RIVERSIDE, Calif.—Things are certainly growing at the University of California, Riverside. Designer Perkins&Will and general contractor DPR Construction, along with personnel from UCR, recently gathered in celebration of a new state-of-the-art greenhouse and agricultural research building for UCR’s College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS).

This two-story, 30,000-square-foot greenhouse project will allow CNAS faculty and students to conduct growth studies and learn more about feeding an expanding population. Some of the early work undertaken there entails investigating how bees pollinate flowers in different environments as well as testing how rice can be made to be more resistant to floods and drought conditions that are only becoming more dire as the planet warms. Other research will be undertaken to examine how climate-control tech can be applied to serve various other agricultural needs.

The architectural design features a serrated concrete wall on the lower level that can help regulate shifts in internal temperature more naturally rather than relying on HVAC exclusively. The main level offers specific rooms for potting, growth chambers as well as breakrooms. The facility’s second level features 16 individual greenhouse modules that can be customized for specific studies and research.

“I’m thrilled about the amazing work being facilitated in the new CNAS Plant Research building,” said Jessica Orlando, associate principal and higher education practice leader at Perkins&Will Los Angeles. “Our team feels so privileged to have contributed to the delivery of a functional, high-performance building that also creates a stunning design that pays homage to UC Riverside’s rich campus fabric.”

Perkins&Will personnel took as inspiration for their design motif the nearby greenhouses, whose gables were reproduced in a new way for the upper glass roof of the Plant Research building. Meanwhile, the structure employs minimal use of concrete, glass and steel in a nod to more eco-conscious development. Furthermore, each upper-level greenhouse is wrapped in double-pane polarized glass, allowing observers to watch experimenters at work.

Climate control for each individual greenhouse module can be manipulated to simulate a variety of different weather settings and levels of humidity. A large evaporative cooling system works for the entire building, and researchers also can modulate the amount of natural light entering into each individual module.

“It was important for us to couple practical functionality and the aesthetic roots of the surrounding greenhouses with the college’s forward-looking spirit and focus on scientific innovation,” said August Miller, senior designer at Perkins&Will. “This ultimately translated to a series of greenhouse modules, each its own independent laboratory, at the upper level.”

Added Yan Krymsky, design director of Perkins&Will’s Los Angeles studio: “It’s really a machine, a tool for research. But beyond that, we wanted to create a structure that spoke to the legacy of the university.”

The CNAS sits on a part of the UCR campus formerly occupied by older greenhouses. In fact, the school originally started out as University of California Citrus Experiment Station in 1907, eventually changing to UCR.

Perkins&Will was founded in 1935 and employs over 2,000 people in 20 studios around the world. The firm’s Los Angeles studio is located in the heart of the historic downtown.

The post UC Riverside Debuts New Plant-Based Research Facility appeared first on School Construction News.

SHREVEPORT, La.—Architect Perkins&Will’s Houston studio is under contract with Louisiana State University’s Shreveport campus to design an educational and advanced laboratory facility. Accordingly, the Center for Medical Education and the Center for Emerging Viral Threats (CEVT) will be located at LSU Health Shreveport, a major teaching hospital in the region. The two facilities will jointly address a dearth of healthcare in the Gulf region.

LSU Health Shreveport entails the School of Medicine, the School of Allied Health Professions and the School of Graduate Studies—and the construction project will allow students to study collectively at the new spaces. The research-centric Center for Medical Education is being designed by Perkins&Will alongside the neighboring Center for Emerging Viral Threats (CEVT), which will have a separate third-floor entrance but will be simultaneously accessible from the Center for Medical Education and the nearby School of Allied Health Professions. Both buildings were generated thanks to personnel at both Perkins&Will and Coleman Partners Architects—and collectively they represent the first new construction at LSU Health Shreveport in over a decade.

On the exterior, students and visitors will be greeted by a large superstructure that seems to fly above the entrance plaza. Once inside, the facility is to offer modern spaces that blend recreational and lecture spaces over multiple floors, alongside the traditional clinical experiment spaces and classrooms. Contemporary laboratories will be set up to focus on such specialties as bacteriology, clinical pathology, serology, media prep and cell culture.

The entire building will allow in natural sunlight via rather large windows. The building will also be host to a 500-seat in-the-round auditorium, as well as a 250-set “active learning” classroom replete with up-to-date AV capabilities. Amenities within will include a student wellness center, fitness class areas, meditation spaces as well as spaces devoted to healthy cooking classes.

Lemoine, based in Alabama but operating from several offices in Louisiana, will serve as the project’s general contractor. Lemoine is working with Perkins&Will to coordinate buildout of safe spaces designed for biocontainment, which is especially important when working with potentially dangerous pathogens.

In a statement to School Construction News, Andrew Brown, senior project architect from the Houston studio of Perkins&Will, said that a key aspect of the project will be to fashion a “major destination” at LSU Shreveport as well as update the campus for 21st century medical education.

“The Center for Medical Education and Wellness will be a link between several educational buildings and really helps to stitch a student-centric seam through the campus,” Brown said, adding that the feedback from students and the larger academic community on design renderings has been overwhelmingly positive. “Our team was very focused on bringing the latest best practice design solutions for medical education, learning, and research so that this facility could serve to enhance health outcomes in the local community and beyond. I am excited to see it occupied, and believe people will be surprised with how much this facility supports collaboration and interaction amongst the students and faculty.”

The post Perkins&Will to Design Jointly Located Lab Facilities for LSU appeared first on School Construction News.

SAN MARCOS, Tex.—Design firm Perkins&Will has completed work on expanding the Miller Middle School, located approximately halfway between the Texas capital of Austin and San Antonio.

Perkins&Will was charged with renovating nearly 40,000 square feet of the older school’s space, while at the same time adding 37,000 square feet of new space to the Miller Middle School so that it can meet its goals of educating students in both sciences and the arts.

Miller Middle School’s renovations and addition were both designed by Perkins&Will’s Austin office to be an efficient educational space that allows students to be engaged in their learning, while at the same time promoting inclusiveness across the district. The design also features elements meant to foster interaction, such as outdoor spaces that can be utilized as additional educational space during the Lone Star Star’s rather lengthy warm season.

Additionally, the library features a glass-enclosed prism that can also be seen from the outside. As per the design plans, this great prism represents a fusion of the school’s goals for expanding their study body’s exposure to arts and science simultaneously—with students being able to not only appreciate its beauty but also its mathematical and geometrical properties. Furthermore, the library is meant to act as a central hub for the school, such that students and faculty utilize it as the “center” of their learning environment—and from there head out to various classrooms, performing arts spaces and laboratories.

As students make their way out of the central library area, they are guided to their various classrooms thanks to colorful accents in cyan, magenta and yellow. The colors correspond to specific grade levels and thus help students to find their way around, especially as they learn to navigate this new space.

Perkins&Will worked at Miller Middle School with general contractor Webber Commercial, LLC, which is based out of The Woodlands, Texas. Construction commenced in November 2019. Most of the work at the site was completed last fall, but the contracting work continued up until March of this year.

“Placing the addition in front of the existing building created an opportunity to modulate the first impression and create a new architectural expression without impacting the circulation of the site,” Lynn Petermann, senior project architect and senior associate at Perkins&Will, said in a statement emailed to School Construction News. “The addition emphasizes the library becoming the central hub, creating a seamless flow of space to the surrounding classrooms, labs, and performing arts space accessible from the library’s upper level.

“Drawing inspiration from higher education facilities, the design team transformed the school to suit older students.”

Perkins&Will’s other Texas-based educational work includes Rodriguez Elementary School in San Marcos and the Katherine Johnson Technology Magnet Academy in DeSoto. Webber Commercial’s other Lone Star State school projects include work for the Liberty Independent School District.

The post Texas Middle School Wraps Major Addition and Renovation appeared first on School Construction News.

BELMONT, Mass.—On Friday, March 4, construction and development firm, Skanska, together with the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee (BMHSBC), the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), and student representatives from Belmont Middle and High School, celebrated the topping out for Belmont Middle School. The design firm for the project is Perkins+Will.

Once completed in September, 2023, the brand-new Middle School will be an approximately 170,000-square-foot school building featuring dedicated classroom, recreation and administrative space. The Belmont Middle and High School buildings will share major facilities located in the High School, including the kitchen and café, auditorium, pool and Field House. The construction milestone marks a significant step forward in the progress for phase two, and the overall completion, of the transformative school project.

“At Skanska we pride ourselves on building what matters, and it’s especially rewarding to be celebrating this exciting milestone in person with the students and school representatives who will soon be learning and teaching out of the new buildings,” said Bryan Northrop, Executive Vice President of Skanska USA Building in Boston. “We look forward to delivering Belmont Middle School and completing the full school project so that future generations of Belmont students have a first-class environment in which they can receive an education and be inspired.”

Belmont school officials, students and local community members in attendance on Friday heard a short speaking program featuring Belmont High School Principal, Isaac Taylor; School Committee Chair Amy Checkoway; MSBA Chief Operating Officer, James MacDonald; Belmont Grades 7 & 8 Principal, Karla Koza; and Skanska Building Superintendent, Manny Hoyo. Attendees also enjoyed a performance of the National Anthem by the Belmont High School Marching Band before signing the symbolic final beam for the Middle School, representing the last structural component of the entire Belmont Middle and High School project. The in-person celebration was a welcome change from the virtual event that took place nearly two years ago when the High School building topped out in May 2020 during phase one of construction.

“Watching the final beam being raised over the Middle School signifying such an important milestone means so much to our students, school staff and the entire Belmont community,” said Bill Lovallo, Chair of the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee. “We are thrilled to be one step closer to enjoying our beautiful new school building which will serve as a cornerstone for the community for many years to come.”

Phase one of construction at Belmont Middle and High School centered on the delivery of Belmont High School, a four-floor, 451,000-square-foot building for grades 7-12 which Skanska renovated and expanded to include new academic and science wings, media and dining areas, administrative health suites, and updates to the existing gymnasium and pool. The High School building was completed in September 2021 in time for the new school year.

The post Massachusetts Middle School Project Hits Midway Point appeared first on School Construction News.

ST. LOUIS—Despite the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic, construction of Washington University’s new neuroscience research facilities is continuing. According to a recent report by the university, the $616 million, 11-story research facility at the university’s School of Medicine that commenced in the spring of 2020 is still aiming for a summer 2023 debut.

The building will be home for nearly a thousand researchers across 600,000 square feet of space. The university report said that the interior of the building will be built around various research specialties, whether it’s neurogenetics, sleep study or addiction.

McCarthy Building Companies is working on the project as general contractor in conjunction with designers Perkins+Will and CannonDesign.

The construction has continued with protocols meant to head off transmission of the virus. These measures include masking and daily health screenings at the jobsite.

The next steps, according to the university, entail building a parking garage for nearly 2,000 cars and a pedestrian bridge between the garage with the nearby St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Despite the lengthy supply chain issues and labor shortages that have affected most sectors—not just construction—the project remains on schedule to hit the summer 2023 target, the university said. This is largely due to extensive planning for the facility in the years leading up to construction.

The post Washington University Neurosciences Project Keeps on Track appeared first on School Construction News.

DALLAS—Melissa High School in Texas has wrapped a substantial renovation and expansion that includes a stellar new performing arts complex.

Architectural firm Perkins&Will was chosen by the Melissa Independent School District, which is located in Dallas’s far northeastern suburbs, to design the expansion of the high school’s campus and add to its amenities with a new arts facility. Perkins&Will’s Dallas-based design studio’s mission was to update the cultural and fine arts programs offered at the school, including designing a new theater complex that would fit in with the college’s overall design.

The 65,000-square-foot project includes a lobby, entryway and brand-new 1,000-seat auditorium. The complex also includes scene shops, halls for making live recordings, rehearsal spaces, classrooms and backstage areas to support the productions.

The goal of the design was to meld the new building’s design seamlessly so that it maintains the previous aesthetic of the existing buildings. Accordingly, the auditorium building features an elevated portico that melds with a “garden zone” populated by native plants. The garden zone meets with the main lobby entrance while also allowing for overflow should events require additional outdoor seating for lectures and performances taking place at the lobby level.

As a person approaches the auditorium building, he or she ambles along a promenade, and the eye is naturally drawn upwards to behold design elements. A “relief and shadow” motif is established by the brick-laying pattern, which is meant to make the building itself feel more approachable.

As the visitor enters the lobby, the metal-slatted ceiling appears to emanate from the exterior canopies that Perkins&Will has fashioned. Glazing along the eastern wall provides a welcoming aesthetic element, and serves to draw students, staff and visitors alike into the educational setting.

Other lobby design elements include faceted gypsum planes meant to mimic the naturally flowing fabric of a stage curtain. Stairwells of the performance space are dressed in white oak wood harvested from nearby in northern Texas. The performance hall also features textured walls whose elements are exaggerated such that they refract sound within the space for optimal enjoyment.

The general contractor for the project was Crossland Construction, whose office near the jobsite is in Prospect, Texas.

In a statement to School Construction News, Vandana Nayak, principal at Perkins&Will Dallas, said that the brick and glass exterior elements give the building “a stately presence.”

“Melissa ISD sought to create a state-of-the-art fine arts center that accommodates practice and performance, and allows the district to host UIL (University Interscholastic League) competitions for various programs,” Nayak said. “We designed an acoustically flexible, multipurpose facility that supports visual arts, theatre, band, and choir programs. We created a stunning visual effect through sculpted walls that wrap the interiors of the performance hall with an abstract expression inspired by the folds of the fabric on stage.”

The post Dallas Area High School Wraps Dynamic Expansion appeared first on School Construction News.

KINGSPORT, Tenn. — Construction of Dobyns-Bennett High School’s new Regional Science and Technology Center (RSTC) is currently underway in the form of a large triangular-shaped structure that will serve as its new entrance.

The $20 million project currently sits in front of the Dobyns-Bennett High School campus and includes a new 75,000 square-foot, three-story, 400-seat facility with a mission to create a culture that inspires innovation through science and technology.

As designed, the new RSTC facility will feature a three-story atrium and include 18 science and tech labs, two teacher work spaces, six student work spaces, one TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning) lab, one large research lab, four small research labs, a student café, and administrative offices.

Perkins+Will of Atlanta designed the new facility, and BurWil Construction Inc. of Bristol, Tenn., is serving as the project’s contractor.

“Because of the shape of the existing building there’s a different shape to the rooms, said Steve Trimble, project architect at Perkins+Will of Atlanta. “We have classrooms that can flip and change and be different things as needed.”

According to Kingsport City Schools, the overall goals for the RSTC facility include defining the Dobyns-Bennett main entrance, improving circulation and accessibility at Dobyns-Bennett for students and staff, capitalizing on an opportunity for a new identity for the Dobyns-Bennett facility while maintaining the current design and legacy elements, and adding an enhanced science and technology program at Dobyns-Bennett with new and enhanced facilities and programming while increasing Dobyns-Bennett’s student capacity.

The new facility would also raise Dobyns-Bennett’s capacity to support 2,500 students at 85 percent utilization, according to Kingsport City Schools.

“The client really had a vision that they wanted something specific so they really pushed us to create that thing,” said Trimble. “We toured buildings just to get an idea of the design of the buildings.”

Trimble said the buildings he toured together with Kingsport City school officials included other high schools Perkins+Will had completed in the Atlanta region.

For example, Trimble said that there was a tremendous amount of glass used to create an open and transparent façade of the facility. He said school officials benefited from seeing some of the same facades in other Perkins+Will school designs.

“It was important for them to see a building that had a lot of glass and realize that students were not going to be on display like a fishbowl kind of thing,” said Trimble.

Trimble said that one interesting part of the design process for the RSTC was adding on to the existing Dobyns-Bennett hexagon-like pod structure that was built in 1967.

According to the Times News, Dobyns-Bennett was touted as an “ultra-modern high school” with wall-to-wall carpet when it first opened in 1967. However 50 years later the design of having only one window per classroom has given way to a wall of windows that let in natural light according to the design of the new RSTC facility.

“We inverted that relationship and we’ve increased the views out into the mountains beyond so you get a really picturesque view from these classrooms that are higher than they were,” said Trimble.

Construction on the new facility began during the school’s 2017 winter break and is scheduled for completion on May 31, 2019; the facility is scheduled to open in August of 2019.

A report from the Times News contributed to this story.

The post Tennessee High School Adding New Science and Tech Center appeared first on School Construction News.

Designed by the global architectural and design firm Perkins+Will, the 369,000-square-foot learning facility for grades 10-12 launched last fall. It is built around three learning communities organized by grade, subject matter and professional path, with each loosely clustered around a planted outdoor courtyard. Additionally, the facility’s academic wings open into two-story student common areas, enhanced by comfortable chairs and ottomans that can be easily rearranged. And those are just a few of the many touches encouraging togetherness and group learning. The unique school design provides the casual, open feel of a small college campus rather than your typical high school.

School Construction News recently checked in with Jerry Johnson, design principal at Perkins+Will, who shared his insights on the intriguing design behind Iowa’s largest high school.

Q: What was the biggest challenge in creating this school’s unique design?

Johnson: The biggest challenge was organizing and designing a large school into small learning communities, which are adaptable and flexible for different teaching styles. These communities were planned to accommodate different instructional methods: by subject matter, grade level or professional pathway. Each learning community houses a variety of classrooms in an L-shaped configuration around one of three thematic courtyards. The courtyards allow ample daylight into all instructional areas of this large facility, while providing safe, secure and contained access to the outdoors. The courtyards also serve as outdoor rooms that are an extension of the student common spaces, allowing teaching and socializing in a convenient and safe environment.

Q: How did this project stand out the most from other school facilities you have designed?

Johnson: This project differs from others we have designed because of the size and scale of the public venues and the way in which the teaching spaces were organized around the three thematic courtyards. Each courtyard has a direct connection to common spaces on the west: the cafeteria, media center, main competition gym, theater lobby and 1,200-seat theater, and interior academic collaboration commons to the east. The courtyards create visual transparency between major functions, infuse the interior with natural light, and help with wayfinding and orientation.

Q: How do you think the design of the facility helps inspire learning and exploration?

Johnson: As opposed to the one-size-fits-all egg-crate schools of the past, the new Johnston High School provides an abundant variety of learning settings, including: the open collaboration commons, small group spaces, large flex-labs that can be subdivided into smaller settings for specialized classes, and regular size classrooms, many of which can open to adjoining classrooms to further enhance flexibility. To remove preconceived notions about how traditional spaces are used and to promote a more creative mindset, “classrooms” are recast as “studios, a place for creativity and inspiration. The design also rejects the traditional institutional school palette of materials (locker-lined concrete block hallways) for a more professional, engaging, yet relaxed atmosphere that encourages collaboration and exploration. Each small learning community incorporates a variety of core academic courses promoting interdisciplinary project work. Additionally, faculty neither have a desk in the studios nor do they “own” a classroom. Instead, they teach from a mobile presentation kiosk and have personal work space in a professional area located adjacent to the collaboration commons in each small learning community. This common space provides a platform for professional growth and enhances collaboration among faculty members as they work to identify and meet the needs of every learner.

Q: Why was it so important to include open spaces in the design?

Johnson: Open spaces provide places for students and teachers to collaborate, socialize and work on special projects. The open spaces were carefully planned adjacent to the courtyards for easy access to the outdoors, fresh air, and natural light. Large stair wells, lockers and teacher professional areas are all located next to the open space. A variety of furniture allows students to work individually and in groups or to relax and socialize much like a modern university student center.

Q: Are there are any key sustainable elements of the design that you’re proudest of?

Johnson: The new high school was designed with close attention paid to energy efficiency. It uses high efficiency mechanical, electrical and building enclosure systems. The architects and engineers participated in the “Commercial New Construction” energy efficiency program offered by Alliant Energy, Black Hills Energy and MidAmerican Energy Company. Of the 95 projects that completed the program between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017, Johnston High School was ranked fifth among the projects for achieving 61 percent kBTU savings when compared to the CNC program baseline. Based on this achievement, in October of 2017, the project earned a 2017 Excellence in Energy Efficiency Design Award.

Q: How did you emphasize making the school user-friendly and accessible for students with special needs and disabilities?

Johnson: Johnston proudly serves students of all abilities, and focuses great attention on students needing special education services. Great care was paid to providing state of the art teaching spaces for students with special needs. Special education resource rooms are integrated throughout the building, not just in one wing or one area as was the case in the old high school. All the spaces in the building are fully accessible to all students, staff and visitors.

Q: What kind of specific feedback have you received from school administrators so far on the completed project?

Johnson: The students and teachers are very proud of their new high school. They have sponsored tours of the new school for districts throughout the state. The teachers have said the school is calm, quiet and feels like a professional setting. The building is safe and secure, and the natural light creates a peaceful and inviting atmosphere. The large venue facilities which include the 2,000-seat gymnasium and the 1,200-seat theater have been used extensively by the school and the community.

Perkins+Will was the Programming, Planning and Design Architect for the project and FRK Architects + Engineers was the Architect of Record.

The post Q&A: Forward-Thinking Design Produces Unique Iowa High School appeared first on School Construction News.

Students participating in the Students in Academically Gifted Education (SAGE) program within the North Kansas City School District must have an IQ of 128 and above. Ever since the program’s inception in 1974, it has given these academically gifted students a curriculum that further develops their already advanced skills. Because programming was previously held at varying locations, the district’s approximately 950 SAGE students had been participating in the SAGE program at designated schools — until now.

The Northland Innovation Campus — often referred to as the SAGE Center — in Gladstone, Mo., (a suburb of Kansas City, Mo.) provides a truly innovative space that helps foster the exceptional skills of all 950 SAGE students that come to the facility from 26 schools on a one-day-a-week rotation. The facility pushes the boundaries of education design and serves as a permanent home for the 12 students in third, fourth and fifth grades who participate in the Program for Exceptionally Gifted Students (PEGS) and who have an IQ of at least 140.

“The goal of the SAGE Center was to bring students together so that they could be supported with their like peers, allowing them to talk on the same level and be challenged on their high-achieving levels,” said Dr. Danelle Marsden, principal of gifted programs at the SAGE Center. “Each of the kids is unique and has special needs, so we wanted to foster their uniqueness and develop their individuality. Many students struggle with figuring out where they belong and who they are as individuals, so we want them to work in a student-centered environment specifically designed to meet their needs.”

The SAGE Center’s curriculum uses a STEM approach, emphasizing math and science in a technology-rich space that allows students to research and create, while also supporting the students’ emotional needs by emphasizing individualized learning as well as how to work with others. Because some students are afraid to fail, the program also encourages the idea that “failure is an option” and can in fact stand for something else entirely such as “first attempt in learning,” Marsden said.

That student-centered approach set the stage for the entire project, which ended up mimicking the planning of a contemporary office space more than a traditional educational space. The studio-esque design features very few walls and no specified classrooms in an effort to prepare students for the real world, with a multipurpose hall, learning stairs, studios, outdoor classrooms, video production rooms and lab spaces replacing the traditional school layout.

From Flintstones to Jetsons

The SAGE Center was an interior fit-out project that essentially takes up 3.5 floors of a five-story building originally built as a blank slate. It’s a collaboration of several parties, including the city of Gladstone, North Kansas City School District and Northwest Missouri State, which happens to occupy the top floor of the building.

The project was accomplished in two phases. Completed in August 2016, the first phase included the K-5 portion of the project, for which Chicago-based Perkins+Will served as the design architect, locally based Hoefer Wysocki Architects served as the architect of record and locally based McCownGordon Construction served as the general contractor. The second phase was completed last summer by Hoefer Wysocki, which essentially used the same principles from the K-5 portion and applied it to a middle school portion. All said and done, the K-5 program takes up the first two floors with the middle school taking up floors three and half of the fourth floor.

“The driver of the project was the superintendent of the school district who has since moved on, but at the time, he wanted to do something really innovative and create a space that pushed people out of their boundaries and beyond their preconceived ideas of classrooms and what school space should be for these kids to be more in line with the progressive program,” said Julie Michiels, AIA, senior project designer, associate principal for Perkins+Will. “He wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a replication of what they were already doing but looked at creating something that will really be flexible enough to last for generations to come.”

To accommodate this “school of the future,” Michiels said the design team came up with a Flintstones-to-Jetsons analogy at the get-go, essentially asking the client to rank the project’s innovativeness on a scale that went from a “Flintstones”-era traditional design to a “Jetsons”-era future-thinking design. “At the beginning, we asked them to plot where they were, and they were closer to the Flintstones,” Michiels said. “We kept using that as a measure throughout the project, asking them if we were getting closer to the Jetsons.”

In the end, even the Jetsons themselves would have been impressed with the innovations involved in the center. For instance, the school wanted an open design — more similar to that of a contemporary office — that broke away from the traditional walling off of students in designated classrooms. Even the teachers opted to do away with assigned desks in an effort to allow for more observation and idea sharing.

Michiels said that the teachers and staff were excited that the design would allow kids to be more self-directed because these particular students need access to spaces and tools that are unavailable in a traditional classroom. That includes space for flying drones, teaching students coding skills, a student-run green screen broadcast studio as well as a maker lab.

“It’s a very open-minded program,” Michiels said. “If teachers are giving instructions, they’re generally giving a framework to operate within, not necessarily saying that the students ‘have to do it’ this way, so we wanted the space to serve as a framework that could guide activities without being overly prescriptive about it.”

The Design

Two key design elements were flexibility and visual access. At SAGE, students only spend 5 percent of their time listening to lectures, while the rest of the time is split between doing project-based learning, collaborative group studies and independent studies — all of which require a wide range of learning environments. Wide stairwells create space for chance encounters, while an outdoor patio gives students the chance to learn in an open-air environment. Miniature grandstand seating, built-in nooks and flexible furniture only add to the flexibility.

The school also wanted to encourage curiosity in its students, so the design team used an open layout to create visual access for students to see what other students, older or younger, are doing as well as to see the trees and ravine outside, connecting them to nature. It also wanted the space itself to be a teaching tool, according to Michiels. “We wanted students to wonder what a material is or see something out the window that can be used in a science project,” she said. “We often questioned if we could frame things in a different way for the students that led us to creating a lot of flexibility and visual access.”

To read the entire article, check out the March/April issue of School Construction News.

The post Facility of the Month: Pushing the Boundaries of Education Design appeared first on School Construction News.

The design of the new facility has been assigned to Perkins+Will, a global firm boasting a staff of 1,500 in 24 locations worldwide, over such notable candidates as HOK and Gow Hastings Architects, according to art industry magazine Blouin ArtInfo. Several interesting ideas are on the proverbial drawing board, including the possible use of timber to create the facility’s main structure. Likewise, the building’s facade, the design of which suggests something that might have leaked from a kaleidoscope, will be comprised of angular photovoltaic panels. Glazed openings will help facilitate the presence of natural light throughout the building and a heat recovery ventilation system will help the project toward its LEED Gold certification goal. This includes the ambition to also be net zero on energy as well as net zero on carbon.

As ReNew Canada, an infrastructure industry publication observed, “The design balances the needs of the school itself, the larger campus and the planet, setting a new standard for sustainability, design excellence, and student experience on Canadian campuses.”

As admirable as its green themes are, the project also endeavors to capture more than natural energy — it wants to capture the hearts of its student body and foment a genuine sense of community. “A primary objective for York University and the Perkins+Will team was the creation of a sense of home and belonging for the School of Continuing Studies,” explained a statement on the firm’s website, which announced the win.

Throughout, the Perkins+Will design is meant to engender a sense of on-campus community. The use of daylight, transparent design motifs and spaces that interconnect between floors are intended to spur student interaction and serve as a place for events that support the development of the school’s culture and community.

“This building is critical to expand the pathways that support international students and new Canadians as well as innovative continuing education to support young professionals in meeting the demands of tomorrow’s workplaces,” said York University Assistant Vice President Tracey Taylor-O’Reilly in a statement.

The School of Continuing Studies was established in 2015 in an effort to combine continuing professional education programs with English language support. Three years later, it is one of the largest schools of its kind in Canada.

“The creation of a new, stand-alone home for our School of Continuing Studies is another important step forward in improving access to post-secondary education at York. This new building will enable us to create even more lifelong learning opportunities, build connections with local and international communities, and help students of all ages and backgrounds to achieve their fullest potential,” said Rhonda Lenton, York University president and vice chancellor, in a statement.

The post Perkins+Will to Design the New School of Continuing Studies at York University appeared first on School Construction News.