iep2 - Pondering Facility Planning

Why is it designed that way?  It can be a common question when touring facilities on assessment or in a recent case during an interview. Still I wonder why more people do not ask that question on a day to day basis.  I do.  It is common fascination when touring facilities.  Looking a strange cabinetry and realizing the room was originally for a sewing class or once in Mexico, showing a whole group of guys that you need to pull a pin out to release the spare tire from under our stuck vehicle.  Designers normally do not place things willy nilly yet understanding the function of a design can be elusive.  No matter the effort in programing and design, new users are always present for when the building opens, who don’t know why decisions were made on the placement of switches and amenities or arrangement of spaces.  On the operational side, including servicing heating and air conditioning and cleaning finishes, there are manuals that are created, but,...

What would assessment photo selection be without a Gnome? Ever place has one. So we are coming up on another end of the year, for school districts at least, and it got me thinking of all the places we have been and people we have met.  Some of the best parts of what I do is meeting so many inspiring people and seeing so many creative ways to use and personalize space. A programmer learns a lot about people, what their goals are, how they work, who they work with and what they store. Skeletons anyone? It is fascinating! The fashion model in one department. We heard he/she changes outfits for every season! I never think enough thought is given the work that our civil servants do for the betterment of our society.  Granted there is a teacher day and secretary day  and I guess even bosses day but does that really cover it?  Sometimes it is the janitor or the maintenance worker who is the most beloved by the kids at a school.  Social worker and m...

We have all done it; looked in the window of a restaurant or a store and then decide if that place is for us or not, but how do we know….?  When I was younger my mom said not to go into a store with wooden hangers...not sure where this came from. We all automatically stop at a counter at the doctor’s office or restaurant.  Social norms and the environment speak to us, so what does your school say about you? I am currently in the process of helping a District decide on new furniture for a STEM building. During the process  I asked the question "what are you trying to say?"  If this is a building of collaboration, investigation and creation, then what should the furniture look like?  In the end, two person tables with casters were chosen for most spaces to maximize flexibility in the creation of groups and move through a variety of activities. Work benches and science lab tables will fill out the rest of the building. Furniture can have a huge impact on...

Getting bogged down by the jargon on 21 st century learning? You are not the only one.  One of my first tasks in starting a relationship with a District is discovering the District’s terminology for departments and special programs.  Special education is always an area where terms like Special Day Class can mean a whole host of different things and require different type of spaces.  Different approaches to learning and the world of technology have exploded the learning vocabulary to the point there needs to be a dictionary.   A Dictionary For 21st Century Teachers: Learning Models & Technology Creating common language is key to making any organization work.   One of the unsung heroes of a facilities master plan is the cross pollination of jargon, philosophy and purpose different departments have in an organization and how they affect the final environment.    Teachers will ask why they can’t paint their classroom a different color and the...

I recently listened to “ This American Life ” radio episode on expectations.  The episode focused on the visually impaired and how societies’ expectation of what they can do is holding them back from what is really possible and it got me thinking how are our expectations of students holding us back from designing and implementing schools? I remember a programing meeting in particular, which one of the more common debates of classroom design was debated: visual connection.  I have always been fascinated by how this discussion goes because our standard structure for programming goes as follows: Meeting 1: Discuss overarching goals of the facility Meeting 2: Define in general each space needed and the size and quantity of those spaces Meeting 3: Prioritized the spaces to fit budget and arrange the “pieces” functionally to meet the adjacency needs of the facility Meeting 4:Define the specifics of each space such as the cabinetry, need for sinks, accessories and amen...