VS

Making a space usable for a variety of purposes

David A. Stubbs II on the development of Shift+

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Do we really need new school furniture? If we’re just talking about design, I think not. But if it is to give teachers and students more freedom – and to open up new ways of learning then it is absolutely essential.

And this is exactly what we want to achieve with Shift+. We want to support diversity of learning opportunities and teaching styles, the entire spectrum of the daily life of a school today as best we can. This is why Shift+ elements are light and movable. They are no longer tied to a particular space; they are manoeuvrable across the whole building. With Shift+ even IT workstations and storage elements are highly mobile. It increases flexibility by removing barriers. Every lesson can be designed according to need; the furniture is quickly and easily reorganised to fit a variety of teaching methods.

We don’t want to overload school furniture with short-lived technologies; we want to make it as straightforward as possible and easy to use. But at the same time it must be endowed with intelligence to allow the greatest possible diversity of classroom use. With WLAN technology workstations have unlimited manoeuvrability and can be used anywhere.

Such manoeuvrability increases freedom in teaching. Even the mobile Shift+ storage modules are no longer tied to a particular space but may be effortlessly on-hand wherever they are currently needed.

Shift+ elements allow users to discover new applications over and over again – they can recreate their own learning environment every day. This is the vital difference: Shift+ provides school furniture that makes space more diversely usable than ever before.

David A. Stubbs II

Architect David A. Stubbs II has had more than 20 years’ experience in planning and designing learning environments. His passion is to create sustainable improvement in schools. He has received important architectural awards for his designs. Shift+ is his first collaboration with VS.

„With Shift+, for the first time ever, the learning environment can be tailored entirely individually – beyond all existing standards.”