Cultural Connections

By Ellen Kollie

America has a culturally rich history. With proper planning, it's possible to design schools that reflect a community's specific culture.

"Today's schools should reflect the diversified cultures that make up our student and s

taff populations," says Joel K. Sims, AIA, founder of Schooldesigner.com. "This includes regions where there are well-established - even historical - cultural communities and regions where there are new immigrant populations in transition to American life."

A design that reflects a culture offers more benefits than beauty. For example, it increases student comfort in a place that - because students spend so much time there - is like a second home.

Also, it can be extremely challenging for teachers to engage students who have experienced neglect in the form of both resources and culture for so long that apathy and low expectations have become the standard. "If their environment is enhanced and formed in a way that takes the same elements of culture that are twisted in a negative fashion currently and reformulate it to be the basis of pride and value," says R. Steven Lewis, AIA, NOMA, "then you're looking at a new realm of possibilities of what the students can aspire to."

For example, it's no secret that Native Americans have a recent history of poverty, high rates of alcoholism and other social challenges. Here are two projects that deflect this negativity by adding a strong cultural influence to increase pride and success among students.

Browning High School, located on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Mont., preserves the rich history of the tribe by integrating Blackfeet Indian culture into every aspect of the design. The school faces east, as a traditional tipi would to greet the creator sun in the morning, and the main entrance features a canopy resembling the shape of a tipi. Inside, a circle in the classroom floor allows students to align their desks in a circle, the way people would traditionally gather in a medicine lodge or a tipi. Also, colors used in the classrooms - white, black, red and yellow - are traditional Blackfeet colors. The school was designed by Celina, Ohio-based Fanning Howey Architects Inc.

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Similarly, more than 90 different tribes are embodied by students (approximately 700) and staff at Chief Leschi, a 200,000-sq.-ft. K-12 school in Puyallup, Wash. Intended as a model for Native American programs around the country, showing a glimpse into the future of educational technology for all educators, the school's design uniquely expresses the traditions of northwest Native American culture.

For example, the outside walls of the buildings illustrate in brickwork the beautiful patterns used on Salish baskets. The natural colors are from Mother Earth.  The large windows on each end of the second floor are in the design of a standing feather to represent the importance of the eagle feather in Native American tradition. Inside, each building opens to the Sacred Circle, with communal places such as the library, cafeteria, commons and the small gym located closest to the center.

Architecture was completed by Seattle-based Mahlum Architects. Structural engineering was completed by Seattle-based PCS Structural Solutions.

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Form and Function

For student benefits to be maximized, a school design that incorporates culture has to do so much more. Program requirements must come first. "The district needs to determine what type of students they want to produce," says Rainy Hamilton, Jr., AIA, NOMA, president of Detroit-based Hamilton Anderson. "The curriculum is crafted around that, and the facility is designed around the curriculum. Then you flavor it with cultural aspects. You can have both together; you don't have to settle for one or the other.

"For example," Hamilton continues, "if a bi-lingual program is a focus for Hispanic students, the design will include language labs and state-of-the-art technology and equipment to support teaching two languages." Hispanic colors and design elements are then added for aesthetic appeal.

Flooring is an excellent starting point, as indicated by the first-floor entrance rotunda of Downtown Elementary School in Memphis, Tenn. For this project, students spent a day touring Memphis and seeing how Memphians worked. At day's end, the children were asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and were invited to draw their dream careers in an art workshop. The resulting artwork was adapted into executable art that was transferred to the floor.

Made of vinyl composition tile, the image includes more than two dozen vibrant colors. The precision custom cutting was done by Dallas-based Waterjet Works! Any cultural image can be similarly reproduced on flooring in a school's entryway, gymnasium or cafeteria.

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Education and Buy In

It can be challenging to express the importance of designing culture into a facility. When it comes to schools, some administrators may not think it's worthwhile or necessary. Some may think it isn't financially possible. Some simply may not have given it a thought.

Also, some building owners may not share the building users' culture and, therefore, have no understanding of it.

"I presented an office building project to a client a few years ago," recalls Sims, noting that the principles in this example are the same as for schools. "The building's program would provide support services to many of the city's citizens, primarily the Latino community. The design we presented included bright colors representative of that culture. The owner thought it was too colorful. I told him the building wasn't designed for him, but for his clients."

Sims went so far as to ask the building owner to show the design to someone of Latino descent. A woman from the accounting department was asked to look at the exterior elevations. "Too bright?" asked the building owner.

"Not at all," was her enthusiastic response. "I love it!"

Clearly, advancing cultural elements in school design requires education and buy in. It may not be an easy task, but the benefits far outweigh the challenge.

Cesar E. Chavez Middle School in Planada, Calif., is a real example of a school reflecting a Latino culture. In this case, the district wanted a design that would reflect the community's strong Latino culture and provide a hub for community events. The resulting design reflects Mexican-style architecture and is technology rich. Central to the design are piazzas and courtyards, which are prominent elements in Mexican architecture. And, as in Sims' example, this school boasts vibrant colors that reflect the Latino culture.

The school was designed by Darden Architects, Fresno, Calif.

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Into the Future

The process of educating and obtaining buy in isn't just for today's school construction projects. Rather, keeping an open dialogue will serve to advance cultural expression in future designs. "To the extent that the clients behind them are progressive in their thinking and see the possibilities that can come about in the way that schools can be designed with both spatial and aesthetic references to the cultures that reflect the ethnic background of their students, such as Central American, Mexican, Caribbean, African American, African and European, we'll have schools that students can identify with," confirms Lewis, who recently left a four-year stint as chief architect for GSA to serve Parsons, a management, engineering construction firm.

Even into the future, building schools that reflect specific cultures doesn't have to be difficult. Lewis points out that, with no overlay, it's not so hard to design twenty 300-sq.-ft. classrooms that represent a specific culture. And, to him, that's infinitely better than designing a school that represents no culture.

Alice Fong Yu Elementary School in San Francisco proves Lewis' point. It boasts the first Chinese language immersion school in the country, and it contains administration, classrooms, computer and science labs, a gymnasium/multipurpose room and support spaces. What's interesting is that reflecting culture in this historically significant school required renovation and expansion (the addition of a 15,000-sq.-ft. middle school complex). A joint venture between San Francisco-based Levy Design Partners, Herman & Coliver: Architects, and Nancy Severn Architect, the school was awarded the 2002 C.A.S.H./AIACC Leroy F. Greene Award of Excellence. If creating a school that reflects a specific culture can be done on this project, it can be done on any.

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The bottom line, says Sims, is that, if a school district serves a specific cultural group, that culture should be reflected in the school's design. "The very fabric of our schools needs to change with our diverse student populations," he sums. This article provides the inspiration; now it's up to the designers and architects to work out the details.