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New School Building

By lorain | 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.

For this project, we will make a new building to the school to avoid hallway crowding and reduce class sizes. There will be lunchrooms in the new building as well so the students can spread out with comfort instead of being crowded in the old building. By having a new building, the hallway would be less crowded so students can get to their classes easier.

Comments

It needs to be spacious with large tables and chairs to accommodate students during lunch and breaks. - Flemings Ultimate Garage

By jamaica113 (not verified) at 06:25 am, 12 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?

lorain's work for the Collect Information step:

Summary
To collect information for this project, I used the internet to look up school additions and new buildings. I also went out to ask people in my school what they feel they need to change.
This building is something we can probably try to do to the new building; with all the windows that...
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This school addition looks bigger and very modern which would be great for our school.
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This is the top view of my school
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This is a site plan for our new builing. The main building will be across the street from the new...
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This is what we want our lunchroom to look like. It is very spacious and serves its purpose; to...
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This is how the skywalk will look so it can connect the two schools. Students would not have to...
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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.

lorain's work for the Brainstorm Ideas step:

Summary
We brainstormed ideas by thinking about what the new building would need. Since the main building is always crowded we decided to make the new building more spacious.
This is a bird's eye view of the main building (to the right) connecting to the new building...
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This is what the new building will look like. It's only two floors but it's very spacious.
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These are separate views of the building. The top of the building will have a rooftop garden and...
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This is a bubble diagram of what will be inside the building. The left side is the the first floor...
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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.

lorain's work for the Develop Solutions step:

Summary
Using a software, we will be able to build the new school building and show our process along the way. Each idea we thought of will be presented throughout our building process.
This is what the new building is starting to look like. It is made up of curtain walls to save...
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We decided to add a building to the main building that will consist of a huge lunchroom. We added...
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This is the skywalk that students and teachers would be able to cross to get to each building. The...
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I made the roof on this building a bit lower and walls are higher than the roof so I can put a...
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This is the south elevation
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This is the North elevation that shows the two buildings, the one on the left having the lunchrooms...
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This is the east elevation.
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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.

lorain's work for the Final Design step:

The student did not provide any content for this step.