Welcome to the Neighborhood
Although Kodet Architectural Group designed the Jordan Park School of Extended Learning and Adolfson & Peterson was responsible for its construction, the people who built this school are the residents of Minneapolis’ Jordan neighborhood. The K-8 school is one of the projects helping to gentrify this lower-income, urban neighborhood about 30 blocks north of downtown Minneapolis. The neighborhood rendered final decisions regarding site selection, school design, modifications to a park that borders the school, and stipulated after-hours access to various parts of the building-including the gym, multipurpose space, and computer lab.
As for the name, the significance to Jordan Park being called the School of Extended Learning is due to its year-round class schedule and after-hours community use. Although the school does not have a three-month summer reprieve for maintenance and repair, Ed Kodet, architect and president of Kodet Architectural Group, says that fact only affected equipment choices-such as central air conditioning-not the design.
Design and Site Selection
The design process-from the time Kodet Architectural Group first met with the neighborhood to the time the $15.5 million project went out to bid-was about six months. During that time the community was presented with preliminary drawings and layouts for two designs and a choice of two sites. They selected a parcel of land next to the existing Jordan Park and settled on a design concept that Kodet created by borrowing and reinterpreting architectural elements found throughout the neighborhood.
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Jordan Park School of Extended Learning Cost: $15.5 million |
It wasn’t easy designing a 113,000-square-foot building that fit the scale of the Jordan neighborhood. “We did everything we could to diminish the scale of the school,” says Kodet. Visual tricks include designing single-story sections where the school borders neighboring homes, creating multiple façades to break up the building’s mass, building false chimneys to hide mechanical systems, and creating “attics” with sloped roofs that match those on neighboring homes. And, says Kodet, “we put in as many windows as the budget would allow so they too would diminish the scale. It’s a fairly good sized building that we wanted to look smaller by having various parts to it.”
Site Improvements
With a site selected and a design concept locked in, both the community and the Minneapolis Park Board made a few requests pertaining to the existing Jordan Park; the board requested facility space and the community wanted a safer environment.
To accommodate the Park Board, Kodet designed the school’s west side-the side facing Jordan Park-to accept a future 6,000-square-foot addition. All space within the addition would be used by the Park Board who also would be allowed access to the same parts of the school the community uses.
While the 4.5-acre site the school occupies was dotted with blighted homes and vacant lots, the neighboring park was in fairly good condition but the community requested minor rehab to improve safety. Several berms surrounding a wading pool were removed because the privacy they provided the pool area also concealed criminal activities. To further enhance park security, Kodet tweaked the school’s floorplan so people within the building can always focus a watchful eye on Jordan Park.
He positioned the media center on the second floor, angled the room toward the park, and created a balcony that provides unobstructed views of the park; during the day-and in the evening when the center is open to the public-the room always is full of people who can observe activity occurring within the park.
“Since the school has been there the park has been transformed from basically a hostile environment to a friendly environment,” explains Kodet. “And it cost no extra money. It is just a matter of communicating with people, learning what their concerns are, and then designing appropriately,” he says.
Interior Elements
Community input also influenced parts of the school’s layout and interior design. “They felt it was important to have a large open space to wait and gather and use for other activities,” says Kodet of the entrance atrium he designed. “This is something you don’t find in a lot of schools.” His location for the glassed-in space responds to a request by the Minnesota Planning Department. They wanted the transparency of the lobby to visually express the continuation of Humboldt Avenue, N., no longer a through street because of the new school.
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PROJECT DATA Architect: Kodet Architectural Group Ltd. Carpet and Flooring Construction Materials Washroom Equipment/Supplies HVAC/Controls Miscellaneous |
The community’s need for access to the school after hours accounts for the separation of shared spaces from the classrooms. The school’s north and west sections contain the gymnasium, multipurpose space, cafeteria, media center, and computer labs and have separate access and entryways for after-hours use while the rest of the building is locked down; an office and workroom allow users access to such equipment as copy and fax machines.
Kodet’s contributions also are seen throughout the building-in the palette of higher-end and long-life materials, in the relationship between classrooms and common areas, and even in the reception desk in the lobby; people entering the school receive immediate assistance instead of instead of having to go into the school’s administration offices.
“We don’t think a school should look institutional,” says Kodet. “We think the school should be a very warm environment,” which explains the liberal use of wood, warm colors, and abundant natural light. He further explains that this school-like so many others in urban settings-is probably the best environment students are exposed to during the year so every effort is made to design the nicest environment the budget allows.
Kodet dismisses concerns about kids carving into the wood or other acts of vandalism. “When we were planning this school, we went back to urban schools built in the 1920s that had wood inside. Kids hadn’t carved on any of that wood in the last 80 years so we stopped being concerned about that,” says Kodet. “I think if you give someone a nice place to study and work, they want to keep it nice.”
However, Kodet made sure there was one space that could get messed up. In fact, although the schools’ official designation for the place is A.R.T (Art, Resource, and Technology) the space is unofficially called “The Big Messy.” Located on the building’s first floor, A.R.T is a special environment-created in association with DeJong & Associates, a facilities programming firm in Dublin, Ohio-where students can work on any type of project. Assembled in one room are art supplies, computers, and other equipment allowing students to complete a project in one area instead of moving from space to space-from art room to computer center to science lab. “The idea is to have a little bit of everything all in one room,” says Kodet.
Under Construction
The Jordan Park School of Extended Learning presented Larry Palmquist, vice president of estimating for general contractor Adolfson & Peterson, a different set of challenges than it did Kodet. Instead of making sure the building’s design matched the neighborhood’s existing architecture, Palmquist made sure the construction schedule matched the district’s tight timeframe. From the beginning, however, he knew a building this large couldn’t be completed in nine months, as requested by the district. As it turned out, he was able to have the school partially finished within nine months and the entire structure complete within 12 months.
After Kodet’s accelerated six-month design phase, Palmquist started an accelerated construction phase. He already had the disadvantage of starting a month late; it was discovered the firm that originally won the bidding had made an error in their estimate and their bid was pulled. Adolfson & Peterson was the second bidder, and, knowing they also would lose some days to Minnesota’s unpredictable winter, Plamquist knew he had to somehow make up time.
Construction started in October 1998 and “we tried every method possible to speed the project up,” says Palmquist. He used recirculated hot water to heat the ground in order to pour slabs and employed cooling methods to dry the taping compound. He also used large crews-even though construction occurred during a time when there was a high demand for labor-and they would work on Saturday. Says Kodet, “they were very good. I would go [to the site] on Saturday and they had something like 60, 70, 80 people out there working during the summer.”
Palmquist credits an educated owner and architect for being able to deliver the completed first phase-the classroom areas-in time for the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year. However, while students had full access to classroom facilities, they had to make due without a media center, cafeteria, and other areas while crews worked on the occupied building. But, the wait was worth it because a few months later-during the winter of 2000-the school was completed. And now, members of the community who became so involved in their new school have complete access to the facility.