Rosa Parks Elementary School, Berkeley, CA, USA

Located in an ethnically diverse area of Berkeley, California, the Rosa Parks Elementary School (formerly the Columbus School) was declared seismically unsafe following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The Columbus School has been the  heart of the West Berkeley community for well over haIfa century. The decision to close the school after the 1989 earthquake was heartbreak and an opportunity to revitalize the aging center of the community. The Berkeley Unified School District supported the community’s vision of creating a model community-oriented urban school. Working closely with the school district, teachers and the community, the architects planned and designed a new K-S school that provides a preschool, before and after-school childcare programs, a learning resource center for students and parents, and a science center as well as space for family programs, counseling, and healthcare services.

The Rosa Parks Elementary School was the result of a long inclusive community planning process, which fostered the design of a human place, but also had an im­ pact on the community. Children and families can take advantage of various community services at the school, including health and coun­ seling services, and after-school activities. Community use of the facilities includes a multi-purpose room for public meetings, rehears­ als of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, and celebrations and performances. The community’s collaboration with the architects resulted in a place whose design fosters community connectedness and social goals.

The  Rosa Parks  School won the  Places! EDRA design award for demonstrating the connections between good participation, good design, and good consequences (Bressi, 2000).

Case Study #2

Davidson Elementary School, NC, USA

Adams Group Architects and Henry Sanoff AlA. 1994.

Kindergarten   5th grade; originally 600 students, now 960 students, 42 teachers

Initially 77,000 sq.ft., now 94,000 sq.ft.

(Author: Henry Sanoff)

The Davidson Elementary School project links all stages of the school building process, from user participation in the development of the program to the evolving design solu­ tion, and a building evaluation after completion. Although this project required several visits after construction to complete, the knowledge gained from the post-occupancy evaluation (POE) reinforced the effectiveness of the participation process in improving

the quality of education.

Case Study #3

The School of Environmental Studies, Apple Valley, MN, USA

Bruce Jilk, H.G.A. Architects. 1995.

11th—i 2th grade; 400 students

(Author: Kaname Yanagisawa)

This school was built in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb with the goal of integrating tra­ ditional disciplines within the context of studying the environment. This school is alsc known as the “zoo school” because of its active partnership with the Minnesota Zoo, The school embraces project-based learning with an environmental theme. Students ar grouped into 4 houses of 110 pupils with 3 or 4 teachers each who are teamed up. Each house, on the second floor of the building, has a science classroom, a shared teachers office, a common space, and student workstations. The workstations are composed ol 10 pods with 10 pupils each, and are intended as a place for individual work and per­ sonal activities. The common space is used for team learning and presentations. There is a community area on the first floor which includes a forum, library/media center, an several laboratories. The forum, with large windows offering a view to outside nature, i used as a cafeteria, auditorium, and display center. The school has a large quantity of IT equipment such as computers, videos, and audios in the houses, labs, and hall for pro­ moting student individual learning (see New Design for Learning, 1999: The School oj Environmental Studies  Design,   impact  report No.  1. Independent School District 196)

Case Study #4

Crosswinds Arts and Science Middle School, Woodbury, MN, USA

Cuningham Architects. 2001.

6th—8th grade; 600 students

(Author: Kaname Yanagisawa)

This school operates as a year-round school for 600 students from eleven (originally six) districts with an emphasis on arts and science. Educators, parents, and community members collaborated to create a vision for the school such as hands-on project-based learning and development of presentation and performance skills. The school building is composed of multi-level houses around a central core comprised of a dining and perfor­ mance space, administration spaces, a media center, and gym. There are six home bases designed for 100 students each. Each house has a variety of spaces to accommodate different learning groups such as individual workstations, small group rooms, project labs, seminar rooms, and resource areas. Individual workstations are grouped by 16 and each owned by a student, and a pair of groups shares a common work area. This variety of spaces enables students to learn individually and also to work with an interdisciplin­ ary team of teachers. The school is located on a natural habitat and wetlands, creating a useful setting for outdoor learning laboratories (see Cuningham Group Architecture.

(2002). Crosswinds Arts and Science Middle School, project report. Minneapolis, MN: Cuningham Group Architecture).

Case Study #5

Harbor City International School, Duluth,  MN, USA

Randall Fielding, Scalzo Architects. 2002.

(Author: Jeffery A. Lackney)

Harbor City Charter School (high school) is a small school that occupies the third floor of an 19th century industrial building in the central business district of Duluth, Min­ nesota. It is home to 200 students on two 14,000 square foot floor plates. Harbor City provides a small, learner-directed community encouraging investigative learning and global citizenship and nurtures a sense of belonging. The school’s purpose is to gradu­ ate students who are knowledgeable, discerning, passionate, creative, and reflective. The school is located within walking distance of the public library, YMCA, art museum, aquarium, and television station —  allowing the school to leverage other facilities for learning. Collaboration and project-based learning were identified as key objectives in the planning of this learning environment. The design of Harbor City is intended to support collaborative, project-based learning through the provision of variable sized spaces, individual workspaces, presentation space, “cave” space for concentrated work, spaces with access to food and beverage, process galleries, studios and labs, collabora­ tion incubators, set away spaces or niches, display spaces, and access to technology and a wireless network. Each student has a home base comprised of a lockable drawer, adjacent coat hook and an individual workstation shared with one other student that includes rounded conference ends and an absorptive tack board and partial height en­ closure for privacy. A small informal café, rather than a traditional large cafeteria, serves as a social team area, with an adjacent kitchenette. In contrast to the lively, high-volume character of the café, a quiet team area is located at the center of the school. Student workstations, bookcases, and comfortable chair clusters support individual work and small group meetings. Interior windows are used throughout the school to bring light into the interior, as well as to foster connections between adjacent spaces.

case 7

The Millennium High School in New York City is a new 500-student grade 9—12 high school on three floors of an existing commercial office building in downtown Manhat­ tan and part of a broader post-September 11 revitalization of the area. Lower Manhattan provides an opportunity for extending learning into the community full of numerous mentoring opportunities with museums and businesses. A dedicated entrance and sepa­ rate elevators are provided to maintain the school’s identity within the larger commercial building. Each floor consists of two neighborhoods for each grade. An interconnecting stair joins the three floors and serves as a vertical gathering space and informal presenta­ tion area. At street level, a community room for 200 people with state-of-the-art audio! visual capabilities and an art gallery are planned. Millennium High School espouses a constructivist philosophy offering an integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum that pro­ vides students with opportunities to create personalized learning experiences based on their own goals and interests. The school design responds to this curriculum by afford­ ing a variety of interconnected small-scaled learning settings. The key, animating feature of the school design is the organization of each neighborhood floor plate. Replacing the traditional corridor design of most factory model schools are a series of interconnected spaces outside classrooms that form flexible, daylit project areas with comfortable, flex­ ible furnishings with a wireless network. The flexible arrangement of space outside the classrooms provides support to a variety of neighborhood activities from advisory group meetings to peer tutoring and informal social activities. Classroom spaces as well offer an independent reading and studying area as well as tables on castors that allow for rapid and flexible rearrangement of space for teaming and other activities