Principles of Designing Educational Environments based on the Philosophy of Education

The type of physical environment of educational spaces has a direct relationship with the goals of education. Lack of attention to the goals of education and determination of its physical environment lead to the imitation of the present educational spaces. This matter will result in incongruity between goals of education and design of educational spaces and it has adverse effects on education and culture. Therefore, the main issue of this paper is to connect thought and physical environment or definitions of education and their spatial appearance. Hence, the goal is to know these definitions and determine principles of designing educational spaces on the basis of these definitions. In order to achieve this, philosophical, psychological and social views of thinkers on education was reviewed and education was investigated from the point of views of Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers and the ideological, anthropological, epistemological and educational goals, ideas and principles of each thinker were introduced. By using these assumptions and argumentative approach, the principles of designing educational environments were obtained. To complete these principles and regarding the effects of cognitive tools on determining the type of physical environment, the cognitive tools that each thinker has required to achieve the goals of education were introduced. Then, various principles for designing educational spaces were provided. On the other hand, familiarity with present design patterns in the world seems necessary in order to utilize such experiences. Thus, with regard to some patterns like «Six principles for designing better educational environment», «thirty three principles of educational design for schools and community schools», «design patterns for 21st century schools», the twenty four principles of designing educational spaces for our country were proposed as the result.