Everything But School School
‘Everything But School School’ is a self-organised institution questioning the political and social impact of education and how these realities can be designed otherwise. Building on the designer’s experience of the French public school system and its reproduction of social inequalities, it approaches school as a place where people learn not only knowledge, but who they are allowed to become. Classes are created with and taught by students, allowing conversations and experiences to continually reshape the school.
From love-letter writing to collective classroom building, the curriculum uses humour, care, movement and curiosity to challenge what education considers valuable. The project is presented through an installation which brings the developing school into a wooden structure which references an archetypal building and includes cushions and a magazine documenting the project’s development. Madelon Lordereau proposes school-making as an ongoing collective practice, reclaiming education as a democratic space that can be continually remade by those within it.
Text by Josh Plough
Exhibited at the Dutch Design Week 2026
- Everything but School School, structure and publication, photography by Femke Reijerman
- AM Tuning for Pirates To Be, Everything But School School class, photography by Luca Weste
- Everything But School School, a call for joyful learning, publication, graphic design by Luca Weste