This article explores the ideological drivers behind learning environment discourses with a particular focus on the built environment and the ways in which the built environment narrates explicit and implicit ideology. The built environment reinforces ways of thinking in the day-to-day ordinary activities of the school space. However, it is important to recognise that both space and place are more than the built environment. In part, this paper’s task is to show how a theorisation of the relationship between policy and the built environment opens up a politics of space and place. The paper draws together the work of Penetito on place and Rancière on politics to provide a critique and theorisation of the experiences of school communities when subjected to the discourses of new learning environments. In order to engage in opening up to new ideas for policy making, the paper turns to space and place in design thinking. We look then to our knowledge of architecture, art and design to explore possibilities that remain somewhat under-imagined in contemporary theorisations of learning environments.

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