The literature reviewed here indicates that all environments are occasions for learning and that the open plan approach to school design can best provide for fluid interaction between the child and his physical surroundings. The idea of enhancing a learning process through enhancing the physical environment is not new. What is new, however, is an increasing awareness of the extent to which individual differences among children relate to the ways in which they learn in any given environment. Accordingly, writers more often seek to offer architectural suggestions and to explicate educational rationales than to offer guaranteed solutions and philosophies. Topics covered in this review include vitalizing the environment, realizing the concept, planning and standards, resources, and bibliographies. Twenty of the cited documents are available from EDRS. (Author)