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School Addition

By Orlando Hernando | XL Design an Addition for your School

Overview Instructions

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Ralph Ellison Campus, Chicago

Many schools were designed for the past and don’t reflect the 21st century learning environment. Some buildings need better ventilation or lighting, while others are simply not large enough to accommodate students comfortably. For this project, you are encouraged to envision an improvement for your school, something that would benefit everyone who uses it. The most successful designs will be ones that identify a specific need and present a strong design solution. The challenge is to add something that changes the footprint of your school building, while addressing a specifically identified need. Projects should include research and development, real world images and information showing why the need exists, in addition to final project design and information.

We were thinking of adding two subterranean parking lot levels. This would allow us to use the surface to place our school addition, and were also not affecting the surrounding structures. Inside our pavilion we will have two floors and two sepreate sections. The largest section is going to be a sports area containing an indoor track, a basketball court, volleyball court, and a small spectating area. The second largest area is going to be on the opposite side of the whole building, and it will be composed of one floor of weight room. Connecting these two sections is also going to be two small to medium size locker rooms, one side for male and the other for female. This will reduce the crowdedness in our current gymnasium facilities and give the schools indoor sports teams to have more space to practice and train in a larger more efficient area. The floor of the weight room will be made of recycled cork because it absorbs the shock of the weights to not make a lot noise when dropping them. The weights will be made of recycled metals and rubbers. The majority of our exterior walls will be made of glass in order to use natural sunlight inside the building and would require less light and electricity indoors.

Comments

It needs to be spacious and cool so we need to plant big trees to provide good shelter and air to students. - Marla Ahlgrimm

By jamaica113 (not verified) at 10:01 pm, 10 November 2014

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Reeds Spring High School Addition, Reeds Spring, MO

Think About

  • What is the size of your school building? Using Google Earth and other online resources, generate a site plan for your school location.
  • What are your initial thoughts about the building? For example, is your school lacking room for art classes? Physical education? Band practice space? Common areas? Cafeteria space?
  • Talk to someone who has been at your school for a while, like a teacher or administrator. They will most likely have great insight as to what areas could stand to be improved.
  • Has anything like this ever been done in the past? If so, what were the results?
  • For more research, we recommend looking at “The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Design to Transform Teaching & Learning,” by OWP/P Architects + VS Furniture + Bruce Mau. The book is easy to digest with lots of great images and design ideas, meant to inspire readers like you. The website for the book is also a great resource.
  • Search online for newly built schools and others that have been upgraded through similar processes. Do you notice anything in common among newly built schools?

Orlando Hernando's work for the Collect Information step:

Summary
In order to make this project function properly, we need to measure and think on how our school additions could help the students and teachers who are around the area.
This is the site plan for our school addition. The highlighted area is the area we plan on placing...
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This is a photo of the parking lot on which we're planning on placing our pavilion and our...
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We plan on removing the old outdoor basketball court in order to place the new indoor court to add...
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This side of the parking lot will be one of the main entrances for the pavilion.
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Another point of view of the parking lot. The Northeast side of the pavilion will be the entrance...
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This building is one of our inspirations for the pavilion. The building is made of glass, and we...
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This bridge is an example on how we could connect the school to the pavillion and the parking lot....
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Karns High School Addition Plan, Knoxville, TN

Identify the problem you want to solve based on the information you have collected.

Explore at least three possible solutions, each of which will no doubt help you as you search for the best addition to your school.

  • What could your ideas look like?
  • How would it change the landscape of your school?
  • Who will benefit most from your design solution?

Try to answer these questions visually through sketching, and in words by taking notes.

Orlando Hernando's work for the Brainstorm Ideas step:

Summary
Our ideas for our pavilion could be an elevated building close to the school, and made of glass in order to let natural sunlight inside and also environmentally friendly.
This is one of our sketches for our bubble diagram. This is the diagram for the subterranean...
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This is a picture of the first and second floor of our pavilion. They might look the same, but they...
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This is a quick side view sketch of how our athletic pavilion would look like. This shows the first...
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This is a quick 3-D sketch of how people could get inside the underground parking lot. The athletic...
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Fridley High School Addition Plan, Fridley, MN

From the previous step, where you developed multiple solutions to the design problem, you should select one of your designs.

  • What is your favorite design? Why?
  • What aspects of your school would it improve?
  • Who would benefit most from your new design?
  • What materials would you be using, and why?

Ideally you will want to create plans of some kind to communicate your final vision, so start to sketch site plans, elevations, and even a floor plan if necessary.

Orlando Hernando's work for the Develop Solutions step:

Summary
For our Developing Solutions, we will show things inside and outside the athletic pavilion and also describe what makes those features special for the pavilion.
This is the Sports Practicing Area. Here students and others can either improve their skills for...
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This is the top view of the running track. The field is made up of recycled tires. We decided to...
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This is a view of the exterior design that we had planned for our athletic pavilion. The top of the...
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this is the underground parking lot, it has two ramps that allow cars to enter and exit.
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our parking lot has room for 120 cars. it also has strong concrete pillars that support the weight...
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This is the top view of the basketball courts. The basketball courts are made up of recycled cork....
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This is a quick digital model of how both the parking lot and the athletic pavilion will be put...
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Alexander Graham Bell School Addition, Chicago

Present your final design to your class, to get feedback before completing your project. If you talked to other people while working on and researching for this project, show them your design and get their feedback. If they talked to you before, they will want to see what you’ve created! Take notes during these conversations, and try to understand their suggestions before deciding if you wish to make any changes to your final design.

Carefully take stock of feedback from others and do your best to find the information that will help you finalize your project. Someone might tell you something seemingly small, but that bit of information might be the difference between a good project and a great one.

Orlando Hernando's work for the Final Design step:

Summary
For our Final Design, we will show the finished thoughts and touches to our athletic pavilion.
These are the North and East elevations of our athletic pavilion.
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These are the elevations for the South and West of our pavilion.
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This is the floor plan for the first floor of our school addition. On the left side is the running...
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This is the floor plan for our roof garden on top of our athletic pavilion. We decided to add this...
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This is the floor plan for the second floor of our school addition. The second floor is consisted...
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This is the floor plan for the underground parking lot. It is consisted of two floors of parking....
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This is a rendering of the weight room of our pavilion. Here, we have weights, machines, and other...
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