iep2 - Pondering Facility Planning

I am flying home today (or last week because it took some time to post) from Kansas City and the EDspaces conference. After touring facilities, listening to speakers, interviewing vendors and testing furniture, it is time for a little reflection.  Mostly conference reaffirms and adds detail to things you already know.  For the most part, this conference did just that.  Top Topics  Flexible Seating – Yes! have more than one type of furniture in a school and in a room.   Floor seating, soft seating, wobbly chairs and standing height tables were all over the floor show and discussions on implementation and the educational reason behind the switch were in the sessions. Movement – While integrated with flexible seating, this concept was so prevalent that it needed its own bullet point. Beyond the wobble bottom stools, there were various mechanisms for students to rock, tilt and swivel.  Moving bodies created active minds and classroom m...

Our blogs are often inspired by questions we are asked.  When conducting community meetings, this questioning is just a daily part of the job. Some questions are popular, like this one, "How did we get here?" and going unstated is "with so many schools that need so much work?" This is a very common question, especially in California. The question refers to the current state of the school facilities.  Normally, this is followed by our school facilities are unacceptable, deplorable, inadequate, unsafe and out of date.  We have heard these descriptors from so many community members, administrators and teachers in every district that we conduct meetings.  Can we answer this question? As in every problem that has taken our society decades to create, a complex system of circumstances and hard choices lead to our run down, out of date and generally uninspiring school facilities. Although every school district has unique factors that contribute to the condi...

A question that has confounded us for some time is the quiet war against windows.  A mound of research is piling up on the benefits of natural light and views to the outside.  It can improve moods, shorten healing time, reduce eye strain and help students focus.  If you are interviewing users in a building that currently does not have windows, it is one of the most passionate requests, "just give me a window and I will be happy." CHPS , the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, has both access to daylight and views as possible points in the Indoor Environmental Quality section. So why when we tour and assess schools are windows most often covered?  We go around the state, for that matter the region, and see this covering time and time again. High windows, low windows, north facing, south facing, interior, exterior... you name it, someone has covered them. In the attempts to understand this dichotomy of those who have windows, cover them and t...

Throughout the ages institutional buildings have been designed to exhibit different messages that "the state" wanted to project.  Power, strength and wealth were common with monarchies. After all it was important to show the monarchs importance and ability to construct something monumental. In a democratic republic, we have chosen a variety of images.  In the early days strength and stability were important but these have given way, in some cases, to utility and efficiency.  Part of this shift is the limited amount of funds available and the higher cost of labor.  Still, there have been several meeting where the "perception of extravagance" has been a concern. It has been said that, "To show we are good stewards of tax payer money, we can't have anything that looks that extravagant." As a slave to function instead of fashion, I have often nodded along, pushing for extra square footage versus architectural fussiness. Of course no one wants a building ...

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,...

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...

At just another regular day of meetings at school district office, I (Ellen) just had to laugh.  Even with well-informed architects in the building, there was one room with the heater on and another room with the door open and the air conditioner pumping away.  Yap, we have a problem.  It brought flashbacks to a day I met with the facilities staff at a school district. They told me, in no uncertain terms, there will be no operable windows in the District. What no operable windows?!? We are in California.  Fall, spring and lately half of winter, big savings could come from using what Mother Nature is providing by opening a window.  They added, not so jokingly, if only we could control the doors too. At the time I was beside myself.  Today, however, on some level, I understand. This is not the first meeting I have been in where doors and windows are open with the air conditioner on and it is hotter outside than in.  Still, I don’t think tota...

iep2 has been involved in many meetings where building or replacing administration spaces is on the table. This is when the controversy begins.  Many people are concerned, rightly so, about facility bond money going to “space for the student”, not non-student space, such as the administration office.  Don’t get us wrong we are all about improving student environments and understand that they are why we have schools in the first place, BUT just for a moment we ask you to consider something that often gets over looked. Typical high priority list items in school planning are: Safety Welcoming Environments (AKA don’t make it look like a prison) Community / Parent Involvement Collaboration Creating   a Campus Identity Now let’s consider what the offices designed at most 1940’s-1960’s schools have to deal with: No walk through access (which does not allow visitors to walk in one door pass through an office space and walk out inside the schools “...