In these tough times making good school design decisions has never been more difficult or more important. To find out how some of the nation’s top architects and administrators are coping with these challenges attend Architectural Record’s Schools of the 21st Century Symposium. It will be held Friday, April 9th, at the Hyatt McCormick Place in Chicago, the day before the NSBA Conference. The event is free of charge and is being presented with the support of McGraw-Hill Education and the American Architectural Foundation.
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Connection to Outdoors
Connecting schools and their sites to the Outdoors
One of the themes that came up repeatedly in the student design competition essays is their desire for schools to do a better job of connecting with the outdoors. We were struck by how intimate that connection was for many of them: Nature was seen as a nonjudgmental, personal friend—something they can relate to in a safe way. Schools connected to nature are refuges: calm, stimulating, but invigorating.
Students think of school as a refuge, so the team provided calm outdoor spaces (top). Like the small learning academy (above), buildings in the complex utilize sustainable elements such as photovoltaics, rainwater collection, and green roofs.
Drawings: © Crister Cantrell, Perkins + Will
We also saw that students want to use the school complex to connect to the community and the larger world. We decided to expand on the connection to the outdoors theme, and to develop a hypothetical school that would illustrate several additional ideas. The village green is the heart of the school. This large outdoor gathering space welcomes the students and community by functioning as the entrance to the campus, and the traffic drop-off loop. It could be multifunctional and accommodate, for example, a farmer’s market on weekends. The school itself comprises a series of small learning communities, or “habitats” organized around the village green. The kindergarten-through-eighth grade habitats would be located on one side of the green, and the high school opposite it. Shared facilities, such as a performing arts building and library would close the gap at one end. We also envisioned adding a preschool and a senior citizen center, so the learning campus could embody cycles of life, continuous learning, and transitions from one generation to another. Finally, it would also be ideal if the school could reclaim a brownfield or take advantage of an underutilized site, and in this way might stimulate the revitalization of a neighborhood.
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Above right, the school is organized around a village green, with kindergarten through eighth grade learning academies on one side and a high school on the other, joined at one end by shared facilities like an auditorium. Above left, the team felt it would be ideal if their school could reclaim a brownfield. This would possibly help stimulate revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood. Team members from left: David Lee, FAIA, Stull and Lee; Kas Kinkead, Cascade Design Collaborative; Helen Avery, Howard University; Steve Turckes, AIA, Perkins + Will. Drawings: © Crister Cantrell, Perkins + Will |