| Tuesday, May 9, 2017 – 1:15 PM-2:15 PM |
| Intermediate Innovation |
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Looking to push the limits of traditional educational models, Tacoma School District has recently opened its first elementary/middle school, Wainwright Intermediate, serving grades 4-8. The design for this unique facility embraces the varied social and educational needs of these students, seeking to provide next-generation learning through distinct program opportunities distributed by core academia, exploratory, and community-centric spaces. This session will explore this new, educational model and how it aspires to fulfill the needs of this transitional age group. By removing physical barriers, the building is designed to foster a sense of belonging and security, and enabled with transitional learning spaces for a variety of educational needs.
- Attendees will learn the unique environmental needs of learners grouped grades 4-8.
- Attendees will learn, from an educational and operational standpoint, why a school district might offer a 4-8 option school.
- Attendees will learn strategies for providing STEM opportunities for a smaller middle school population (Wainwright has only 270 students in grades 6,7,8).
- Attendees will learn how spatial types, distribution of adult professionals and furniture choices allow flexibility for ongoing re-design of teaching and learning in this setting.
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| Coffee Houses – a Model for 21st Century Learning Environments? |
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What do successful 21st century learning environments have in common with coffee houses? Can one serve as an established model for the other? Schools strive to attract learners and provide them with skills and knowledge required of 21st century workplaces. Coffee houses strive to attract customers and provide places for 21st century activities. Both support work, learning, and social-related activities. One is "student-centered", the other is "consumer-driven". Over four centuries ago, coffee houses were playing a key role as urban places where people would go to make connections – social and business reasons. Schools emerged later, but both have transformed our lives. Both modern coffee houses and modern learning environments offer or seek to offer, provide, or support real-world experiences, consumer/student-driven offerings, choice / personalization, cultural relevance, nutritional needs and awareness, differentiation / variety, and environmental awareness and responsibility. Both recognize the need to attract and be inviting, to move away from impersonal / factory-model environments, to provide more than shelter from outside weather or influences, and where the sage is not on the stage. At their core, both they seek to engage and provide connections – to people, places, and information. Modern coffee houses offer a multitude of readily-accessible, real-world precedents and test-cases of successful places for learning and social interaction. This session will have three themes: Coffee Houses, with an overview, a brief history, two modern typologies, and their main design traits, themes, and inspirations; Café de Paris, a real-world classroom transformed into a European café to support its foreign language immersion program and inspire students to engage and learn; 21st Century learning spaces and commonalities they share with coffee houses. The modern North American model of coffee houses in urban, suburban, and semi-rural locations has two easily recognizable types: the Starbucks-like chain outlets, and the smaller independent ones. What were the strategies behind these models? How did that evolve into the largest chain of outlets intentionally focusing on transforming their outlets into places for learning, gathering, and working? What inspires their design and how have they inspired customers to help create what is now a worldwide, multi-billion dollar industry? How much was intentional or unintentional?
- Develop greater insight into what are key design themes needed for successful 21st century learning environments.
- Increase abilities to recognize commonalities between the design of coffee houses and 21st century learning environments during the course of day to day experience and work life.
- Use coffee houses as real-world examples and test-cases for the design of learning environments.
- Develop and collaborate over a primer of key elements shared by both 21st century learning environments and coffee houses (21 Cs).
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| Partnerships Fuel Student Action Projects on Campus |
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In collaboration with community partners, Washington Green Schools guides and supports students and educators to take action that makes K-12 schools greener and healthier. From installing rain gardens to leading energy conservation campaigns on campus, students are leading change in schools across the state. Connecting to STEM professionals improves project outcomes, strengthens student learning, and opens up career pathways for young people. In this session, we’ll share tips for engaging students in project-based learning, as well as stories of how partnerships can lead to improvements in school environments.
- Learn how to facilitate campus-based, environmental projects for students that meets academic standards
- Gain insight into how partnerships with STEM professionals enhance student learning
- Access resources that bridge the gap between student learning and facilities
- Identify potential action projects for your school, district, or project
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| Wednesday, May 10. 2017 – 9:00 AM-10:15 AM |
| Reciprocal Planning: Challenging Traditional Paradigms of Educational Facility Planning |
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Reciprocal planning is an interactive approach to capital project planning in which all participants are willing to educate – and be educated. This facilitated approach provides a catalyst for districts, administrators, educators and students to examine and challenge firmly held beliefs about teaching and learning while stimulating a creative, thoughtful dialog among and between all stakeholder groups. The outcome is a forward-thinking capital improvement plan that elevates teaching, enhances learning and maintains the educational relevance of facilities in the face of future changes to educational programs. In this facilitated panel discussion, we will discuss the key elements of a reciprocal planning approach that distinguish it from more commonly practiced capital planning methods; the benefits of this approach to capital project development; and first-hand insights from students and educators who have been part of this process.
- KEY ELEMENTS OF RECIPROCAL PLANNING // Strategies and activities that elevate the capital planning process beyond the norm and stimulate active stakeholder participation.
- ACCRUED BENEFITS OF RECIPROCAL PLANNING // Beyond development of a capital improvement plan, there are additional positive outcomes of the reciprocal planning process
- ENHANCING THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM // Exploring new ways of teaching and learning – and tailoring facilities to accommodate advancements – as part of the capital planning process
- BUILDING STAKEHOLDER CONSENSUS // Facility planning and design development activities that build consensus through hands-on, meaningful stakeholder participation
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| Potty Talk: Redesigning the Toilet Experience to Promote Universal & Inclusive Design |
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Using the toilet is one of humanity's simplest and most essential needs. It is also one of our most private acts, one that has the power to affect every person's sense of self-esteem and health. Recent laws, federal directives and high-profile news stories are focusing on how non-inclusivity impacts behavior, safety, health and equity for the transgender population. But this is not solely a gender issue: universal toileting supports human dignity for anyone who needs increased privacy, whether it's due to preference, physical ability, religion, illness or families accompanying small children. So, how can redesigning the toilet experience benefit us all? While many districts have Board policies in place to foster an educational environment that is safe and free of discrimination for all students, there are few facilities where the building supports them when it comes to toileting. This panel discussion will provide effective and replicable strategies to align the built environment with policy and design that is universal. Join in the dialogue with the Edmonds School District Capital Projects team members, a student leader, a Family Engagement Liaison who is also a parent of a transgender student, and an architect collaborating with the district on the design of a K-8 facility. Considerations will include safety and security, privacy, hygiene, signage conventions, acoustics, maintenance, cost and code implications. The panel will present different perspectives and drill down on the critical opportunities and challenges to creating safe, secure and inclusive toilet facilities that comply with the May 2016 United States "Department of Justice and Department of Education Joint Guidance on Civil Rights of Transgender Students" and the Washington Law Against Discrimination (RCW 49.60).
- Explore the context of toileting needs today; physical, emotional, health, religious and political.
- Hear first-hand from stakeholders positively impacted by universal toilet design.
- Identify best practices, cost and code implications, and learn to compare design details that do or do not enhance privacy and human dignity.
- Discover new inclusive restroom layouts currently under construction or in design.
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| MakerStudio, not just a Space |
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MakerSpaces – they are everywhere, and for really great reason An invitation to connect to one's self directed pursuits, and in an ideal activation, has a community of tools, co-learners, and teachers that support the permission to pursue a passion project. What, though, might it look like if we didn't have just a single space, but instead, a full suite? What might a MakerSuite look like, and how might we design for a full ecology of environments that support interwoven themes, and cross disciplinary collaboration and creation? In this session, we will explore how a Chicago based public High School District set out to re-imagine just that, whereby they championed a design thinking methodology, with an authentic bias towards designing for Total Participation within the learner's journey, the teaching partnership, and the role that physical space plays.
- How human centered learning environments require design mindful of total participation
- Why we need to practice design thinking to iterate and evolve a single space so that it becomes a part of a bigger ecology
- How a maker culture shifts mindset, from collection, to connection
- Explore a living model of future schooling, by way of the MakerSuite that Buffalo Grove High School has created
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| Wednesday, May 10. 2017 – 10:30 AM-11:45 AM |
| STEM at the Elementary Level |
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Many school districts are exploring ways to incorporate STEM at the elementary school level, re-imagining design solutions typically employed at the middle and high school level. The Bellevue School District is integrating STEM at the elementary level, with Enatai Elementary School as the first modernized facility to reflect these curriculum goals in the design. This case study will explore impacts on facility design, including libraries and outdoor areas – demonstrating the concept of 'learning occurs everywhere'.
- Understand the basis of STEM and STEAM curricula, and how it varies between elementary, middle and high school levels.
- Review ways in which the learning is enhanced through carefully planned facilities, that leverage existing and new elements on a site and in a building to best support learning.
- Discuss how it was applied in the Bellevue School District and what opportunities that may be applied at other sites.
- Review the integration of solar hot water, panels, geothermal and rain gardens in the design.
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| Learning from Charter Schools |
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Charter schools are new to our state since I-1240 passed in 2012, and they remain controversial. Leaving politics aside, there are lessons and perspectives that can be valuable to School Districts from examining charter schools. We will focus on the facilities developed for Washington's current charter schools, using Summit Sierra in Seattle's International District as a case study. The eight currently-operating charter schools opened to students in 2015 and three additional charter schools are slated to open this September. The facilities for these schools are not funded by local bonds or the state's School Construction Assistance Program, so charter organizations and their development partners found existing buildings for adaptive reuse. These were renovated on lean grant-funded budgets and tight schedules to serve the opening schools. Aspects of charter school facilities that will be discussed include:
- Charter school facility funding and development requirements
- Adaptive reuse of existing facilities
- Budgets vs. Longevity
- Open learning spaces for social and independent learning
- Community connections
- Flexibility and transparency for varied activities
- Accommodating peer-to-peer group work
- Technology for active learning
Washington Charter School Development (WCSD) and NAC Architecture are currently working with charter school providers Summit and Green Dot to develop facilities for charter schools in Washington. WCSD's mission is to provide long-term, affordable facilities for high-quality charter schools for underserved students.
- Review history and current status of charter schools in Washington state.
- Learn how the relationship between budget and flexibility informs the design of charter school facilities, including the Open Learning Areas at Summit Sierra.
- Examine the technological innovations and learning support at Summit Public Schools.
- Discuss the benefits and restrictions of adaptive reuse for educational facilities.
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| Feeling Safe / Being Safe at School |
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The design of a school can only inspire learners if learners are not distracted by other concerns. A growing mind may worry about social-emotional, intellectual, environmental and physical concerns. In recent years, our news has been dominated by violent acts, which challenge parents and teachers to explain the unexplainable. Educational facility designers, districts and stakeholders are asked to address safety concerns and the success of an inspirational school design often depends on how well safety concerns are translated. But what does it mean to feel safe? We propose to share the results of a student, parent, and teacher survey, in collaboration with the Eugene School District in Oregon, at the 2017 Washington Chapter Conference. We have asked each stakeholder group what safety means to them. What does it mean to the learner, the parent, the teacher? How does the perception change from learners attending elementary school, middle school, high school? What does safety look like? You will also have the opportunity to hear from a learner, a parent and a teacher attending the conference along with presenter Rene Berndt, AIA, LEED AP from Mahlum Architects, Inc. We will share first-person stories, data broken out by user/age group, and some of the solutions we have developed that respond to user comments.
- Attendees will be able to describe how to conduct a survey of similar scope and size
- Attendees will be able to predict how students, parents and teachers perceive safety
- Attendees will be able to discuss design strategies that address safety based on shared data
- Attendees will be able to implement design strategies that address safety
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| Wednesday, May 10. 2017 – 12:30 PM-1:30 PM |
| Igniting Passion through Partnerships |
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The architectural profession has always relied upon mentoring as a strategy to engage and develop students. As the baby boomers begin to retire, the anticipated shortage of talent impacts all fields – including our own. It is incumbent upon design professionals to engage students at all levels, not just as a means of "giving back", but for the future of architecture and engineering. As we pursue STEM and STEAM learning environments, we can recognize our own contribution as a profession towards exposure of our profession and mentorship of the next generation. Additionally, many school districts have developed community partnerships with non-profit and for profit companies and organizations that are willing to provide additional support to serve the various needs of students. This session talks about strategies on how we can leverage our passion for schools and students to link the two.
- To Learn and Understand the role of community partnerships who support District and student goals
- Understand the connection between our work/culture/ and mentorship and the needs for mentors of these programs
- Review, Brainstorm, and execute additional ways the design community can support instructional and community needs of our District partners
- Align the connection between our professions to the needs for relevancy and mentors related to STEM and STEAM
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| Leveraging Empathy to Transform Places for Learning |
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Now is a time when we need to cultivate skills to lead in an era of change. Through engagement with Leadership + Design, participants apply empathy and shared experience as a foundation to designing not just future places for learning, but also the future of education. As facilitators, designers broaden awareness of challenges faced by educators and the opportunities presented by experiencing how students learn and grow in team-oriented environments. As facilitator-participants, educators gain the tools to transform our curriculum and the physical aspects of our learning spaces. Two case studies illustrate the power of this shared experience and the lasting impacts on facility design and education.
- Summarize the benefits of engaging educators and students directly during the education facility design process.
- Apply lessons learned from presented case studies to inform current education facility projects.
- Discuss how design teams might participate in a hands-on learning opportunity involving educators and students.
- Illustrate the importance of empathy as a foundational aspect of human-centered design.
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