Dr Kenn Fisher
Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Education, University of South Australia

Paper title
Learning Spaces

Biography
Kenn is recognised as one of the leading learning environment specialists practising internationally. As a consultant to the OECD (where he held the post of Head of the Programme on Educational Building in Paris in 1997/8) and UNESCO he has practised in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. He is multi-skilled in a range of disciplines having practiced in all education sectors as a teacher and academic, a strategic facility and campus planner and as a project, facility and design manager.  Through his specialist practice in campus masterplanning, educational facility strategic consulting and architectural briefing, Kenn acts as the prime interface between designers and teachers to co-create learning environments for new and emerging teaching, learning and research paradigms. He has been engaged by more than 30 universities in Australia and overseas, over a dozen vocational training and community colleges, a number of State and National Government Ministries of Education, many school organisations and Government and corporate entities.  In recognition of his work one of his doctoral examiners wrote that ‘the dissertation has helped to shape the direction of critical pedagogy for the next decade. I am highly impressed with this dissertation and believe it has made a unique contribution to the field of critical education. It will surely become a book, and a highly influential one. I hope this work serves to influence not only education, but art, architecture and design as well’. Kenn was recently awarded a Doctor of Science (honoris causa) from Deakin University as further recognition of his work in this specialised field.