Klein Cain High School, which made its debut in Houston last August, was long in the making.

Its story begins in 2008 when the Klein Independent School District realized it needed a new 9-12 high school (its fifth) to address the demographic growth within the community. At that time, the district did a selection process through a design competition that was won by locally headquartered PBK Architects. But then the recession hit, demographic growth plateaued and the project was shelved until 2012.

While oftentimes pausing a major project like this can pose a challenge, this time it worked out in the school district’s favor, according to Ian Powell, partner with PBK Architects. During that time, a major shift in the ways teaching and learning occurred was happening, as schools moved away from instructional-based learning to more independent learning methods that require more flexible, open spaces.

The project came to fruition in February 2015 when construction broke ground, with locally based Satterfield & Pontikes Construction Inc. serving as the construction manager at-risk. The result: A school that combines flexibility and transparency for next-generation learning while simultaneously addressing school security needs and prepping the complex for natural disasters just like Hurricane Harvey that hit five days after its opening.

Collaboration Is Key

One of the district’s criteria in the original design competition was to create a facility that reflected the heritage of the community, paying homage to the German immigrants who settled here in the mid-1850s. As such, the exterior of the building reflects traditional German architecture, with the steeply pitched gable metal roof at the entry, the subdivided exterior window configuration, the patterning of exterior brick masonry and the use of cast stone, according to Powell.

While that exterior element stayed the same between the 2008 and 2012 timeframe, the district wanted to do something completely different with the interiors when the project was greenlit again in 2012. “The district staff decided to make the inside much more transparent, open, collaborative and connected,” Powell said. “The school building is divided into six smaller learning communities (SLCs) that each have more transparency to classrooms and more openness.”

Each of the SLCs consist of about 20 to 24 classrooms, two collaboration spaces, a decentralized administrative/counseling suite and other support spaces, according to Powell. Classrooms are grouped around a larger open space that is centrally located within each SLC, and a linear, flexible space for smaller groups is located at the end of each SLC adjacent a circulation path. These spaces provide opportunity for teacher-dependent and independent activities, and are equally beneficial for study and project-based activities that foster interaction and collaborative efforts within student teams.

The design of the classrooms equally takes on a more collaborative approach using an L-shaped layout. “One of the concepts that the Klein administrators wanted to break the mold of was the traditional classroom, by changing the ‘box’ to more of an L-shaped classroom so that there are different zones in the classroom,” Powell said. “Teacher-dependent and teacher-independent instruction can occur as well as differentiated instruction (that involves all different kinds of instruction, not just the degrees of teacher dependency).”

That means students can use the space however they see fit, whether that be working collaboratively in groups, with or without a teacher’s participation, or working independently. Moveable glass partitions open up into the adjacent collaboration spaces for even greater flexibility. The majority of classrooms feature exterior windows that bring natural daylight into the space, while every classroom includes high transom windows that look onto adjacent circulation spaces. Both uses of windows help reduce the need for artificial lighting.

The high school teaching staff was a product of this environment, according to Powell. In fact, the school selected teaching staff that could accommodate the varying types of instructional settings, addressing any initial concerns as to if this classroom type and style would fit the nature of the individuals doing the instruction.

“They even did a post-occupancy survey, and greater than 75 percent were more pleased with this instructional space than the previous box-shaped space they had been in before,” Powell said.

Yet another example of the open design is the Learning Commons (or modern-day library), with a majority of its front being transparent and even having front walls that open up into the main corridor, dubbed “Main Street,” according to Powell. High ceilings and varied lighting adds to the open feel. And even private group study areas, such as the Think Tank, are lined with glass walls for better transparency.

Because the school district is very familiar with using data in decision-making, the design team surveyed both students and teachers at the four other high schools in the district early on in the design process. “They reinforced the choice to be intentional with the [design elements], including the transparency, openness, configuration of the classrooms, natural light in most of the classrooms and even the fronting of the Learning Commons right off the main circulation corridor,” Powell said. “All of these were thoughts we had, but the feedback we got was positive from both teachers and students.”

Of course, security was also top of mind for the new school. The main entrance features a safety vestibule, which has hardware that locks down if or when there is some form of a human threat. The school also has surveillance. While school district administrators are invested in designing schools that are more open and inviting, they have some provisioning related to safety and security that balances the need for the entrance to feel warm and open but also be able to be zoned off at the event of an emergency, according to Powell. He added that he can’t share some of those provisions to ensure the security strategies at the school remain confidential.

To read the entire article, check out the May/June issue of School Construction News.

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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.

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University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Health will change the way nursing schools operate, with an innovative new education building for the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis that begs students to ask questions, solve problems and simply practice what it’s like to care for people.

Completed this past summer and officially opened in October, the 70,000-square-foot Betty Irene Moore Hall is the ideal home to what is essentially a new school for the university. A $100 million donation from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the nation’s largest grant for nursing education, allowed the school to launch in 2009. And since launching, it has grown to include five different programs, with a student body of about 300 that will soon surpass 400 in the next few years. While borrowing space from the School of Medicine has served the nursing school well for the past decade, it was time for it to build its own space, according to Heather M. Young, founding dean of the nursing school.

San Francisco-based WRNS Studio teamed up with national construction firm McCarthy Building Companies Inc. under a design-build delivery methodology that helped the project stay on schedule and within its $38 million budget. Timothy Albiani, McCarthy’s project director for the project, emphasized that the delivery method was also rewarding in that the design-build team saw the project through from early programming to the final outcome of the top-rate educational building.

The school had a very clear vision for the project from the start. Young said that there were nearly 100 people involved, including several subcommittees to discuss everything from technology needs to facility issues. Together, faculty and staff created an 800-page specification document that guided the project through design and resulted in less than 1 percent change orders throughout the construction process.

“This project is really cutting edge,” Albiani added. “This whole building is about learning and the next wave of graduate students being educated to become better nurses and healthcare leaders. In fact, that’s the school’s entire purpose. Betty Irene Moore experienced treatment challenges during a hospital stay and made a personal commitment to expand nursing education to ensure nurses of the future had the most up-to-date training and skills. We really hit a home run, and we believe the School of Nursing got what they wanted to a tee. I think they asked for something they weren’t sure could be delivered, and with this building, they are able to push the envelope on progressive education further than they thought.”

In fact, Albiani thinks the school could change the approach to health education overall. “They’re changing the way a professional degree should be taught,” he said.

Nursing a New Education Approach

Veering away from the traditional lecture approach to education, the nursing school sought to engage students more actively from the get-go, and this new building only furthers that goal.

Specifically, the school wanted the capacity to do simulation, Young said. This ability to physically practice what it’s like to care for people is brought to life by either high-fidelity mannequins or patients who are live actors hired by the school to act as if they have a certain health condition. Students can get firsthand practice on clinical skills and bedside manner in a variety of simulation environments. They include the inpatient eight-bed “hospital ward,” task and anatomy skills labs, a 15-room primary care clinic and a one-bedroom apartment home health simulation suite that allows students to practice giving care in different residential spaces such as a bedroom, bathroom or kitchen. A lot of the practice is also recorded on video, so students can debrief and learn from what they see.

“It’s very different than lecturing because students get to use classroom time to have in-depth case discussions or practice in simulation,” Young emphasized. “The way [the building] is laid out is very different from a traditional education building.”

“[The building] probably doesn’t compare to many, if any, other nursing facilities,” said Kevin Black, McCarthy’s project manager for the project. “The larger classrooms are set up to be interactive with students engaging and interfacing with each other, while instructors move throughout the space; it doesn’t have the traditional podium up front with auditorium-style seating.”

Another thing that was really important to the university was that they wanted to use the circulation corridors efficiently. Edward Kim, WRNS project manager associate, emphasized the design team’s focus on “the third place.” Since students are no longer just commuting between the classroom and home, they need a “place” to study either individually or collaboratively with a group. Two of the main building program elements consist of active learning classrooms and skill or simulation labs. But equally as important to the university was the learning commons, the space between the classrooms and labs. The “learning commons” was programmed and designed to create a place where students can study and collaborate between classroom sessions.

“When talking about this ‘third place,’ we have conceptually identified it as ‘The Guts’ of the nursing school,” Kim said. “On the first, second and third floors, interconnected learning commons are treated with a bamboo wood wall that curves and bends to create different size alcoves for studying or collaborating. The third-floor learning commons has a window looking directly into the simulation lab, so there are even options to learn as a spectator while other classes are in session.”

The learning commons weaves throughout to continue both classroom and clinical learning. “Propeller tables” are strategically placed throughout these areas designed to encourage engaged learning and create an atmosphere where new ideas are discussed, debated and remembered.

“We wanted a place to invite people to connect, to spark the ability to have interesting conversations,” Young said. “All of our common spaces — corridors and lobbies — we wanted to be learning commons. So, the building was designed with places to sit and plug in a laptop and connect. It invites that kind of engagement; for instance, the walls are writable. We wanted a building that encouraged collaboration because we value that.”

To read the entire article, check out the January/February issue of School Construction News.

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The Missouri Innovation Campus (MIC) in Lee’s Summit, Mo., isn’t just a building. It’s a program that’s changing the way students experience education and prepare themselves for the workplace.

The partnership between Lee’s Summit R-7 School District, Metropolitan Community College and the University of Central Missouri (UCM) brings together high school and college students into one space, housing the MIC program, Summit Technology Academy (STA) and University of Central Missouri-Lee’s Summit, an off-site campus for UCM.

Students can start the MIC program their junior year of high school by attending STA, a program that offers students dual-credit classes that prepare them for careers in engineering, computer science, healthcare and multimedia. During the time it takes students to complete high school, they will have earned an associate’s degree from Metropolitan Community College, interned at a local business and then can finish their four-year bachelor’s degree from UCM just two years after they graduate high school.

The MIC program also integrates students into the community by requiring them to complete three years of paid internships with companies based in the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Not only does this help alleviate the costs of education, but it also helps prepare students for the working world. In total, there are 500 metropolitan students in STA, 1,000 students in UCM and approximately 100 MIC students amongst them.

“The goal of the MIC is two-fold: to meet workforce demand for top technology-talented students and to eliminate massive college debt by reducing the time to degree completion,” said STA Principal Elaine Metcalf.

A new building for MIC was completed in time for the 2017-2018 school year. Before the new building was built, MIC was spread across two locations. Now, students have access to all the technologies they could want or dream up. In fact, the new campus was built with flexibility in mind to accommodate future technologies and curriculums.

“This building is designed to meet the needs of the Kansas City marketplace, and it’s always going to change,” said Kevin Greischar, AIA, principal for DLR Group. “As the marketplace and local industry evolve, so will this building. There are walls that are permanent, walls that are built for 10 years and ones that could come down tomorrow if need be.”

MIC held a grand-opening ceremony for its new home on Sept. 5. This debut date was also perfect timing to show off the new facility to attendees at the national EDspaces trade show, held in Kansas City, Mo., from Oct. 24-27, at which School Construction News was in attendance.

Problem Solving Is Key

From the outside, the 135,000-square-foot building features sleek aluminum sheathing and an industrial-style finish that matches the interior that is spread across two levels, featuring high ceilings and lots of windows to bring in natural light. The design was a collaboration between DLR Group as the architect of record and Gould Evans as design partner, with McCownGordon Construction serving as general contractor on the project. All three companies have offices in the Kansas City area.

The $30 million facility features 60 classrooms as well as shared spaces designed to welcome students from both STA and UCM as well as ones that are designated to specific programs: networking, engineering, medical, bio medical, graphics, hospitality and cybersecurity. Most of these spaces have moveable panels so that spaces can be combined or separated as needed. The furniture — most of which is on wheels — also encourages flexibility and movement.

“This building is probably the most specific we have been involved with, where the curriculum defined the physical space and adjacencies,” Greischar said. “The staff was already teaching in ways that a building like this would let them do but in a building that wasn’t designed for it. Instructors and learners will only flourish in this environment.”

The building was designed to have what Greischar called a “Main Street,” with neighborhoods that include a front and back porch that get a bit quieter as students make their way down the neighborhood corridor. Because the facility is designed to prepare students for the workforce, it really feels more like a Google- or Facebook-type tech office space than a college. The traditional high school environment is completely gone, with a more open concept so that classrooms are not closed off. Classrooms bleed into the hallways and vice versa allowing learning and teaching to occur everywhere.

“The real difference is that teachers give students a problem to solve, and then ask the students to solve it with the available tools,” Greischar said. “A big part of the educational experience at MIC involves collaboration and this idea that ‘you win as a team.’ The idea was to create an environment where students could go to solve problems instead of spaces where they could go to have their heads filled with lecture-style learning.”

Another aspect that Greischar said the design team had to consider was creating a space that encouraged a level of trust between parents and teachers that students could manage themselves and their own time, especially since some students at the school are only in high school and are working around college-age students. While the students typically work apart from one another, there are times when they work together, especially when MIC brings in a lecturer or other guest speaker.

One such space that truly deviates from the traditional high school setup is the upper-level lounge area with an outside terrace. It was originally conceived to be a library, but instead, it provides a place for students to plug-in and eat or chill out before starting their schoolwork.

“The new space promotes and facilitates very intentional ways to help students practice the professional skills that are needed to be successful in the workplace,” Metcalf said. “Also, the flexibility and openness of the design supports a changing curriculum of the next-generation workforce.”

To read the entire article, check out the November/December issue of School Construction News.

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Riverside Community College District (RCCD) officially joined the Riverside community last summer when it opened a performing arts building and culinary arts school in downtown in time for the 2016-17 school year. Its new Coil School for the Arts (CSA) and Culinary Arts Academy and District Offices (CAADO) blend in with the city’s historic Centennial Plaza, which is also home to the Center for Social Justice and Civil Liberties that was rehabilitated in 2012.

The location of the two facilities provides more opportunities for RCCD students to engage with the community in a more hands-on approach that better trains them for the professional world. Irvine, Calif.-based LPA Inc. served as the architect on the project, while locally based Tilden-Coil Constructors Inc. served as the general contractor.

“The main goal was to design an educational and cultural hub at the heart of downtown Riverside,” said Franco Brown, associate/design director for LPA Inc. “By moving key programs such as the School of Music and the Culinary Arts Academy ‘off-campus,’ the district brought the arts to the local community while benefiting from the exposure and synergies created.”

“The development of a comprehensive block in downtown with programs that have patrons and members of the public allowed the college district to move these programs into the community spotlight,” added Chris Carlson, chief of staff and facilities development at RCCD. “Each facility is designed to advance the programs; the former locations were inadequate for the current and future program development to help students preparing for the workforce in these areas.”

Culinary Arts Academy & District Offices

At 60,000 square feet, CAADO was the larger portion of the project. It features a demonstration kitchen and a restaurant open to the public with a vegetated rooftop deck for special events and performances that give students practical experience while also allowing the community to host celebrations.

“The previously secluded Culinary Arts Academy has now taken a center-stage location in downtown Riverside,” Brown said. “The program offers students an education in the different specialties of the culinary arts (including ice carving) with the vital experience of a real-world restaurant. The new facility gives students the traditional hands-on approach complemented with distance learning and access to online archival material produced in the demonstration kitchen.”

Unlike most traditional culinary art facilities, the CAADO building takes advantage of its prominent location, with all of the kitchens and a bakery situated on the building perimeter, facing the street, according to Brown. In contrast, the demonstration kitchen was located in the center of the layout to control light and the digital technology for recording and broadcasting sessions. In fact, this space was designed to be more like a television set than a traditional classroom. Last but not least, the project is centered around a 120-seat restaurant located on the corner that is open to the public. A glass tower element serves as a beacon at nighttime and connects the restaurant to the rooftop deck.

“Using glass ‘portals,’ we let the activities inside be ‘displayed’ to pedestrians and people driving by,” Brown said.

Having these activities on display attracts community engagement, and specifically the demonstration kitchen and rooftop terrace allow the district to advance and change the curriculum in ways they were unable to before, according to Carlson. He added that another key part of the CAADO building is that it brings all the district’s offices into one location instead of keeping them in the four separate locations that previously housed them.

Coil School of the Arts

As the new home for the Riverside City College music program, the CSA building also takes the spotlight (pun intended) in the community with its 450-seat concert hall and performance stage, primarily driven by acoustics to achieve uncompromising sound quality, according to Brown. The building also includes classrooms, practice rooms, a choral room, band room, orchestra room, a piano lab and a high-technology recording studio.

“The concert hall itself was conceived as a music instrument, applying the same principle of the resonance chamber found in many string instruments to achieve a three-second reverberation time for choir performances,” Brown said. “Sound absorptive panels, mechanized perimeter drapery and a moveable stage cloud can all be configured to cater to the large variety of music genres offered by the school program.”

A combination of new and proven technology was used throughout the building, Brown added. The 33 practice rooms were physically isolated from the adjacent concert hall using hanging stud walls and a floating concrete slab to avoid any sound interference. For the concert hall, a latticework of LED lights creates what Brown called a “visual boundary” for the space while allowing the sound through. Even a digital menu of multiple light patterns was programmed in to give users the ability to select the right atmosphere for each performance.

Due to a code height limitation, the service space at catwalk level had to integrate the structural, mechanical, electrical, rigging, fire-suppressing and lighting systems in a constrained space, according to Brown. During the design development, LPA’s integrated design team used BIM software technology to achieve this complex system coordination, something that a decade ago would have been nearly impossible.

“Having a music performance hall, recording studio and triple the number of practice rooms is a game changer, and so is having a home for all performances versus moving from venue to venue,” said Carlson. “This has been a huge success for them, with community and professional engagement. The Riverside Philharmonic even moved its performance venue from the Fox Performing Arts Center to the Coil School for the Arts, providing more opportunities for students.”

To read the entire article, check out the September/October issue of School Construction News.

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