By Joel K. Sims, AIA
1. Wake-ing Up in North Carolina
Wake County, North Carolina, is typical of many rapidly growing school districts. Not only is it an overcrowded school system, it also has a shortage of available land for new facilities. The school system teamed with the City of Raleigh Parks & Recreation Department in developing a joint-use facility that includes a park, a community center for use by the public, and an elementary school serving 650 students in grades K-5. Meetings with community stakeholders, park and school facilities staff, school board members, and park advisory board members from project inception through completion of working drawings enabled the design team to develop a facility that serves the needs of both clients without sacrificing functionality. Brier Creek Elementary School and Community Center, designed by LS3P Associates, Ltd., is a 107,754-sq.-ft. facility located in a suburban development at the edge of the city and occupies a 20-acre site.
Since the combined facility serves both the staff and students of the school along with the adult members of the community, the entrances are easily identifiable and the spaces contained within are arranged so that both user groups can coexist without disturbing each other during the day, while allowing the use of some school spaces by the community in the evening. Walking trails, playgrounds, playfields, and a picnic shelter are placed so that they are easily accessed by the community without disrupting the school's routine.
2. Seeing a Stark Reality in Ohio
Located in Canton, Ohio, the newly completed 2,200-student GlenOak High School integrates/replaces an existing high school and a career center. Designed by Perkins+Will in association with Ricciuti Balog & Partners, the driving concept behind the 370,000-sq.-ft. facility was to create a truly integrated academic and technical curriculum through the relationships of spaces within the school facility, as well as the school's interaction with the community. At the core of this philosophy is a library jointly operated with Stark County District Libraries, which offers expanded learning resources to both students and community members. The school's curriculum is organized around Ohio's Core Integrated Technical Academic Curriculum (ITAC) program that focuses on six specialized career clusters: Arts and Communication, Business and Management, Industrial and Engineering Systems, Human Resources, Environmental and Agricultural Systems, and Health Services.
The design takes advantage of the site's natural topography, including using a low area to create a pond that is used as an outdoor learning laboratory. The site also features a number of playing fields and a 2,000-seat stadium. As part of the district's goal for an interactive relationship with the community, a public walk/biking path winds through the site and space has been set aside for potential community-partnered out buildings, such as a senior citizens' center.
3. Waving the Magic Wando in South Carolina
Wando High School, built for the Charleston County School District (South Carolina), is another example of a community school. The two areas used most by the community, the auditorium and gym, are easily accessed from the parking lots and are able to be secured from the rest of the building for after-hours use. The "Main Street" that connects these areas during the day can also be closed into two distinct lobbies after hours so that each area can be used independently. Other areas used less by the community, such as the media center, cafeteria, and large meeting rooms, are all located along Main Street for easy access and security after hours. The Town of Mt. Pleasant contributed funds for enlarging the typical high school auditorium into a performing arts center to encourage community use.
4. Changing the Attire with New Jersey
The Catto Community School in Camden, N.J., is part of an ambitious redevelopment initiative implemented by the governor's office to revitalize neighborhoods through education and partnerships with local communities. This project will develop a deteriorated housing site, turn a rail way into a green way, re-landscape a dilapidated park, and replace a school built in 1929 with a 21st-century facility for the mind and body.
The conceptual plan and site design for the 125,000-sq.-ft. Octavius V. Catto Community School and Boys & Girls Club focuses on integrating community design elements into plans for a new pre-K-6 school housing 540 students. The design creates three types of spaces - those to be used exclusively by the school, those to be used exclusively by the Boys & Girls Club and shared spaces.
The portion of the building to be devoted to the sole use of the Catto School is arranged into a series of wings. Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes are housed on the first floor near the facilities that the young children will use most often. Directly above, on the second floor of the wing, grades four through six are housed. Grades one through three are housed in the same wing on both the first and second floors nearest to the main office and the nurse's office.
Separating the school area from the Boys & Girls Club area are the shared spaces, including the cafeteria, auditorium, gymnasium, locker rooms, and swimming pool. While the approved district model for the school only allows a 5,500-sq.-ft. gymnasium, the shared gymnasium of the Catto School and Boys & Girls Club will be 10,000 sq. ft. Furthermore, swimming pools are not in the approved district model at all, yet this new facility will house a 7,000-sq.-ft. pool area. Because of the shared space design, the school will have access to a larger gym and a pool, while the Boys & Girls Club will have access to a cafeteria and an auditorium. Each shared space has entrances from both the school side and the Boys & Girls Club side, and use of the spaces will not overlap.
The project is led by Universal / Keating developers with Hillier Architecture as a subconsultant.
5. Helping Friends in Washington, DC, and Maryland
Located in Washington, DC, this new pre-K-12 independent school focuses on high performance, sustainable design as a logical expression of the Quaker ethic of environmental stewardship. In addition, the school's curriculum is grounded in teaching students about the environment and their link to it. There is a strong belief that a sustainable building will provide the opportunity to achieve an uncommon level of integration between the curriculum, values and mission of the school.
Completed in 2006, the 72,500-sq.-ft. (39,000-sq.-ft. addition plus 33,500-.sq.-ft. renovation) school is part of a master plan that focused on meeting programmatic needs for two campuses, one in Washington, DC, and one in Bethesda, Md. Other objectives of the master plan included unifying both campuses through development of coherent landscapes and enhanced pedestrian circulation and to improve vehicular accommodation. Seven distinct building projects are planned for the two campuses.
At the Washington, DC, campus, the addition and renovation of the middle school is planned as a LEED-certified Platinum building, incorporating numerous innovative and sustainable technologies. The building houses a central plant, which is planned to serve the entire campus, allowing greater control of energy resources and providing a demonstration of responsible energy use to students. The building employs mechanically assisted natural ventilation to minimize the need for artificial cooling. Classrooms are designed to optimize natural lighting as the primary daytime illumination source. Photovoltaic panels and solar thermal technologies further reduce energy consumption. A constructed wetland at the campus-side entry forecourt to the middle school treats and recycles all building wastewater for grey water use within the building. A vegetated roof filters rainwater, which is collected in a biology pond and used for irrigation. Recycled and reused materials are used throughout the building, including reclaimed lumber on the façade.
6. Post Scripting the P.S. 31
