Learning Through Design

Architectural Trends in Schools Result in Unique Venues

by Sheila Bacon

The days of the one-room schoolhouse with a dozen desks and a chalkboard are long gone. From preplanning to construction, owners, architects and builders are breaking new ground in the field of school construction.

Liberty High School, designed by Mahlum Architects of Portland, features four "academies" in an attempt to introduce more intimate teaching and learning areas within a large school. Image courtesy of Mahlum Architects

Today, new schools feature shared community space and smaller academies within large schools. Buildings are sited to maximize daylight inside, and classrooms are designed to cater to a number of different teaching methods and learning styles.

It Takes a Village…

Designers at LSW Architects in Portland have taken "community involvement" to a whole new level.

Like many architects, LSW engages the community when designing a new school project. However, over the past several years, it has been designing schools that serve not only students, but the surrounding community as well.

At Lake Oswego High School in Lake Oswego, Ore., for example, architects have designed a mammoth, 13,600-sq.-ft. library that will be shared by students and the general public. Designers have crafted separate entrances for both sets of users, and the interior will be geared toward a wide range of users.

"The school is seen not just an '8 to 3' kind of building, but rather as a community jewel," said architect Adin Dunning of LSW. "That idea is new to school design."

The shared component of the project was suggested during one of several symposiums between designers, staff members and the general public. The project was recognized by the Oregon School Board Association in 2002 with a Salute to Success Award for Community Involvement in Facility Planning.

While the specific details of the community's use of the school's library will be refined before it opens next fall, community members have already been using two other schools LSW has designed.

Springwater Trail High School in Gresham, Ore., incorporates a large gathering space with a stage for community meetings, as well as a conference room for smaller gatherings. The idea arose during public meetings at which a dire need for meeting space in the area was voiced. And in the Fruit Valley neighborhood of Vancouver, Wash., a small elementary school doubles as a family learning center.

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The Fruit Valley Community Learning Center serves as a school for children in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and also offers a resource center, food bank and social services center. The school, located in a city park, has not only become the focus of the community, but also won a 2003 Learning by Design Citation of Excellence from the American School Board Journal, Dunning said.

Seeing the Light

Architects at BOORA Architects in Portland have been designing schools to take advantage of natural light - not only to save energy, but to enhance learning as well. Citing studies from behavioral scientists that say natural light and views enhance performance, architects have been designing schools that bring light into interior spaces.

At Clackamas High School in Clackamas, Ore., BOORA principal Heinz Rudolf helped create a building that features natural ventilation and harvests daylight to illuminate all parts of the school.

Rudolf said designers sited the structure on an east-west axis so daylight could be captured but heat and glare could be controlled. The windows were designed to let in the maximum amount of light, and a light shelf inside the classrooms bounces light off the ceiling. Clerestory windows in the hallways bring light into those spaces.

By keeping daylighting in mind from the beginning of the design process, architects were able to ensure that the entire building worked in synchronicity, Rudolf added. By keeping all systems working together, costs were kept low, allowing typically expensive items such as daylighting controls and sensors to be installed. Costs for the $29 million building - which opened to students in 2002 - were about $120 a square foot; lower than the usual $135 a square foot for similar types of schools, Rudolf said.

Similar daylighting designs were implemented at Ash Creek Intermediate in Oregon's Central School District, also completed in 2002; as well as at Joan Austin Elementary in Newberg, Ore., scheduled for completion this fall. Operable windows help with natural ventilation and inexpensive light tubes on the back sides of the classrooms help balance the natural light from the windows.

BOORA's recent infill project at Newberg High School connected a campus-style high school into one comprehensive facility and added a new commons, administration and student services areas, as well as classrooms and a media center on the second floor.

"Getting daylighting into the interior spaces was a major concern," Rudolf said. "It was successfully accomplished by skylights and an atrium that is also used to provide natural ventilation."

Breaking it Down

In some cities, schools may be getting bigger, but Portland's Mahlum Architects is helping them retain the feel of something smaller.

With 1,800 students, Hillsboro's Liberty High School, which opened to students last fall, is considered quite large. To help bring it down to scale and to provide more intimate teaching and learning areas, the school features four "academies."

Here, students declare an academic focus - health and human services; arts; engineering and technology; or media and business - and spend much of their learning time in one of the four areas. Each academy is one floor of a classroom wing with a shared community area, counselor's office, teacher offices and classrooms.

Students take their core classes as well as their more specialized classes in the same wing. In theory, the smaller, more focused environment fosters a better connection between students and teachers and allows for a blend of curriculum.

"When people think of a typical high school, they think of a separate math department, a separate science department, etc." said Gregg Stewart, Mahlum principal. "Here, there are no 'departments.' The curriculum is integrated."

At Cleveland High School in Seattle, a similar transformation is taking place. A renovation/addition project currently in the design phase will break the school down into four independent schools, each with its own academic focus and administration.

The architecture responds to the needs of each minischool, said Butch Reifert, principal at Mahlum's Seattle office.

"The design is specific to the educational goals of each academy," he added.

Creating smaller schools within larger schools is becoming a popular practice. In the nonprofit sector, the Annenberg Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have offered millions of dollars for the planning and implementation of smaller learning communities.

Gates Grant Schools

Architects at BLRS have designed four "learning communities" at the new, $77 million Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma. Image courtesy of BLRB

Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma is one of the schools funded under the Gates Foundation's Washington State Achievers Program. The school will share a $9 million grant with 15 other schools in the state and be eligible for more money in an effort to create smaller, more personalized learning environments.

Architects at Burr Lawrence Rising Bates Architects in Tacoma have created four "learning communities" at the new, $77 million high school.

"Each is designed with flexibility to accommodate a variety of organizational and curriculum models," said Tom Bates, BLRB managing principal.

The 270,000-sq.-ft., 1,600-student high school will also feature a 600-seat auditorium with revolving turntables. A five horsepower motor rotates a portion of the floor, allowing teachers to subdivide the space and optimize use, Bates said. A full aquatic center and a 3,200-seat stadium round out the campus, which is oriented towards vistas of Mount Rainier.

A $17 million modernization project at Sammamish High School in the Bellevue (Wash.) School District focuses on a new theater for the school. An arts magnate, the school's renovation will also feature the expansion of an existing glass-blowing "hot shop."

The new theater will enhance the school's performance program and offer a venue that will provide much more flexibility and grace than the multipurpose room with movable bleachers that previously served as a theater, Mahlum's Reifert said. The theater seats 550 and features a full fly loft - a luxury that will put the theater on par with those used by professional performing arts groups.

"You don't see too many high school theaters with a full fly loft," Reifert said.

The sophisticated venue will potentially be available for use by community groups as well.

Sustainable Building

Incorporating sustainable building practices into school design isn't necessarily a new concept, but it is one that is now gaining attention. As the practice grows in popularity, building materials become more affordable and technology becomes more streamlined.

BLRB takes "a holistic approach to sustainability" by incorporating the use of daylighting, low VOC materials and efficient heating and cooling systems, Bates said.

At Mountain View High School in the Auburn (Wash.) School District, a four-pipe fan coil mechanical system uses an energy management system that detects the temperature of the outside air and, if it is cooler than the air inside, brings the cooler air in. The system will also collect outside air and mix it with the indoor return air to heat the building. The system cuts energy costs and eliminates the "all or nothing" use of a central boiler, Bates said.

A New Method

While the renovation of the Seattle School District's historic Roosevelt High School features a number of remarkable design elements, the design process itself may be the most unique aspect of the project. For the first time, the district is using the general contractor/construction manager procurement method on the project, which puts the general contractor (in this case, Hoffman Construction of Seattle) at the table with the owner and Bassetti Architects of Seattle from the start of the project.

Unlike the typical public process in which builders enter the picture once drawings are complete, the GC/CM method allows the contractor, as construction manager, to step in during the design phase and offer alternative building methods and value engineering options long before construction starts.

Recent changes in the state Legislature's rules surrounding alternative procurement methods for public projects have allowed Roosevelt to be the first school in the state to try out the GC/CM method. Upcoming additions and renovations at the Seattle School District's Cleveland, Garfield and Nathan Hale high schools will also be using the method.

It is expected that early collaboration between the project team members will minimize change orders, lower costs through value engineering, and make the entire process run smoothly.

"The areas in which we were guessing with the design-bid-build method are completely removed here because we have the contractor at the table with us," said Gary Baldasari, program manager for the Seattle School District's Building Excellence II program. "We have good dialog between the designer and the contractor."

Charlie Demming, senior project engineer with Heery International of Seattle, the district's project management firm, added, "We're solving problems before we encounter them."

Heavy construction work on the $84.5 million project will begin in June and includes gutting the interior; demolishing the gym, an annex building and nonhistoric portions of the building; and constructing a 94,000-sq.-ft. addition. The job also includes substantial work to the school's athletic fields.

The school will be unoccupied during the renovation. Roosevelt students will attend classes in the currently unoccupied Lincoln High School in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood until August of 2006.