Redesign Your School Athletic Pavilion | 2014 National High School Architecture Competition #166
|Advanced Technologies Academy, informally known as A-TECH, is one of the many magnet schools in the Clark County School District. A-TECH was established in 1994 with a primary focus on technology and education. Eight areas of study are provided at A-TECH including Architectural Design, Computer Graphics, Engineering, and Law. Student who attend A-TECH come from all over the city and often have to get up extra early just to get to school on time. Most students are enthusiastic about coming to school every day to learn and strive for academic success. However, with all the focus on the technology aspect of the school, the athletic department lacks attention. The athletic center at A-TECH was only built in the fall of 2000, six years after the opening of the school, and is not capable of accommodating the growing amount of students who attend.
Design Problem: The A-TECH gym, first of all, is too small to accommodate the current number of students currently enrolled in the school. Students take P.E. during their freshmen and sophomore years usually and there is no room within the locker room for two classes to change simultaneously and one of the boys P.E. classes’ needs to use a portable as their locker room. Inside the gym itself, acoustics are not the greatest, especially since the space is used for school assemblies as well. The current set up of the exit doors in the gym also does not work well with large groups of students who are all trying to get out at once. The gym also does not have any natural lighting, while people in the weight room are all too often blinded by the light coming through the wall of glass blocks. The gym is situated in an awkward place in relation to the main school building too. There is no correlation between the gym and the outdoor courts on campus either.
Design Solution: The gym, ideally, needs to be redesigned completely so that it functions well with the student population and the need for athletics at A-TECH. However, if it is more economically sound to simply add on to the current building, then the same concepts would be used. My goals for the design of a new gym would include better, larger facilities for locker rooms and storage as well as an indoor running track that is elevated above the main floor of the gym. Additional classrooms for Health classes and even for Physical Education and weight training would also be incorporated into the design so that they are easy to access from the main building and from the outside. Natural lighting would be improved by windows or curtain systems. Moving the gym closer to the main building would not only provide a better correlation between the two buildings, but also a solution for the worries of students arriving late to class.