Four Corners School

A racquetball club becomes a school for students with special educational needs.

In 2005, the Reynolds School District selected BOORA Architects to transform a former racquetball club into a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade educational environment for 144 students whose adverse life circumstances have challenged them with special educational needs.  The intent of the building design was to create a warm, inviting, and safe learning environment for the children, using as much of the existing building as possible and complementing it with durable, naturally finished, and simply detailed materials.  The building’s existing exposed aggregate concrete walls have been penetrated by a new series of operable windows, allowing maximum daylight and natural ventilation to permeate the building.  At the entrance, a new wood canopy offers protection from the rain and directs students from the bus drop-off station to the building entry.  Designed to receive magnetically-adhered student artwork, a colorful art wall terminates the canopy and extends from outside the building into the lobby.

Within the building, the 20-foot high shells of 6 racquetball courts have been divided into 12 classrooms by inserting a new floor at mid-level (10 feet), establishing a two-story classroom bloc within the building.  New windows in the classrooms allow daylight to enter the learning spaces, while also offering views to an adjacent tranquility garden to be planted outside the building in a future phase.  Located at the center of the school, a multipurpose room serves as a central gathering space for the school and the school's symbolic heart.  This space also functions as the school cafeteria, offering direct controlled access to the exterior play area and garden through two large window walls with integrated exit doors.  Augmented by three new skylights in the ceiling of the multipurpose room, these window walls infuse the room with daylight.  Because of the sensitivity of the Four Corners School's students to visual stimulation, a calming palette of minimally contrasting tones was chosen.  Similarly, the building was detailed simply with taut material connections to reduce the risk of damage.  In these ways, the architecture plays a role in creating a school environment designed appropriately for these students.

Formal name of project: Four Corners School

Location: Portland, Oregon

Gross square footage: 24,000 sq.ft.

Total construction cost: $3,300,000 million

Owner: Reynolds School District

Architect:
BOORA Architects
720 SW Washington, Suite 800
Portland, Oregon, 97205
Phone: 503-226-1575
Fax: 503-241-7429
www.boora.com/

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