Review the Approaches of Landscape Architecture to Schoolyards

The dominant perception of school is a set of classrooms. There is a lack of enough consideration to schoolyards for the role of outdoor learning and education. Many of researches and case studies have done on this approach. In Iran unfortunately, there is no good study about this topic. In this approach the discipline of landscape architecture with it’s emphasize on outdoor open spaces, efforts to improve the quality of schoolyards. This field is set up base on three main criteria including social, ecological and visual in urban open spaces. One of the important open spaces in cities is schoolyard. In some countries, schoolyards are as urban open spaces with free accessibility. Statements such as "school without wall" and "social school" are the samples of this approach. These concepts have not implemented yet because of the nature of primitive students behavior and their needs for playing and movements. The main question of this research is "what landscape architecture approaches exist about the design of schoolyards?" The main goal of this research is a review of literature about landscape architecture approaches dealing with the design of open schoolyards. Synthesis of principles for designing of these spaces is another important goal of this study. In order to achieve this aim in the first step of all the papers and researches considering this topic have investigated. Then these approaches have been categorized to twelve main categories. These approaches are as following: Design and management of outdoor classrooms landscape, importance of Qualitative Criteria’s such as sense of place, security and safety , Sustainable Design of Schoolyards, Comprehensive Schoolyards plan, hidden Curriculum in the School Grounds, Learning through Playing, School Grounds samples, Maintenance and Management of Natural and Built Landscapes, Children Participation, Comprehensive Landscape Design, Role of Landscape Architects in providing Educational Facilities and finally Design Guidelines and Principles in special area. Above findings, explain different aspects of schoolyards design. Managing, planning, controlling and maintaining are the four aspects related to schoolyards design. Some of the approaches are strongly applicable in Iranian conditions such as sense of place and security and some other are inapplicable. The first part of the paper includes the literature review. The second part the approaches and theories related to schoolyard landscape design are categorizes to twelve categories. Finally, the conclusion will be presented. Expansion of each approaches and trends in relation to the landscape architecture of schoolyards is the next step in this process. Beside these items, designing of cases in Iran in relation to the approaches mentioned and principles is another important step for achieving the above aim.