The Jockey Club Project Wellbeing was one of the first projects where we integrated our user research and stakeholder engagement as an integral part of the placemaking and design strategy. Together with our client team, we are committed from the beginning of the project to create a project that stem from the research process of interacting our student users, and the teachers and principal team.

We started with the research question, how might we create sense of wellbeing for schools?

We conducted workshops with 400+ students and teachers at 8 primary and secondary schools and uncovered several major factors that contributed to well-being. These become the basis to develop our design as we further relate them to school’s context and the spatial limitation.

• Teacher-student connection
• peer-to-peer connection
• sense of belonging
• sense of ownership
• balance of active and private areas
• flexibility for multiple kinds of activities

Our 8 schools for Phase I and Phase II of this project includes:

1. S.K.H. Wei Lun Primary School
2. P.L.K. Ma Kam Ming College
3. P.L.K. Ho Yuk Ching (1984) College
4. TWGHs Ko Ho Ning Memorial Primary School
5. C.C.C. Kei Heep Secondary School
6. C.H.C. Living Spirit College
7. POCA Wong Siu Ching Secondary School
8. Raimondi School

Through three rounds of engagement, we explored the existing usage and the possibilities together with students and teachers on what does wellbeing mean to them. The first workshop is a design thinking incorporated board game for the students and teachers to run through a typical and a future school day journey. Through the gamified process, we aim to understand some of the issues and ideas through the lens of students.

During the second workshop, we mix-and-match different scenarios with different mediums, how would it spark creativity in students and teachers to reimagine a campus that promotes wellbeing?  Through the use of 3D objects, colour pencils and collages, we encouraged students and teachers to get hands-on creating the spatial quality of spaces. 

The final design is a result from further validation where students vote for desired elements of different design options at school. There were many factors that affect the students’ wellbeing, and sometimes these needs are in opposition. For example, active versus passive, group versus individual, fixed versus flexible. From outdoor garden to indoor meditation space, to multi-purpose room. The challenge is to create spaces that can accommodate these multiple options, and remind our team that a key factor of wellbeing for schools also lies in creating flexible functions outside of the day-to-day classroom. For example, putting more emphasis on soft-seating and zones with dimmable lighting, and other elements that can create different sensory regulations for the students based on their initial opinions.