Q & A Mar/Apr 2009 – Adaptive Economics
O’Donnell
Sean O’Donnell, principal at New York-based Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, has more than 15 years of experience in architecture, with a focus on designing learning environments.
O’Donnell founded and serves as the chair of the AIA/DC Committee on Architecture for Education and has served as a juror for the National School Board Association’s Learning by Design awards, the Virginia School Board Association Design Awards, the Council of Educational Facilities Planners, International’s National School Building Week and the Richard Riley Award.
In June, he will lead a workshop at the School Building Expo that will focus on School Without Walls, an urban Washington, D.C., high school that is integrated on the George Washington University campus. He discussed the project and adaptive reuse with School Construction News during a phone interview from his Washington office.
Q: How does adaptive reuse fit into the economy today?
A: I think it is certainly an appropriate strategy, regardless of the economy. There are often constraints, particularly in urban settings, in choosing sites for a new school. Reuse of existing sites and buildings makes a lot of sense, and plays into a number of factors, including cost-effectiveness, sustainability, the neighborhood schools movement.
A school we just finished in Manhattan, for example, was a nurses residence for an eye, ear and throat hospital. That is now an elementary school. Adapting a seven-story nurses residence made a lot of sense in the context of Manhattan. The dynamics of the real estate market in New York, Washington and Los Angeles lend themselves to the reuse of existing buildings.
Q: What components should administrators look for if they want to convert a building that was not designed as a school?
A: They should look for a number of factors, including the relationship with the community being served and physical proximity. It’s a matter of evaluating the building for its educational adequacy and making sure that it can serve the educational program well.
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Children play on the roof of a converted nurses residence that now serves as Elementary School PS 59 in Manhattan. |
The size of the floor plate is critical. You don’t want it to be too deep and you want to be able to provide natural light throughout the building. One of the other things that we look at in urban areas is the number of floors in the building. You want to make sure that vertical circulation works well.
Access to other spaces that you need for educational facilities that might not fit within the building should also be a consideration. There was no gymnasium at the nurses residence, so we had to be creative and create a gymnasium at the top floor of that building. The roof was removed and extended upward to create a double-height space that was clear of columns.
It takes a bit of creativity and quantitative analysis, and also a bit of due-diligence to find the various opportunities that might be available to one particular school.
Q: Is it often challenging to install the IT components needed for schools during a reuse project?
A: We haven’t had any issues integrating modern educational technology. The catch, in some instances, is the floor-to-floor height, which can make it difficult to install all of the building support systems that are needed if there is not enough space.
A lot of schools are moving to wireless Internet, so it just becomes an issue of distribution points throughout the building. It’s relatively easy. If you can get the mechanical system in place and start working other systems around it, you’ve pretty much got it made for adapting a building.
Q: Is there one challenge that poses the greatest problem to convert a building into a school facility?
A: It’s a challenge to make sure the horizontal and vertical constraints are correct for the teaching environment. You have to have the right proportions so students and faculty can communicate well in small or large groups. You also have to make sure sight lines are good.
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O’Donnell says a floor plate that allows natural light is crucial for reuse projects. |
A lot of this is derived from the structural system of the building, with some buildings being more flexible than others. Load-bearing walls present challenges because they are harder to modify. Buildings that have load-bearing masonry walls in the interior can be the most challenging to adapt, but it’s not impossible if the proportions are right.
Q: Obviously, avoiding construction of a new building is good for the environment. Are there other less apparent green benefits with adaptive reuse?
A: The reuse of a building is inherently sustainable, and all of the certification systems acknowledge the reuse of material as an important contributor to sustainability.
Other components could be transit-oriented, especially if the project is in a dense neighborhood. Natural light is also an important factor. Oftentimes, you can also reuse a lot of finishes from the building and there is the opportunity for sustainability with mechanical systems.
Q: Adaptive reuse is not widespread with school facilities. Do you think it is a building technique that is going to grow?
A: I think so. With a lot of the districts that we are working with, real estate is becoming more expensive and finding greenfield sites is becoming increasingly difficult, even in suburban environments. In the past few years, development companies bought up any properties they could and oftentimes schools couldn’t compete.
I think being creative and continuing to allow a building to evolve through its lifecycle is a trend we are starting to see emerge, particularly in New York. Charter schools have been doing a lot with this, as well.
It’s definitely something that I expect to continue in the future, and I think the pressure to solve demographic needs will drive people to be more creative and look at the existing building stock.
Q: You are planning to discuss School Without Walls at the School Building Expo in June. What is the concept behind that project?
A: School Without Walls is a small urban high school that was created with the philosophy of using the city as its classroom. In the 1970s, school officials selected a 19th century elementary school building for the high school campus. That building happened to be in the midst of George Washington University’s campus.
Over time, the boundaries have blurred between the two campuses, allowing for a very strong programmatic relationship. Students take classes at the university and the university uses the high school classrooms for after-hours courses. The high school students also use the university’s gymnasium, food services and research library.
The programmatic ties evolved so strongly that the school is now an integral part of the university campus. However, over time the high school facility suffered from severe deferred maintenance and it was also smaller than what they needed programmatically. It was becoming very cramped and crowded, and people were growing to dislike the facility.
Q: What was planned with the expansion?
A: The idea was to create an innovative joint-development project with the university that included selling the high school’s parking lot to the university, which was used for a new residence hall. That transaction, in turn, funded a substantial portion of the modernization and the expansion of School Without Walls.
We took the approximately 32,000-square-foot building and modernized it and we are building an addition that is about the same size adjacent to it. It includes all of the new technology and systems that they didn’t have before, while building on the inherent qualities of the early 19th century facility that were small and residentially scaled. It is small and intimate, while allowing for natural light and places to gather informally.
Q: Were there security concerns with the university’s residence hall sitting adjacent to the school?
A: It is a through-block site, so our door is on one side of the block and the entrance to the residence hall is on the other. The buildings abut each other with completely separate entrances.
Sight lines between the two sites were a concern because the school has a roof terrace that is adjacent to the residence hall courtyard. We had to consider the possibility of sight lines that were inappropriate, so we ended up getting a green screen with vegetation that will prevent direct site lines between the two sites.
However, the key to the school is it is a part of the university and the students from the high school feel like they are transitioning easily to higher education. We want them to meet university students on the street and in public spaces.
Q: Is the high school used as a lab environment for education students at the university?
A: It’s not a lab high school, which some colleges have. They are peers in many ways. The university’s school of education is right next door, which allows teaching opportunities for students in that department.
Q: Do you see this type of collaboration happening with other schools?
A: I think it’s definitely a trend that will continue, and I would think that any urban university or school district would have an interest in making these kinds of relationships and blurring the boundaries. The joint programming and technology can be mutually beneficial. It’s a win-win for both sides in everyway, and it really should become a model for the country.