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 Designing for the UnknownCase Study presented by Norman Dull, AIA Anticipating future needs is a daunting task, said Norman Dull, and the key is to be flexible. He offered examples of two facilities that did just that: Alpha High School in Gresham, Ore.; and Southridge High School in Beaverton, Ore. Alpha High School Students spend half of each day in classroom settings. They spend the other half of the day in job experience settings, be it onsite, in a business lab, or in a school-to-work program. The school itself is in an urban setting, a block away from the train station. The 16,000-square-foot facility was designed specifically to house these programs. One of Alpha’s key design mandates was that it not look like a school.
Click to view plans: Alpha Floor Plan | Alpha Site Plan Southridge High School The building has student “streets” instead of halls, with porches serving as entries to each neighborhood. Each neighborhood—a zone with a student area, a parent area, and a production area—serves 450 to 500 students. There are common offices for teachers, with private counseling areas in the back. The common themes, said Dull, are community, lifelong learning, safety, integration, smallness, collaboration, and flexibility. |
Alpha is an alternative school that offers individually
tailored training, diverse experience in the work world, and positive
self-development and aims to help students determine future careers as they
earn their diplomas.
Administrators were also adamant that the facility be
flexible. Teachers use mobile carts as desks rather than being confined to a
single room, but most useful of all are the movable walls and furniture that
allow the staff and students to adjust the rooms to their needs.
So far, Alpha High School has a very impressive record: 100
percent of the students have graduated, 97 percent are employed, there is a 95
percent attendance rate, and a 78 percent retention rate.