J. Lyndal Hughes Elementary School

Narratives

Educator Narrative

The school has opened a lot of new doors for both teachers and students. The flexible classroom configuration has allowed them to team together and truly implement individualized and project-based learning. Teachers there also incorporate the classroom that exists beyond the walls of the school — the outdoors! They consistently use the outside courtyards for hands on-learning about the environment and to encourage their students’ young imagination. The gym is located next to the cafeteria divided by a wall that folds open. The spaces can be used separately or as one giant room for events. And, since that part of the school has its own entry, the rest of the school can be locked down and secure during after-hours use. This school really demonstrates what a neighborhood school can be.

What exemplary ideas do the designs contain that enhance learning?

Great learning environments optimize flexibility through creative use of reconfigurable space, furniture, outdoor areas and technology to accommodate students, staff and the community now and in the future. Architects knew this and, when designing this district’s K-5 school prototype, they connected each set of two adjoining classrooms with garage door-like overhead panels that separate the traditional teaching spaces from the connecting area. They called the area between “flex spaces”. The teachers use the flex space to facilitate science and art wet task instruction. They’ve also found that when the doors are pulled down, the doors’ frosted windows minimize distractions that might occur between the spaces. In future renditions of this prototype, architects switched from overhead doors to sliding NanaWall panels, introducing added functionality to the paired classrooms.

The building program calls for an auditorium with stage but the square footage was maxed out. Designers solved the problem by adding a cafeteria space that opens up to become a performance stage, allowing the room to double as an auditorium. Designers used curtain and folding panel partitions to convert the dining room into varying sizes of stage arrangements that opens up to and steps down to the gymnasium that acts like the house of an auditorium. The school’s staff, the students and the community have found it to be a very effective, easy to use solution.

The design organizes classrooms by grade level. Architects facilitated age-appropriate storage with cubbies in classrooms for grades K-3 and out in corridors for grades 4-5. The transparency of the building inspired incorporating planting beds for grade level gardens within the outside courtyard paving pattern.

To enhance learning, provide connectivity to the world outside and to save on use of electricity to light rooms, architects incorporated natural light throughout the school–in the corridors, classrooms, offices and assembly/public spaces. The result is an open, welcoming and secure environment that is both a neighborhood school and a community multi-purpose facility.

What innovations in the planning, programming and design process supported the realization of those exemplary ideas?

After extensive discussions with the district’s facilities planning committee, meetings were conducted with elementary principals and tours of comparable schools, the goals for the new facility were clear. The architect developed concepts on paper then presented finals as computerized 3D renderings so the committee could “experience” the design. Taking it a step further, the District set up a model of the new school’s flex spaces in the administration building allowing teachers to acclimate before the school opened.

Architects extended lessons learned on other projects about the effects of daylighting and how to deliver it within a compact plan. This knowledge was incorporated during the initial design sessions held on-site with administrators, educators, students and the community.

This facility is engineered to save operations and maintenance costs from many angles. Examples of the cost efficiencies include vestibules at every entry/exit; canopies for persons waiting at drive-ups that double as sun shades for offices; earth burms to keep excavated soil on site; and mechanical VAV boxes placed above corridor ceilings to simplify maintenance and limit disruption in classrooms. Further, the “small site” saves land costs while accommodating school expansion - future suites of classrooms can be added at all three classroom wings.