments, 2005), a book for school users (The Design of Learning Spaces, 2010) and an interdisciplinary edited collection (School Design Together, 2015). Her recent collaboration with the Council of Europe Development bank (CEB), (2021), proposes a framework to guide participatory activities through planning and building educational premises while her Erasmus+ project Collaborative ReDesign with Schools  , 2019-22, developed a suite of user-friendly resources for school communities to use to evaluate and improve their educational environments. She has recently worked with the Department of Education in England to investigate ways of including student feedback in post occupancy evaluations of new school buildings - .

Dr Kreeta Niemi is an Academic Research Fellow at the Department of Teacher Education, Ģ��ֱ��, Finland. She is leading a multi-method study investigating how recent changes in pedagogy and learning spaces are enacted in everyday classroom interaction and what contributes to a purposeful alignment between space, pedagogy, and participants' characteristics and needs. Her foci have evolved and expanded from classroom interaction using conversation analytic (CA) methodology to a strong interest in integrated frameworks for learning interaction and communities and their transformations (including spatial and embodied practices) and multi-method approaches, including quantitative methods.

Jukka Sinnemäkiis a PhD student at the Linz School of Education, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. He is also working as a project researcher at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, at the Ģ��ֱ��.  Jukka has 25 years of teaching experience as a teacher and School leader from grades 1-9, both in private and public Schools. His research interests focus on the study of student’s wellbeing and the effects of environments. Sinnemäki has received several national and international Awards from his work, focusing on supporting students’ holistic wellbeing.  At the moment he is working on building a concrete and scalable model for a competence-enhancing learning environment. Sinnemäki states: “There is a paradox within our education system and that schools, despite their best efforts, are failing to prepare well rounded young people for the challenges of the 21st century. In his thesis, Sinnemäki aims to show what has been the missing element in the learning perspective that significantly slows down and hinders learning.

Riikka Alakoski (a Master of Education) is a PhD researcher at the Department of Education, University of Helsinki, Finland. She has eight years of experience as a classroom teacher in the City of Helsinki and studies in educational leadership and management. Alakoski’s dissertation focuses on the relationship between learning environments and pedagogy. She examines the topic from the perspectives of primary school teachers, students and principals in the context of mathematics education. Alakoski is particularly interested in the four-dimensional environmental competence of teachers, work community, management and environmental design.

Erfan Heidari is a PhD candidate at the Department of Architecture, specializing in the field of learning environments, at the Art University of Isfahan, Iran. He is currently working on his thesis titled “Right to the School: The Just Ped-architecture Framework of Innovative Learning Environments, Through the New Materialism” under the expert guidance of Professor Mahmoud Reza Saghafi.

Kati Räisänen is an innovative interior designer and entrepreneur at CDM.fi. CDM.fi is an expert in well-being learning and working environments. We believe that the well-being of future learning environments will be created with the help of information generated through listening and understanding people. Together with her team, Kati has designed schools in Finland and the Netherlands. The CDM team has developed CDM Involver, a digital inclusion solution that helps design and supports work communities in change and change management. CDM Involver is designed to collect data from the widest possible user base in an anonymous and equal way. The data collected can be used to design the learning environment and to build and create a shared culture. To date, CDM Involver has collected data from over 34 000 users in three countries. In her presentation, Kati will present the results of different projects, including students' views on learning in a multifunctional learning environment and how these views differ from those of their guardians and teachers.

Dr Raija Kattilakoski, Special education teacher and Entrepreneur at Positiimi.fi, has researched  School’s operating culture in open learning spaces.  She works as a pedagogical expert in school building projects and she coaches staff for new learning spaces.  Kattilakoski is currently particularly interested in inclusive learning environments and their analysis. Kattilakoski is also a member of Nordplus Horizontal funded project Impact of Learning Environment Design on Teaching, Learning, and Wellbeing: A Nordic Perspective ("LED Nordic"). 

Colin Campbell  is an Interior and Environmental Design graduate with a broad range of industry experience and was recently an Industry Investigator on behalf of Saint-Gobain Ecophon as an Industry Partner in the Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) ARC research project. He is also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne and was recently part of the Management Team for the ILESE – Scoping Study. He is leading the Ecophon Global Concept Development for Educational Environments and matrix managing local Concept Developers in the education sector focusing on acoustic design for sustainable learning spaces across, Europe, India, South Africa and South America. Colin works actively as an industry partner with the Future Classroom Lab (FCL) which is run by the EU SchoolNet organisation, supporting Ministries of Education across Europe and he also works actively as a local partner with the FCL.dk in Copenhagen. On a mission to motivate an holistic multi-disciplinary approach to learning spaces design which includes joined-up thinking around the key IEQs. Learning more about the impact of IEQs and their connection to supporting innovative and sustainable learning spaces.  Active in industry advocacy and stakeholder engagement, linking future research collaborative opportunities to better enable and support innovative and sustainable learning environments. Through Ecophon Sweden, Colin is also involved in the Nordplus Horizontal funded project Impact of Learning Environment Design on Teaching, Learning, and Wellbeing: A Nordic Perspective ("LED Nordic"). 

Dr. Julia E. Morris is an Associate Professor and Higher Degrees by Research Coordinator in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University, Australia and Director of the LEaRN at ECU research hub. She is Honorary Fellow with the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on the development of quality teachers, including the role of teachers and learning environments in supporting students’ engagement in learning. Her research spans both national and international contexts, and she is co-Chief Investigator of the Innovative Learning Environments and Student Experience study which has worked with experts from across 19 countries.

Dr. Wesley Imms is Associate Professor in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at University of Melbourne, Australia, is its Head of Visual Art and Design Education, and co-Director of the University of Melbourne’s cross-faculty (Education and Architecture) Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN). He holds education degrees granted in Australia and Canada, including a research M.A. and a Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies from the University of British Columbia. A/Prof Imms is lead Chief Investigator on two recently completed Australian Research Council Linkage Projects: ‘Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change’ (ILETC), and ‘Evaluating 21st Century Learning Environments’ (E21LE). He also leads the ‘Plans to Pedagogy’ (P2P) project being conducted in a dozen schools across Australia and New Zealand, and is co-Chief Investigator of the Innovative Learning Environments and Student Experience (ILE+SE) study.

Markku Lang (Educational Expert, Doctoral Student) has been serving as a Special Education Teacher and Visual Art Teacher at the Teacher Training School of Oulu University since 1990. From 2010 to 2019, he guided both international and national projects focused on learning environment development, such as iTEC (Designing the Future Classroom), FCL (Future Classroom Lab), IMAILE (Personal Learning Environments for Education 2030), and LEA (Support for Learning Technology Procurement; Personalized Learning Environment). His extensive work with EUN and Finnish National Agency for Education has given him a robust understanding of school design across Europe. During 2010-2018, he coordinated and mentored project managers for 76 different school design projects. Lang has collaborated with schools, campuses, universities, art museums, and game developers on various development projects. From 2015 to 2018, he served as an external expert on the IMAILE project, which aimed to prepare a procurement process for an international Personal Learning Environment (PLE) solution in STEM subjects. His doctoral studies are centered on the TimeLapse methodology in the Post Occupancy Evaluation of school buildings. Since 2023, he has been leading a research project funded by the Ministry of Education in Finland. The main objective of this research project is to evaluate how well school spaces support learning and adhere to the principles outlined in the Finnish Basic Education curriculum. Through Oppimaisema, Lang is also involved in the Nordplus Horizontal funded project Impact of Learning Environment Design on Teaching, Learning, and Wellbeing: A Nordic Perspective ("LED Nordic"). 

Pauli Pallaskorpi is a concept developer for education at Saint-Gobain Ecophon Finland. His main task is to raise awareness about the role of good acoustics in school projects all over Finland by meeting different stakeholders. He is also a frequent guest speaker in seminars concerning better learning environments and has been involved in many research projects in this field. Before Ecophon, Pauli worked as a teacher for ten years.

Siv Stavem (cand.paed./M.Ed.) is an educational planner for Norconsult AS since 2009 and a PhD-candidate at the University of Oslo since 2020. Her PhD-project concerns how physical learning environments are governed and planned for in Norway.  Stavem’s work for Norconsult AS includes reports providing foundational knowledge for local government decisions on topics like location or size of schools, type of school, maintenance of schools, security and safety in schools, the school as a community center, or other issues concerning the school in local municipal governance.  Stavem has conducted briefing processes as well as post occupancy evaluations for new primary schools and secondary schools as well as universities and nurseries. Stavem represents Norconsult AS in the Nordplus Horizontal funded project Impact of Learning Environment Design on Teaching, Learning, and Wellbeing: A Nordic Perspective ("LED Nordic").

Dr Paula Cardellino is an educational  infrastructure specialist, Architect, Master in Intelligent Buildings and Doctor in Architecture and Urbanism. Paula is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad ORT Uruguay. She also works as Infrastructure Consultant at ANEP (National Administration of Public Education). Paula has been actively involved in the design, research, and improvement of school facilities for the last 20 years. She works with schools (including students, teachers and non-teaching staff) and architects to align the vision of education with the teaching and 
learning curricula and the physical space.

Architect, DSc Pirjo Sanaksenaho is Associate Professor and the Head of Department of Architecture at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Finland. Her teaching field is designing of public buildings. She has taught several school design studios for master students of architecture at Aalto University and she’s the leader of MultiLED project of Multidisciplinary Learning environments design. Pirjo Sanaksenaho is partner in Sanaksenaho Architects together with architect Matti Sanaksenaho. Their design projects include Villa CIPEA in Nanjing and Ordos100 in China and Ecumenical Art Chapel in Turku, Finland, among others. Sanaksenaho Architects has been invited to Venice Biennale of Architecture three times, in 2004 to Arsenale exhibition and in 1996 and 2013 to Nordic Pavilion. Their projects have been published widely in international architecture publications.