The 2004 Awards For Innovative Learning Environments
The fifth international DesignShare Awards program, co-sponsored by School Construction News and the C/S Group, continues its lively discussion focused on the meaning of innovation for school. The review is based upon nine key principles, grouped into three categories with supporting criteria. The principles are:
Learning.
Process and community.
Resources, context, and space.
A 15-member international team of school planning and design experts from eight countries reviewed 63 projects from around the globe.
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C/S Group is proud to have been a co-sponsor of the DesignShare Awards Program since its inception. C/S Group provides design assistance, consultation and architectural specialty products throughout the world. Building Green Inc., an independent publisher on sustainable design and construction, is pleased to support the fifth annual DesignShare Awards Program. BuildingGreen will be offering one-year complimentary access to the BuildingGreen Suite to all awardees. DesignShare.com provides ideas and resources about educational facilities and their impact on the learning process. You can view past award winning projects on the site, including information on cost, square footage, floor plans, and commentary. |
The DesignShare Award program is unique in many ways, it focuses first on learning, second on the learners, and then third on how the built or natural environment provides rich learning opportunities. Additionally, we conduct the entire process via the web. Karl Jones from DesignShare created a complex, yet easy-to-use interface that includes the architects’ and educators’ narratives, facility data, products, plan diagram, and image summary from which we review, send comments to one another, and rate the projects. All this is done anonymously. Names of projects, designers, planners, and architects are withheld until after the ratings have been completed. The DesignShare Awards are all about promoting exemplary ideas in planning and designing, and sharing full project information globally with educators, planners, designers, architects and community members.
In order to become acquainted with one another, Randy Fielding, DesignShare.com founder and partner Fielding/Nair International, asked three important questions. When asked what was the most important idea in your work, answers included innovation, passion, curiosity, and freedom to design in ways that are not oppressive to the learner.
Traveling and outdoor activities topped the list for our favorite activities. Thirdly, we included sitting in a grandparent’s rocking chair, being at a family cottage, and riding trains as our favorite places. One reviewer said that the most important idea in his work was freedom and the necessity to take school design out of the realm of power, control, authority, dominance and move into the real world of the learner.
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REVIEW TEAM William Ainsworth Rodolfo Almeida Pedro Barran Victoria Bergsagel William DeJong, Ph.D., REFP Peter Jamieson Bruce A. Jilk, AIA, REFP Jeffery Lackney, Ph.D., AIA, REFP John Mayfield, BSc, Dip Ed, Ed D, Prakash Nair, R.A., REFP Gavriela Nussbaum, Susan Stuebing Henry Sanoff, AIA Susan J. Wolff, Ed. D. Kaname Yanagusawa |
"Both body and mind should not be closed up in a box," explains the writer of the project narrative for Tajimi Junior High School, Japan, one of the honor award recipients for 2004. Tajimi was designed to be a place for living and activity for the learners, providing spiritual and physical freedom, and the ability to grow and change. Visitors note the bright expressions on the faces of the learners. Students wrote that, rather than seeing hallways and walls when moving from one space to another, they see flowers and trees.
"Who said a corridor with spaces on both sides was bad?" asked Rodolfo Almeida. He went on to say that High Tech Middle School, San Diego, California, another honor award recipient, is a good example of what can be achieved with a central corridor that becomes something else. His comments were echoed by many of the reviewers. John Mayfield described the project’s strengths as the seamless transition between formal and informal. According to Susan Stuebing, "the power of this project is its strong concept that was well-executed."
A combined middle and high school campus, Compass Montessori Secondary School, based upon the Montessori and Erdkinder concepts, was a unique project that received a merit award. "Woven into the fabric of its locale, this project oozes character," is how Victoria Bergsagel described the project.
The reviewers this year continued recognition of projects that are not "traditional" schools. Prakash Nair stated, "Once again, a non-school project with all the features I would love to see in so-called regular schools." The Edisto Beach Interpretive Center in South Carolina is a joint project with the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to develop a "public teaching laboratory." Gavriela Nussbaum called this a "real natural laboratory."
A high school with individual student desks and spaces crafted from corrugated metal? Hip-hop High (High School for Recording Arts) operates with a professional music production studio. Learners split their time between individual learning in academic areas, instruction in the music industry, and developing and mastering production and performance skills. Academics must be mastered each day before the learners may use the recording studios. The educator narrative notes, "This skill-based learning method measures students’ competence rather than time spent in a classroom."
Renovation of an existing facility brought a merit award to Keane Children’s Center/Charlestown Boys and Girls Club. Prakash Nair wrote, "anybody who thinks about getting rid of older buildings because they cannot be configured to serve today’s learning needs should see the loving way in which this building has been restored. The spaces are functional yet aesthetic and very unschool-like in almost everything it does."
Each year, a philosophical undertone develops from the reviewers as they write their comments and questions during the review stage. This year, the focus tended towards the emotional, sociological, psychological, and physiological needs of learners in addition to sustainable, green environments. The above needs were reflected in terms of scale, color, warmth, stimulation, respect of culture, inclusion of the environment, and sustainable practices. Peter Jamieson, an educator, also reflected the careful attention paid to the learning process. He said, "As a teacher, I appreciate the genuine attempt to tackle what I think is the biggest challenge for educational architects and educators. That is, providing spaces that enable the users to inhabit them as they need and prefer to."
Visit the Honor Awards.
Visit the Merit Awards.
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CITATION AWARD Chabad Hebrew Academy Concord Children’s Center Lakes Community High School M.E.S’s Bal Shikshan Mandir Mattie McCullough Elementary Missouri Dept. of Conservation Nibley Park Elementary School Somerville Intermediate School The Riverside School RECOGNIZED VALUE AWARD Note: The “display firms” field is in addition to the “submitter.” In the few instances when they are not the same, the fields differentiate between the two. Almond Elementary School Anchor Bay High School
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Broshim School Capuano Early Childhood Center clackmannanshire council Edisto Beach Elementary/Community Center Emerson College Fuhua Primary School Health Professions Building Jenkins School Jordan Middle School Moore Square Museums Magnet Middle School Newark Science Park High School New Brunswick High School New City School
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North Shore Community College Perth Amboy High School Quinebaug Valley Community College Rani Laxmibai Military School for Girls Rogers High School St. Gabriel Catholic School St. Thomas of Aquin’s High School Vista Grande Elementary School Westerville Central High School White River High School Willowbank Primary School |