St. Gabriel Catholic School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

The foremost goal for the design of the school was the development of a “learning focused” environment. Simply stated, to produce a quality-learning environment was top priority. From this over-riding objective three key principles emerged. The desire for the school to provide flexible and varied teaching spaces, which would include intelligent integration of technology. The building’s design should embody the community’s values (of togetherness, striving for excellence, unity and caring for others and the environment) and express the catholic faith of the community. Finally, the school was to adhere to strict space and financial restraints of the provincially mandated funding formula.

Early in, the design team realized that building the school within the given restraints would require a significant innovation — from the designers but also from the school’s staff, students and parents. The creation of a “new” school with features like: flexible teaching spaces, the provision of natural daylight into almost every room, energy and water efficient equipment, and appropriate expression of values required trade-offs in other areas to make these goals achievable.

To make the project work, architectural priority was given to the design of simple, daylight, multi—functional, shared and flexible spaces. The striping down of unnecessary finishes and finding space and cost savings in an efficient plan all required the cooperation of the end users. Individual classroom were made smaller to accommodate the Activity Rooms (for team teaching, classroom accessible computers and small group projects) within a typical school footprint. The removal of walls around the Gym to transform the space into a more useful multi—functional room (used concurrently for gym classes, kindergarten indoor play and small assemblies) required a number of design concepts as well as staff acceptance. To be successful the school has required all users to adjust and re-evaluate their preconceived notions of what qualities and features form a school. Exposed piping, durable but inexpensive materials, the open Gym and Library, planting right up to the school’s foundation walls have all been accepted by the school inhabitants as enhancing the character/atmosphere of this open learning environment.

In plan the classrooms are clustered around shared Activity Rooms, which in turn are centered around the core spaces of the school (such as the Library, Courtyard, Multi Purpose Room and Gymnasium). A number of efficiencies were gained from the simple rigor of the plan, circulation space was kept to a minimum, duct and other service runs could be kept short, and the central locations of the Office and Staff room created a “connected” feeling and added to internal surveillance.

Nearing the end of the first year of operation the staff, students and community have been won over by this unconventional school. There approval of the trade off of smaller classroom and less interior finishes in return for shared flexible spaces. Many positive comments have been made regarding the “lightness”, “spiritual” and “healthy” qualities of the school brought by the open, daylight, and simple spaces.

Educator Narrative

The school is sited in a newly developed residential neighborhood in a rapidly expanding suburb of Brantford. Some of the students and staff have relocated from existing schools, however, the majority were new to the system. This truly “new” school represented an opportunity to integrate new technologies in a meaningful way, foster learning at multiple levels (including collaborative teaching and peer learning,), while creating a building uniquely suited to this distinct community.

In the planning stages for the school the functional, yet natural integration of technology emerged as a key objective. Traditionally computers have be shoehorned into the back of the classroom or grouped into isolated dedicated computer classrooms. With this school the challenge was to locate computers where they would be best utilized for classroom teaching while working within the restrictions presented by the technology and space budget of a typical school. The approach taken was to create technology “pods” which would allow for computers to be accessed from the classroom for small group projects while also allowing space for an entire class to have computer access just outside their door. Flexibility in locating and using computers through out the school was also seen as important. To this end wireless ports have been installed to allow for network connections to be made anywhere in the school and wired data points have been installed in all the shared spaces for computer generated presentations.

We understand that the learning process is complex and that different people learn in different ways and from different sources. We believe a school must be designed with this in mind while maintaining the standards of education, providing for equal access to information and ensuring a safe and appropriate learning environment. This building has been designed to encourage the exchange of ideas and interaction at a number of levels — while creating an inspiring space for structured learning. Classrooms have the necessary degree of privacy for class-based work, while the “pod” approach has allowed for flexibility and an opportunity for team teaching and shared special project spaces. The open library encourages use of the resources and provides an informal meeting place for students. The courtyard provides an additional gathering place as well as a protected space for outdoor experiments and projects.

Being in a new school has allowed us the opportunity to create our identity. The building needed to express our identity, our beliefs, our Catholicity, and values of togetherness, striving for excellence, unity and caring for others. The beliefs and Catholicity of the community are embodied by the symbol of the crucifix and also the natural light and views of the sky that are visible from the double height shared core spaces of the school. The values of togetherness, striving for excellence, unity and caring for others are expressed through the transparency and openness of the building, that all spaces are visually connected to each other and the exterior.