Over the last century, theories involving how human beings acquire knowledge through social situations in their environments have evolved. School environments are complex activity systems. Learning for each person occurs in relationship to the social and physical systems. Building on the ideas presented in the article published in the CAE Quarterly Newsletter by Lippman (2002), this paper will consider the physical environment of the school setting as a transactional system. The concepts of interactionalism and probabalism will be examined to support this perspective. Using this framework, the notions of an integrated, flexible, and mediating system will be described and evaluated in relationship to the social and learning environments. The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to explore and gain an understanding of schools as activity settings in which people acquire knowledge; and (2) as a tool to extend understanding so that these perspectives may be considered and used to produce, as opposed to reproduce, learning environments.#Research #BestPractices #Newsletters #CommitteeonArchitectureforEducation #Articles