Life is full of 'firsts'. Your first word, your first step and your first day of school come to mind. Fast forward to today, you may have been assigned the task to facilitate in the design of a learning space at your school, or have the opportunity as an administrator to lead a design team in creating a new campus. This could be a 'first' for you and the task can seem daunting. But whether or not this is your first experience in design and planning or this is old hat to you, one thing remains constant; you must take the time to plan. As basic as this sounds, it remains a necessity.
What has created the need for your school facility? Answering this question will set the tone for later discussions when you may be addressing tax payers in your district and asking for funds. The reason for expansion or renovations of your facility most likely have not occurred overnight, unless of course there is a natural disaster of a fire or tornado. Many times the need arises out of an increase in student population. Population shifts within a district can also create needs where the facility can be impacted, either with additional students or declining enrollment. Knowing your school's demographics is a key in successful planning for the future. You must be able to assess where your student population will be in 5 and 10 years from now in order to have the proper facilities to accommodate them. Usually the forecast is updated yearly, in fast growth areas it may be updated more often, sometimes 2 or 3 times in a year.
One of your next steps is to assess the architectural feasibility of the existing facility. If you are considering whether or not to renovate a structure, one of the first questions you must ask is can the building support the current educational program needs now and in the future. Renovation of a facility would be considered a success if it has a projected life of over 25 years. Of course cost always is a consideration. A rule of thumb is that if renovation costs more than half of what new construction would be, the better solution would be to go with the new construction. This does not take into account historical aspects of the community and other factors - renovations vs new construction will be a topic for another discussion. Ask yourself, how will the building accommodate what and how we teach. The physical aspects of the facility should be assessed by professionals. Architects and engineers can tell you whether or not the building envelope (exterior walls and roof) are in good shape and can be repaired, can the electrical system handle the technology we will need, and structurally is the building sound? The answer to those and many other physical aspects of the building will help in determining whether the life of a building can be extended or not.
I have just scratched the surface of planning for educational facilities. It is my hope to impart some tips and share my 30 years of working as an architect in the educational facility design world with you. Topics in future blogs will range from hiring a design professional to what to expect during the construction of my school. I would love to hear from you about specific topics or questions that you may have related to school facilities design and construction.
Life is full of 'firsts', today is my first time to write a blog. I am excited about what is to come.
Michael King AIA
There are two websites for information on demographics from the US Census Bureau the old one is http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en and the new one is http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml These two sites have more information that you could possibly use, but they are great sites. The New Site is much easier to navigate and has a simpler topic search box.
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that demographics research is becoming a hot topic in education. It has always been important to know, but populations seem to be shifting faster than in the past. This trend has serious consequences for educational facilities at the primary, secondary, and tertiary level. Demographics research and its consequences in education are fascinating and something I personally need to spend more time learning about.
As far as planning, how involved in the planning process do you try to get the people who are actually going to use the facilities? Do you have suggestions for making that process easier?
Good luck on the blogging!
I live in a community that is growing and has quickly changing demographics. Our problem is district wide in that we have extremely old facilities, with all of our schools falling apart, leaking, and quickly becoming too small to fit our needs and student population. A bond to build all new schools was put before the voters last year and failed by a landslide. My questions are: How can a school board and a superintendent convince the local community of the need of new facilities when the community is set on sinking large sums of money into continually repairing and putting band aids (so to speak) on the old facilities? Isn't it more cost effective, in the long run, to invest the money in a new facility? In your 30 years of experience, what are some of the successful ways you have seen a community convinced of the need for new construction? Thank you for your consideration of my questions!
ReplyDeleteHere is a piece of literature that may help with passing a school bond - http://www.ruraleducator.net/archive/27-2/27-2_Holt.pdf
ReplyDeleteIt is aimed at the rural school district. Without knowing your situation (district location, size, etc.), I am sure some of the principles carry over between all community types.
Collaboration is a huge part of the process. Though time consuming, it builds buy in. I live in a medium sized, rural district where the community felt the supt. hand selected stakeholders (teachers, community members, etc.) to participate in a facility assessment as a formality to initiating a bond proposal. Although we desperately need some new elementary facility, the school board refused to put a bond election to the voters because of the supt. tactics...plus the economy downturn was starting to be felt in Texas.
Hopefully the article helps, I am sure there are more case studies out there on passing bond elections. The key is to take bits and pieces and apply them to your unique situation.
regarding Alicia's comments- involving the end users of the building is very important. in order for the bldg to function it must first meet the needs of the teachers as well as the students. We have held design charettes where you involve all participants to engage in the design. You can also engage teachers by having them meet within their disciplines to collaborate on effective learning spaces. Then have a representative of each of those disciplines meet as a part of the design team. You should also consider having members of the community represented on the design team, sometimes people that are active in their PTA can be very helpful. Allow yourself enough time to engage people that have a stake in the project and set aside the planning time and you will most likely have a very successful project.
ReplyDeletethanks for the encouragement on the blogging thing....it seems to be going ok so far.
regarding Mercer's comments- convincing a community to build new facilities over renovating is becoming increasingly difficult, especially in this down turn in the economy. You really must focus on and find out what the over riding issue is with the community. I have had several projects that started out with the School Board wanting to replace older buildings with new and then having failed bond issues because they were not listening to their community. What are those underlying issues that you aren't hearing? Is there a distrust from the community in the Board or the Superintendent? You must work on those things before you can successfully pass a bond issue.
ReplyDeleteSome things you can do to help your community understand the need for a new bldg is to have a facility assessment done on the existing bldgs. A detailed report by design professionals that outline the bldgs deficiencies and cost estimate to bring the bldg up to current standards. You can then compare that cost to bldg a new bldg. Also you can have facility tours so the community can come and see the actual condition of the bldg. Often times you hear 'well that bldg was good enough for me and my grandfather', but they havent actually stepped foot in the bldg in 30 years.
I like Schindler's comments above as well. Collaboration is huge. If you have some people that are against your bldg campaign, put them on the community committee. If you can't change their mind at least they will be involved in getting accurate information.
We recommend having a survey done to inform the Board as to what the community pulse is. It may be the consensus is to renovate instead of bldg new. If so, sometimes you need to embrace that and move on. We have taken many bldgs thought to be unusable and turned them into great facilities.
Passing a bond issue is difficult, having the community embrace the need for the bond is key. Our best advice is to focus on getting the yes vote out. Register as many voters as you can, find out who those registered voters are and have an aggressive campaign to follow up and encourage those targeted voters to actually go and vote. There will always be the nay-sayers in your community, don't waste valuable resources and time trying to turn the no voters, you will have more success if you can get the yes voters to vote.
Most people would be hesitant to put a person with a conflicting point of view on the community. But, maybe once they get better information they will change their mind or at least be forced to consider the facts of the issue rather than assumptions and rumor.
ReplyDeletej. Purser-TSU
I have been interested in energy conservation and independence since the 1970's with the first "energy crisis" and oil embargoes. Even as a young person during that time, there were expectations that further crises were unavoidable if American's didn't become more conservation minded .
ReplyDeleteNow the entire planet is rapidly becoming ever- more dependent on fossil fuels; just the opposite of our (then) youthful expectations.
Back to the earlier energy "crunch"; there were numerous projects begun with vigor and later abandoned as the warnings faded and then disappeared and we lapsed into old habits. Sustainability is the new reality and educating our children as children to the need for responsible consumption and production of energy is vital. I applaud the innovators who have developed the practical application of these wonderful trends,but most importantly to actually implement them in schools so that students will grow up in and be educated in and by these sustainable environments is much more forward-looking than to build offices or government facilities that are not accessible to the students. If that were the case then the impact would be diminished as the memory of the "fieldtrip" or the "lesson" taught in science dimmed.
They are not only learning about sustainability... they are living it.
My school went through the process of determining the need for new construction versus renovating our pre-existing buildings and determined that a revamp and partial new contruction would work. This is what they presented to the community. Sadly...the bond failed, but the most disheartening part about it was the fact that we had teachers in our district who voted against it...simply because they wouldn't be getting one of the "new" classrooms. :(
ReplyDelete