Historically, it has been assumed that the term ‘space’ delineates something that is static, bounded and restrictive. In contrast, philosophers have tended to concentrate on the creative possibilities evoked by concepts of time (Massey, 2005). More recently, however, geographers have stressed that it is impossible and undesirable to divorce our understandings of time and space (Dodgshon, 2008). This is another reason that I began this book by arguing for the study of spatialities, not simply the physical spaces in which learning happens. In the production of spatialities, society and space are constantly being remade together, in dynamic ways. Thus, the term spatiality has always implied a certain liveliness: a demand that we study space and time together, even if ways of doing so have varied enormously.

This chapter is about some of the selected spatialities – the coimplicated spaces-and-times – that characterise alternative learning spaces. I therefore explore temporal and (physical) spatial process together. Whereas Chapter Four focused (crudely) upon ‘external’ connections with other educational systems and networks, this chapter is principally concerned with spatialities ‘internal’ to alternative learning spaces. While in reality there are many overlaps, my overriding interest in this chapter is in how alternative educators combine spatial and temporal techniques to make learning happen within their respective settings. This may seem a rather convoluted and complex endeavour: but if we are to take the spatialities of alternative learning seriously, it is, as I will show, completely necessary. Thus, I continue to ask what makes these spaces different or ‘alternative’: but I now am turning the lens on the ongoing processes of making those spaces themselves.

Since this chapter broaches a potentially enormous topic, my ‘take’ on the spatialities of learning will be more particular, and will proceed as follows. Empirically, I will attend to three aspects of the learning environment, which combine temporality and spatiality: the creation of order, the absence of uniformity and material objects, and the presence of mess. But, as already indicated, I do not want to see these three concepts as completely separate. Thus, my overall argument will be that, in managing these two elements together, alternative learning spaces are characterised by an interplay between mess and order (or dis/order).