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Above: Designed to offer Washington University medical students a break from cramped dorm rooms and labs, Olin Hall is a naturally lit and spacious environment that conveniently connects the medical school’s academic and residential buildings.
New schools reflect current trends in education, including multi-use spaces and access to technology.
For an A-to-Z overview of what’s new in school design, a stop at the St. Louis Public School District’s Stix Early Childhood Center is recommended. The magnet school, built last year in the Central West End, emphasizes small group instruction, so each classroom features a variety of learning areas that can adapt to several activities. Recessed alcoves along the corridors also double as small group activity spaces. A multi-purpose room serves as a cafeteria, auditorium and gymnasium. There’s an abundance of storage and resource areas for teachers, and an open, yet secure courtyard/play area. Hard and soft surfaces of durable, simple materials create a functional yet livable environment.
“The classroom with four walls and rows of desks facing the teachers’ desk in the front of the room is very outmoded,” says Gene Mackey, principal, Mackey Mitchell Associates, architects of the Stix Early Childhood Center.
New schools still have classrooms, “but less time is spent sitting at the desk in the classroom, and that has real implications for the architecture and design of schools,” says Andrew Trivers, president, Trivers Associates. Since more time is devoted to joint projects, “teachers really have become managers of learning, rather than mediators. They have totally different needs, such as whole rooms for planning, storage for multiple projects and functional cabinets and counters. Work areas may in fact outnumber classrooms.”
Another key issue is technology. “This has to do with teachers as much as with students,” Mackey says. “Kids are exposed to computer technology and the Internet at home, so teachers have a responsibility to catch up and keep up, and to make sure their classrooms become picture windows to the world.”
How can a school accommodate all those hubs and hardware and computer equipment? “The first reaction is to hide it,” Trivers says. “But to me, an exciting element of school design is expressing the technology and exposing the systems. I think kids want to know about it and would appreciate it.”
Another essential element in school architecture, Mackey notes, is “a place to plop,” or common space for interaction. An excellent example is the Washington University School of Medicine, for which Mackey Mitchell Associates designed a new entrance with an interior courtyard that links the Spencer T. Olin Residence Hall and McDonnell Sciences Building. “Both buildings had lots of small rooms and very little common space,” Mackey says. “The Med. School asked us to create a fun, lively breakout space, where professors and students can hang out and relax.” The result is a “celebration of light,” a serpentine spine that offers a flexible environment for socializing or studying. “It’s a very well-used space,” Mackey says.
Another example of a flexible, multi-purpose space is the new athletic center that’s part of the extensive Mary Institute-Country Day School expansion managed by Clayco Construction Co. Robert Clark, chief executive officer of Clayco, explains, “Schools across the nation are building similar facilities as part of a trend to offer more choices to students and encourage them to use their time more efficiently.” The building will have three basketball courts that can convert to indoor volleyball; a batting cage; a perimeter track; and more, “about 20 different uses in all,” Clark says, “with no interior columns to interfere with activities.”
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Left: The Center of Clayton is an example of a school that is designing a facility to meet the needs of not only the students, but the general public. |
Right: The new shared recreation facility will feature swimming pools, a spa, suspended jogging and walking tracks, aerobics room, climbing wall, multi-purpose courts and more. |
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Multi-use school design isn’t limited to just students’ activities. Increasingly, school buildings are being used by the community. “The trend is toward making schools available to the general public for performances, night school, recreation or library study,” says Bob Schaefer, president of L. A. Schaefer Construction Co. His company is construction manager for the Center of Clayton, the new shared recreation facility for the Clayton School District and Clayton residents, and the expansion and renovation of Clayton High School.
When it opens next March, the Center will feature swimming pools, a spa, suspended jogging and walking tracks, aerobics room, climbing wall, multi-purpose courts and more. “This gives the district and the city a chance to create something better than they could on their own,” Schaefer says. “Both parties will benefit.”
Shared school buildings, however, present a new set of challenges, Schaefer says. “A lot of thought went into security and access, and who will use which parts of the building when.” Adds Trivers, “When you design a building to be used in the evenings by a variety of groups, zoning becomes important. You want people to feel welcome, yet certain areas have to be secure.”
Trivers’ firm is facing this issue as it designs the renovation of the St. Louis Public Schools’ Adams School, which will include a community center. It’s one of several small, neighborhood schools in the City of St. Louis that Trivers Associates has designed; others include Lexington Elementary School (the St. Louis Public School District’s first new neighborhood school in nearly 30 years), the renovated Jefferson School and historic Froebel Elementary School.
“Huge schools are in the early stages of not being as successful as the small neighborhood school,” Trivers says, especially as desegregation winds down. Neighborhood schools are essential, because “a sense of place needs to be reestablished,” Mackey says. “It’s cheaper to build one big high school than two smaller ones but you lose the sense of scale, and vital relationships between teachers, students and the community.” Mackey favors schools located near parks and businesses, “where students can walk over and experience nature, or see what’s being made in their own neighborhoods.” He also recommends smaller schools with “celebratory spaces,” where the whole school gathers together to hear announcements, “instead of listening to a box in a room.” Similarly, Trivers encourages hallways to become display areas, “not just circulation routes, but galleries, where parents can know what’s going on, and kids can show what they’re doing and leave their imprints.” In the end, Trivers says, the most interesting aspect of school design is not the design itself but the process of designing a school with the people who will use it. “That makes it relevant and meaningful,” he says. “There’s a lot of satisfaction knowing you’ve created a place that can support what people are trying to do, and specifically, in a school we’re talking about the need for our country to remain competitive in the world. That’s a function of how we teach our kids. And that’s the future, after all.”
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