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Case
Studies 1 - 8
Summaries
of Case Studies
Cornell
students recently posed these questions following the Taylor workshop in
the 2000 Stein and Schools Lecture Series:
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How
might community and school planning be integrated?
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What
does it take to work in an interdisciplinary manner?
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What
areas in the school design process are ripe for collaboration?
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How
do we educate our communities on the benefits of restructuring our
school
systems?
These are good questions with which
to begin an investigation of the case studies.
I have loosely grouped several design success stories into these
categories:
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Collaboration
and Participation
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Culture
and Sense of Place
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Architecture
and Design as Pedagogy
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Ecology
and Design.
Good
design draws from all of these areas, and there is some overlap between
cases. The headings are
simply chosen to focus thinking on the benefits of design education and
the potential roles of school and community in planning.
Collaboration
and Participation
Schools
must satisfy students, the school system, parents, and community--and all
these groups have different wants and needs
(Schlechty, 1997, pp. 140-148).
Pleasing so many “markets”
means defining the customer or client and collecting data and input
from all stakeholders before you design the product.
Case
Study # 1: Trout Lake,
Washington
In
Trout Lake, the district had been trying to pass a bond issue for five
years. Both parents and
children wanted a community center with a child care facility, gymnasium,
auditorium, a library connected electronically to the statewide
system, and a nutrition and cooking lab for community classes.
The superintendent and architect honored their wishes.
Teachers, parents, and students were trained in design and
communication through workshops in drawing, design and model-building.
They were involved every step of the way in research, programming,
site analysis, and environmental impact studies
(students found black water from the septic tank on their
playground). Forest Service
employees helped students conduct soil conservation experiments.
One month after a student architectural exhibition and parent
meeting, the bond issue passed. It also passed at the highest possible tax rate in Washington
state (School Zone Institute
& Taylor, 1992).
Case
Study # 2: Stockton,
California
A
community school will become a farm and environmental study center as part
of an alternative high school, based on student input and unique design
ideas from students during the programming process.
These students said over and over,
“Make our education REAL!”
Their input as stakeholders in a one-year programming process
changed the course and design of the new high school.
Students performed a site analysis for the architect, who then put
it together as a professional document.
Professionals
from the community were viably involved in several ways.
A business incubation section of the school was planned so that
students could start their own businesses.
A health club owner planned to build a spa and swimming pool on the
school grounds, to be used by the students during the day and by the
community at night and on weekends. Engineering, traffic, and landscape consultants hired to
participate in the project were asked to spend time envisioning how their
designs could be so built that they would become learning tools as well as
functioning aspects of the environment.
They had never been asked to do this before, but soon ideas flowed.
The HVAC system was to become a museum of mechanics and physics.
The playground developed into a learning landscape, much of it
cared for by students, complete with sundials, windmills, wind channel
walls for studying air currents and flight, multicultural entryways and
flags, greenhouse, aqua culture ponds, and more
(Wolff Lang Christopher, Architects;
Bingler with Concordia, Inc., Architects;
Sherk; & Taylor, 1994). A
film, “They Really Listen
to Us,” dramatically
illustrates the impact inclusion in the planning process has on student
attitude and motivation toward learning
(Lincoln Unified School District, 1994).
Note:
the tax base was reduced when development fell through, and the
district was unable to build the alternative high school.
The district held on to the property, however, which will now
become a middle school. The
vision of an environmental center for learning will be realized, even
after several setbacks in planning. This
is a long-term process, but the design education and democratic learning
did not go to waste.
Case
Study #3: Western Placer,
California
Lincoln
is a small rural town near Sacramento surrounded on all sides by vast
ranch lands. Large
manufacturers such as Herman Miller, Zytec, Hewlett Packard, and others
are beginning to build factories in the area.
The Western Placer School District, which serves Lincoln schools,
needed to develop planning goals and a vision for future development in
the light of recent growth. Concordia,
Inc., an architectural firm based in New Orleans, worked with the district
to establish PROJECT BUILD. The
purpose of the project was to assist the district in the development of a
community-based vision or Master Plan for the programming and design of
educational facilities. This
was accomplished by studying the context of the total community
environment before developing a plan to guide decisions made by the
district. Concordia and the
district collected and analyzed data about rich community resources and
utilized community participation in the architectural programming process.
For
ten months, a group of teachers, students, business people and interested
citizens met at Lincoln High School to examine four frameworks as a basis
for collecting information about potential educational resources in the
area. These frameworks
included:
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Physical
Resources -- What are
they in this community?
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Learning
-- What are our curriculum-content and instructional delivery system
goals?
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Governance
-- What is the city government and how can it be utilized in
education?
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Socioeconomic
Opportunities -- What social and economic institutions are there, and
how can they be used?
During
the planning process, participants were involved in a wide range of
activities to build knowledge of place:
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Exploring
architectural design and developing visual and spatial skills for
better communication with architects who would be designing
Lincoln’s new schools. This
means developing a “tool box”
of architectural drawing conventions
(bubble diagrams to show spatial orientation, plan views,
elevation views, etc.) in
order to represent ideas and concepts visually.
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Visiting
and exploring the school district’s 200-acre farm as an expanded
learning site for all students, not just for some dozen students in a
4 - H program.
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Listening
and learning from distinguished guests who spoke to the committee
about curriculum instruction, social programs, economic development,
and governance in the community and school district.
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Visiting
a Herman Miller factory to experience a production line and discover
skills needed by workers in industry
(students included)
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Taking
an architectural walking tour of downtown Lincoln, discovering the
historic architecture and evolution of the town and how the community
could be used to study math, science, art and history.
Information gathered was used to write a local guidebook
illustrated with photographs.
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Utilizing
a “Treasure Card”
survey
form to conduct interviews, collect and interpret data, and then to
make presentations to the larger group about community resources. Treasure Cards when compiled make up a field of
contacts, potential learning activities, and other ways for involving
community in school operations. This
work was done by students, who learned some incredible visual-verbal
skills while presenting the material.
Some true treasures were uncovered through this process,
including a gift of three hundred acres given to the school district
to be planted by the students as a mandarin orange grove. It was
estimated that the school could reap over $400,000 annually when the
trees mature.
Presently,
Western Placer citizens have formed a non-profit corporation to enable
long-term implementation of the Master Plan.
It is estimated that the district saved $19 million through the
planning process involving businesses when Zytec funded building of a new
high school next to their facility (Concordia,
Inc., Architects & Anne Taylor Associates, 1996).
Case
Study #4: Hayward, California
In
Hayward, a one hundred-person stakeholder group used a programming process
similar to the above case study to conceive a master plan for the school
district. The focus shifted
from merely designing a new school to creating a community learning
center, academy, and museum setting devoted to the arts and to
multicultural study. In
addition to its formal educational function, current plans call for the
new facility to serve as a tourism attraction for the entire Bay Area, and
as a national center for research in multiculturalism.
An innovative integrated curriculum will be the focus of the
academy’s program, with extensions to serve all of the community’s
existing educational sites (Concordia,
Inc., Architects & Anne Taylor Associates, 1998).
Case
Study #5: Albuquerque, New
Mexico
Rio
Grande Education Collaborative Project Proposal
The
University of New Mexico’s (UNM)
Institute for Environmental Education (IEE), a part of the School of
Architecture and Planning, is taking the lead in this initiative, which
brings together:
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The
Albuquerque Public Schools (APS)
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Albuquerque
Technical Vocational Institute
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IEE
and UNM
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Community
members -- from both business and non-profit organizations, as well as
local families.
The goal of this project is to provide post-secondary and Rio Grande High
School
Cluster
students with an opportunity to learn through experience and mentorship.
This will be attained through the design and construction of an
innovative learning facility on the high school campus, achieved primarily
by students. During the
design process, students will work with post-secondary students and
professionals in various fields (i.e.,
architects, engineers, contractors, lawyers).
The perceived benefits are:
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Curriculum
reform will take place at K - 12 and post-secondary levels
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UNM
students as well as the APS community will directly benefit through
involvement in design, programming, construction and, ultimately,
through occupation of the facility.
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Area
residents will have a facility for continuing education and vocational
training supported by both educational institutions and business
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Other
school districts and communities will learn from this model for
interdisciplinary and enhanced learning.
It
is anticipated that developing a true community center will take about
five years. The collaborative
will break new ground in developing relationships that have not existed
before. The work is
comprehensive, creative, and complicated.
There are no illusions that this will be an easy undertaking, but
this project has the potential for lasting positive impact which can be
replicated throughout the educational community.
Several methods will be used during the course of the project to
achieve the benefits to the community listed above:
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IEE
will work to develop strategic alliances.
A steering committee with members from all partners and from
local businesses including Public Service Co. of NM, Sandia National
Labs, and Intel, as well as non-profit organizations like the
Governor’s Business Executives for Education, has already been
established.
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IEE
will provide real-world educational experiences.
These experiences are available through design studios at the university
in both architecture and engineering departments, after school
academic programs at a local middle school, and teacher professional
development training.
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The
partnership will work to increase levels of involvement and
leadership. The number of post-secondary students will increase
through interaction between secondary and post-secondary students and
facilities. Service
learning, mentorship, and internships all contribute to this effort.
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This
project will show relevancy in education as a vehicle for future
success. By implementing
innovative learning styles and strategies, along with a constant
stream of role models, it is hoped that the initiative will reduce the
Rio Grande Cluster’s drop-out rate of nearly 38%.
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The
program will develop student visual and spatial thinking skills
through applied learning techniques.
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The
collaborative encourages the use of innovative educational theory and
ideas in practice. This
is achieved through experiential learning, project longevity, real
life issues, favorable public exposure for educational institutions,
team environments and cross-disciplinary collaboration, and applied
learning (Institute for
Environmental Education [IEE], 2000).
Note: Any one of the
variables described in the design process could form the basis for
qualitative academic research on the success
(or lack thereof) of
this collaborative approach.
Case Study
#6: Intel and Rio Rancho, New
Mexico
Intel,
computer chip-making giant, financed building of a new $30 million high
school in return for industrial bond tax breaks in Rio Rancho, NM, a city
northwest of Albuquerque. Similar
tax incentives to attract and hold industrial and business development
have been used by cities for years, but in this case the city has a new
high school to show for it. Business
has an interest in high quality schools, and schools in growing districts
need financing. Used with a little creativity, mechanisms exist in city
planning to bring these two groups closer together for their mutual
benefit and the benefit of the community as well.
In
addition, graduate students from UNM offered a design education program at
the new high school in which students used Intel technology to design
houses of the future. Their
work was exhibited at UNM’s School of Architecture this year.
Culture
and Sense of Place
Schools
can reinforce and extend our understanding of place so that we better
understand ourselves and our communities.
Case
Study #7: Los Angeles,
California
The
Metropolitan Forum Project, headed by journalist and civic leader David
Abel, has created “New
Schools/Better Neighborhoods” (NSBN),
a project addressing the gap between research about the negative affects
of large schools on learning and behavior
(see Barker & Gump, 1964;
Fowler, 1992; Garbarino,
1980; and Glass, 1982) and
actual building practices which often result in schools of 3000-plus
students.
NSBN
links smart growth with smart schools.
There is a need to create small, high quality, community-centered
schools where there will be less need for busing, shorter commutes for
parents who might otherwise move to the suburbs, and shared community
space in which adults and children can mix, share ideas, and learn
together. NSBN’s answer to
traditional bureaucratic methods of school site selection is to move from
rigid preset formulas to soliciting community input during site selection
and design. The goal, says
Abel, is to create schools as centers of communities and communities as
centers of learning (Abel,
1999; New Schools Better Neighborhoods, 2000).
Case
Study #8: Los Angeles,
California
Architect
Steven Bingler, Concordia, Inc., has been working with the Los Angeles
School System to design smaller schools on sites in older, dense
neighborhoods where large sites are hard to find.
Often these sites are toxic brown fields, wasted spaces as they now
stand. Part of the charge is
to explore collaborative efforts and to consider joint development of not
only the schools, but parks, libraries and public services (Bingler, 2000).
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