Architects Collaborate with Students on School Design
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — School design and construction play a major factor in how students function and learn in the classroom. New Haven-based Svigals+Partners recognized that students react positively to hands-on learning and decided to collaborate with the students at the Engineering & Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) through a program called “Kids Build.”
Svigals+Partners began working on ESUMS back in 2008 when site selection began and then in August 2012 the schematic design began on the five-story, 122,000-square-foot school. Svigals+Partners’ Julia McFadden, AIA, led several architects and over 20 students in the first session of Kids Build, where the architects went over design strategies with the students and discussed the future of their school.
The students, who are selected by school administrators and educators, split up in groups and worked on “mock” designs using simple classroom supplies like string, tape and popsicle sticks. ESUMS nominated 24 students for the program in grades nine and 10. According to McFadden, “The Kids Build program will actively involve students in the design and maintenance of the new school. Participating students will be stewards who learn about the design and construction of ESUMS and how to maintain it.”
The $48 million project consists of green design and building strategies in order to maximize daylighting and reduce energy costs.
The students learn about the building and design through participation and develop the skills they need to contribute to the school’s success. McFadden noted seven important lessons that students learn through Kids Build:
Explore: Students explore the physical spaces that make up a new school
Design: Students learn about architectural plans and sections and learn how to visualize and design spaces.
Understand: Students hear from and understand various trades that are involved in constructing and caring for a new school.
Care: Students are shown how to care for a building and play an active role in its long-term maintenance and operations.
Art: Students create art for their school in order to develop a sense of ownership for their new home.
Transfer: Students transfer information they learn to younger students or to their class so the knowledge learned is also shared.
Empower: Students contribute to their school community as well as the future communities that they join. Graduates of the program may be linked to more advanced programs in energy management, architecture, construction or environmental studies.
“Every square inch of the ESUMS site has been embraced: from a rain garden that collects roof drainage; an outdoor classroom with a sidewalk loop for testing robots; an overlook and classroom at the edge of a wetland on the site that allows students to test stormwater run-off from the state highway and the site’s parking lots before it enters the wetland, and after it has gone through the site’s underground hydrodynamic separator and water treatment system,” said McFadden.
Along with the outdoor and hands-on resources the school will also have a raised garden bed where students can grow vegetables that they can eat in the cafeteria and learn about plant diversity, soil quality, hybridization techniques and other botanical issues, according to McFadden.
Svigals+Partners have been participating in the Kids Build program since 2006 at the Beecher School and then again in 2008 at the Columbus Academy. ESUMS is the third school to be part of Kids Build and has been a great success, according to McFadden.
“While it might be hard to prove, it appears that the schools that were involved with the program have seen a tradition of students caring for their schools, which has resulted in better maintained schools,” she said.