KI's high ranking in this sector reflects their knowledge and understanding of a changing and diversifying educational market. KI designs and manufactures high quality, innovative and flexible furniture for Universities, Colleges, Academies and Schools.
A new educational paradigm shift has occurred within learning environments. This is driven by changes in our growing understanding of learning theory, shifts in campus and student culture, and advances in technology. Accordingly, new ways to design and deliver educational space must also be developed to complement today's contemporary educational concepts.
While there are no exact formulae to provide size, configuration, shape and capacity of educational spaces needed to support student development, there are recognized criteria for learning that can be adopted as a basis for the design of educational space.
Educational stakeholders, designers and administrators make buying decisions for furniture based on many factors. Cost, durability, functionality, safety, and aesthetics represent just a few of the many practical considerations. In addition to BREEAM certification, more facility managers and global architects seek LEED certification, they need environmentally friendly products that can help them achieve it. KI is continuing to design furniture that encompasses customers' needs for products that are safe, aesthetically pleasing, affordable, and help earn points toward LEED certification for the building as a whole.
Budget challenges, varying class sizes, teacher shortages, student performance assessments, and technology-driven instruction methods represent several of the many issues facing educational facility managers. The right type of furniture can have a positive impact on each of these issues.
Jonathan Hindle, Group Managing Director - Europe, Middle East & East Asia says: "Furniture is a crucial component in creating a quality learning environment. Seating should be comfortable and durable and worksurfaces ought to be able to accommodate specific tasks including note taking, laptop computer use and conducting experiments. Beyond these functional aspects, the image portrayed correlates to student perception of teachers' performance expectations - an attractive, highly functional, quality environment tells them you expect excellence."
Today's educators, administrators and facility planners have more to consider than ever before when making decisions that will help students achieve their full potential. Furniture solutions that maximize flexibility for teachers and students are at the heart of a successful modern educational environment.
While these issues will always be important, the role that furniture plays in creating positive, high performance learning environments has gained greater recognition in recent years. The sophistication and versatility of today's furniture provides great potential benefits such as facilitating more effective learning, enhancing teaching techniques and providing attention to student comfort.
KI is at the forefront of educational furnishing knowledge and expertise having designed and manufactured furniture for many global Educational Institutions.
Designing classrooms with more functional flexibility means that a teacher can easily vary instructional methods to accommodate different learning styles and course topics simply by utilizing reconfigurable furniture. For example, teachers can arrange seating into rows for test taking, circles for group discussions, semicircles for lectures and presentations, or several smaller groupings for collaborative team projects.
Collaborative learning environments are an essential tool for moving from a "factory" to an "active learning" education model. Active learning emphasizes instilling knowledge, rather than just delivering information. Instead of sitting in organized rows while someone lectures to them, students cluster in collaborative groups to foster teamwork as they work on projects and share ideas.
Effective furniture for these environments is student-centric, enabling easy and open communication between students and teachers. Flexible and fluid environments should support a variety of interactive and engaging activities from teaming, projects, presentations and discussions, to individual research and reflection.Curved, organic table shapes encourage greater interaction and allow for students to form and manage differing configurations to suit the required need.
Movable furniture further creates a positive learning environment by allowing teachers and students to move closer together. For instance, desks can be rotated so students sitting near the back of the room can easily relocate to the front. Positioning students nearer to teachers helps them maintain attention and interest.
KI educational furniture includes: classroom furniture, powered tables, auditorium seating, fixed seating, tables, desking, task/desk seating, guest/side seating, lounge seating, occasional tables, library furniture, cafeteria furniture and residence hall furniture.
LEED is a voluntary, consensus-based standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. Originating in the United States this standard is now being widely adopted in the UK and globally by leading architectural practices. GREENGUARD certified furniture earns points toward projects receiving certification under the LEED for Commercial Interiors and LEED for Schools.
Most of KI's portfolio of products are GREENGUARD certified. Many have been installed at LEED and BREEAM accredited buildings in the UK, Europe and the Middle East.
Tel: 0207 4047441 Email: sales@kiuk.co.uk
