Designing Learning Spaces for Instruction, not Control

What is amazing to me is that most classrooms and even some virtual learning spaces are still designed with a type of learning in mind that is constrained, fixed and teacher-driven. That is, most classrooms still suffer from what I call "the fireplace" syndrome in which something has to be fixed to a wall (a blackboard, a white board, a projection screen, a smart board, etc.) and usually fronted by some sort of teacher desk or podium.