Archinect - News

As the UK’s Raac problems grow, concerned educators complain of a stalled government response

2023-12-27T18:00:00-05:00

The number of schools with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), which the Health and Safety Executive has said is now 'life expired' and could collapse 'with little or no warning,' has been steadily rising since the government announced the sudden closure of more than 100 schools at the end of August, just days before the start of the new academic year.

There are now over 230 schools and colleges listed on the government’s register of buildings under consideration for Raac replacement and repair. The challenge is twofold at present, with contractors' inability to hasten repairs before 2026 being made worse by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's cuts to the rebuilding program just weeks after it was initiated.

No one knows exactly what will happen to the endangered schools in the interim. An anonymous headteacher shared with The Guardian, “The best result would be rebuilding as we have so many problems, but actually we just need some certainty. Parents like shiny new buildings, and Raac definitely isn’t helping our reputation.”

The country's National Audit Office estimates the cost of repairs to be £2.2 billion (or about $2.81 billion USD) annually at present.

Closed school buildings offer a silver lining through adaptive reuse nationwide

2023-10-12T11:56:00-04:00

Amid the backdrop of a national trend of tumbling enrollments, brutal pandemic-era learning losses and an ongoing flight of young families from urban centers, the dilemma of how to repurpose empty schools is that many cities face. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 2,200 public schools closed from 2019 to 2022. Chicago’s experiences offer some insights into what can happen to these spaces, and the communities around them, after the students get sent home.

Lamar Johnson Collaborative Associate Principal Max Komnenich tells Bloomberg the other side to the growing problem of school closings can offer a “beacon for reinvestment” given the proper incentives.

His firm’s Aspire Center conversion took advantage of a $12.5 million TIF that’s included in the larger Community Development Grant program overseen by the Chicago Department of Planning and Development. Projects geared towards workforce development are another popular solution besides the obvious need for residential conversions. According to the website Yardi Matrix, 2.9% of all newly converted housing units were created from former school buildings nationwide in the last year alone.

New York’s School Construction Authority is preparing for a school building boom

2023-08-25T17:41:00-04:00

The body in charge of K-12 planning and construction in New York City was recently profiled by the AIA New York as it prepares for a surge in student enrollment that’s expected over the next decade.

The New York School Construction Authority (or SCA) is a specialty city agency that employs 1,100 people and is tasked with the delivery and maintenance of school buildings in the New York City Public Schools arsenal, a charge which makes it directly responsible for the well-being, safety, and learning environments of more than 1.1 million students.

With a staff that currently includes 170 architects, Stephen Zacks for the AIANY writes the SCA has a unique talent when it comes to the delivery of high-quality structures within challenging construction schedules and have become national examples of the implementation of efficient project management at...

How schools are adapting their architecture for enhanced student safety amid lack of gun control

2023-03-22T19:57:00-04:00

But now, instead of calling for fortified entrances and security features that can put students on edge, experts are calling for a more holistic approach – where architecture serves as a conduit for both physical security and for supporting students' mental health to prevent violence in the first place.

Responsive elements like magnet-locking classroom doors, “shadow zones”, and even bulletproof storm shelters have been popular design solutions for school districts such as Fruitport, Michigan, which just spent $48 million on a new building based on those and other, less visible concerns.

Architects must consider not only the immediate physical prevention of violence but also the positive impact on the psychological development of pupils their designs can have. This means the K-12 sector may be undergoing its largest change since the 1970s, when the movement towards large classrooms and open spaces engendered many of the challenges safety upgrade projects are tying to mitigate.

Earlier on Archinect: Designing around gun violence

"They have these hallways and lockers, but there's no place to hang out, no place to socialize," architect Rene Berndt, who sits on the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) board of directors, explained to NPR. "And so, we're trying our b...

Underfunded public schools are looking to solar upgrades as a source of much-needed cost savings

2022-09-20T09:00:00-04:00

As solar energy gains traction across the country, one beneficiary have been schools, particularly those in cash-strapped districts contending with dwindling tax bases. The savings in electric bills from schools with solar panels often topped millions in each district, and many have been able to adopt the technology without shouldering any costs up front.

According to White House statistics, energy costs rank second to only teachers' salaries on a list of the largest expenses the approximately 130,000 public schools across the country are faced with annually. Their emissions are equivalent to the CO2 output of about 16 coal-fired power plants, making K-12 solar upgrades one of the more salient provisions included in the recent Federal Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts.

Some districts that have already installed solar panels are seeing immediate savings as a result of the rising energy costs related to inflation and the war in Ukraine. At least 30 states have some of the basic framework that allows for the third-party ownership agreements often necessary for their installations to be enacted. Advocates say it isn’t nearly enough, but the 8,400 schools that do have solar installations offer a dramatic tri-fold increase when compared to statistics from 2014.

New York to ban construction of schools near highways

2022-07-12T09:00:00-04:00

The New York State Assembly and Senate have passed a bill barring the construction of schools within 500 feet of a highway. The Schools Impact by Gross Highways Act (or SIGH Act) was written to protect school-age children from air pollution.

Under the bill, which will also apply to New York City, the New York Commissioner of Education will only be allowed to approve plans for a new school within 500 feet of a highway if they determine that space is so limited that no other site would be available.

Archinect Feature: Smog City: The Fight Against Urban Air Pollution

According to a recent analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), approximately one-third of New York’s students attend a school within 500 feet of a road whose daily volume exceeds 30,000 cars. Approximately 80% of these students are students of color, and 66% are low-income.

“Decades of racial segregation, redlining, and the systemic placement of pollution-emitting infrastructure in Black and Brown communiti...

AIA|LA organizing desk loan initiative to benefit students without high-speed internet

2020-07-30T14:13:00-04:00

As students face increasingly dire circumstances for the coming fall semester, the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles (AIA|LA) chapter is working to connect local architecture firms with students who need quiet and reliable places to do their work.

Cognizant that local schools will likely operate on fully remote teaching schedules for the coming semester, the group's Desk Loan for Students effort seeks to share the overabundance of workspaces available at local firms that have opted for work from home arrangements with students who lack workspaces at home or find themselves without high quality internet connections.

AIA|LA asks, "Does your office have an extra desk and a fast Internet connection that could be utilized by a student? A good work environment can make a big difference and help students work more effectively and successfully."

Transportation research and education continues as two new UTCs are announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation

2019-06-10T13:17:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced Wednesday that it will open two new University Transportation Centers (UTCs), one at the University of South Florida (USF) and one at Washington State University (WSU). Each UTC will receive $7.5 million in grant funding for transportation research and education.

Initiated in 1987 by the United States Department of Transportation, the University Transportation Center (UTC) program aides to improve research and education in transportation in order to improve the durability and lifespan of transportation infrastructures. Data and other transportation technology will help create new improvements to reduce congestion and boost transportation education programs. Currently in its 30th year, the UTC has 37 universities currently involved in the program.

David Plautz of Smart Cities Dive explains, "Diana Furchtgott-Roth, deputy assistant secretary for research and technology at USDOT, said in a statement that the UTCs will help to develop solutions 'that America needs now,' and this need will only continue to grow. A February study from transportation analytics firm Inrix found that American drivers lost an average of 97 hours in 2018 to congestion, the equivalent of $1,348 in lost productivity per driver. While solutions like congestion pricing an...

The importance of teaching children about architecture

2018-12-18T12:14:00-05:00

With design, no solution is 100-percent right or wrong. It’s not like solving a mathematical problem. In sport, you can teach team spirit, but at the end of the day, it’s a competition and it boils down to winning and losing. But in design, there is no absolute answer, and it’s very much like in real life.

In a recent interview architect and founder of Avoid Obvious Architects, Vicky Chan, sat with City Lab to discuss the importance of teaching children about design and urban planning. Having taught on the side since his freshmen year at the Pratt Institute in New York City, Chan has shared his love for architecture and design with children for the past 15 years. After graduating from Pratt, and moving back to his home town of Hong Kong, Chan has continued his passions for teaching schoolchildren through his voluntary organization, Architecture for Children.

Students with their concept models Image © Avoid Obvious Architecture

According to Chan, one of the most important skill sets educators can teach children is learning how to sift through information, comprehending the information, and figure out how to find solutions amidst adversity. By posing a variation of broad and complex topics to students, Chan voices that it is important to present children with these concepts early on in o...

Reinventing school buildings for the age of mass shootings

2018-02-22T16:59:00-05:00

For architects, the challenge is balancing the need for additional security with design principles that foster a more nurturing educational environment for students. As architect Jim French explained, designers could apply the design methods used to keep prisons secure to schools, but that would hamper the experience for children.

Following the recent school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Jacob Passy reviews some of the ways that the design of schools is changing to address safety concerns.

Interestingly, at last night's CNN Town Hall Gun Debate, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel argued there are three things we need to do in America to prevent future tragedies; 1) we have to use CPTED (Crime prevention through environmental design) to make schools harder to penetrate 2) we need to empower law enforcement to help people with mental illness get the care they need and restrict them from owning guns 3) lastly and perhaps most importantly we do need gun control reform.

Of note, none of those three actions include President Trump's (and the NRA's) preferred option which is arming teachers.

Bjarke Ingels to design WeWork’s new entrepreneurial elementary school

2017-11-06T13:31:00-05:00

WeWork has plans to launch a private elementary school for “conscious entrepreneurship” called WeGrow in a New York City location next year. The company has even tapped Danish architect du jour Bjarke Ingels to design the first school, dubbed “WeGrow," which will likely be within their new Fifth Avenue headquarters. “In my book, there’s no reason why children in elementary schools can’t be launching their own businesses,” said co-founder Rebekah Neumann.

Rendering by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Source: WeWork

Architecture majors work the hardest in college, study reveals

2017-02-07T12:44:00-05:00

A study conducted by Indiana University's National Study of Student Engagement reveals that architecture majors spend the most time outside of their classes studying, beating out even engineers. On average, an architecture major will spend 22.2 hours a week working on projects and generally furrowing their brows, while those head-in-the-clouds chemical engineers spend only 19.66 hours a week. Before taking home the "Living on Ramen in the Studio" prize, however, it's worth noting that pretty much every major has to spend some time outside of classes studying: even those undertaking PR + advertising spend an average of 12.17 hours in exterior academic pursuit, according to The Tab.

Which major works the most hours?

Architecture 22.2
Chemical engineering 19.66
Aero and astronautical engineering 19.24
Biomedical engineering 18.82
Cell and molecular biology 18.67
Physics 18.62
Astronomy 18.59
Biochemistry or biophysics 18.49
Bioengineering 18.43
Petroleum engineering 18.41
Mechanical engineerin...

UK school buildings are damaging pupils’ health and performance

2016-05-13T10:03:00-04:00

School buildings in the UK are of such poor quality that children are underperforming and teachers are quitting the classroom, experts have warned. A new study by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) found that one in five teachers have considered leaving their school as a result of stressful, overcrowded working environments caused by the poorly designed buildings they have to teach in.

Relating UK articles here:

Did the architecture of your schools leave an impression on you?

2015-10-20T18:01:00-04:00

'None of the buildings seemed built to impose and in all of them one had the sense that what mattered about a room was the spirit and determination with which it was filled, and the uses to which ingenuity could put it. When I want to remember what a first-class education felt like, that is the architecture I remember, and it mattered solely because of what people did with it.'

It seems that no matter how many years have passed, those schoolyard memories — whether cheerful or hellish — will always be buried in the back of our minds. In light of the 2015 Stirling Prize recently awarded to the Burntwood School in Wandsworth, London, some of The Guardian's writers share how the architecture of their educational stomping grounds as youngsters impacted them.

Do you relate to any of their stories? Which school campus from your own experiences left the strongest impression?

How architects are redesigning schools that encourage kids to eat healthier

2015-08-20T18:38:00-04:00

"The design of a school itself might matter as much as something like a gym class. 'The environments in which we live affect not just our behaviors, but our lifelong attitudes about things like healthy eating and active lifestyles...It's also clear that it's so much better to help prevent children from becoming obese than to try to help adults lose weight.'

Architecture for All Ages: The top “youth-inspired” projects of 2014

2014-12-29T13:00:00-05:00

Curiosity is a driving force in architecture, design, and just about every creative field. Whether it was through collaborative projects in grade school, reading comic books, or sitting in a corner doodling away, it's not unusual for creative practitioners to say their interests were formed during their childhood and teenage years, if not somehow reaffirmed later in life.

Below is a loosely threaded list of end-of-the-year picks (in no particular order) of fun and educational projects that focus on youth participation as well as projects that echo childhood nostalgia and curiosity. Just like the kid who always asks "Why?", these fun uplifting projects are a reminder that inquisitiveness should never run dry and, regardless of age, learning never stops.

Never Too Young; 15 Librarian-Recommended Architecture Books for Young Children ↓

The winning narratives of the first Fairy Tales Architecture Competition ↓

"Constructing Holden Caulfield": Learning to build character through literary arc...

A classroom for the 21st century: where are the best places for learning?

2013-05-14T18:21:00-04:00

... how does using a different physical space have an impact on learning? Bosch argued that changing the environment helps teachers and students to break free from old habits: "One of the things you can do is create an environment where you cannot function the same way as you used to. What happens when you go out of the school into a theatre, you have to improvise. When you improvise, you start learning and developing."

Architecture for Humanity Announces Strategic Partnership with The Center for Green Schools, U.S. Green Building Council

2013-03-12T19:02:00-04:00

Architecture for Humanity announced their strategic partnership with the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The announcement comes in conjunction with today’s release of the Center for Green Schools 2013 State of our Schools Report, which calls for the federal government to commission the first comprehensive study of our nation’s school facilities needs in 18 years. Together the two groups hope to join others in eliminating our nation’s deferred school maintenance bill through implementation of school improvement projects, addressing financing and providing tools to educators. The report estimates that $271 billion is needed to bring existing school buildings up to code – double that amount if we are to modernize schools - and that further research is needed to clarify how and where this investment should be targeted.

About 50 million students attend nearly 100,000 public elementary and secondary schools across the United States. One in four stu...

After Newtown, Architects Weigh School Design Changes

2012-12-22T17:46:00-05:00

Mark Simon, a founding partner of Centerbrook Architects and Planners, agrees. “I think [bars and other fortifying techniques] send the wrong message to both kids and teachers,” he says. Based in Centerbrook, Connecticut, Simon has designed 20 school buildings, including five public elementary schools, though none in Newtown. “Buildings tell stories, and when a building is designed that way, it tells you that it doesn’t trust you. And kids intuit that they’re not trusted,” he says.

Kids: Architecture is Good for You

2012-10-23T14:55:00-04:00

After seeing “Best School in the World,” a Center for Architecture exhibition on the progressive learning environments where Finnish students to the top of world rankings, New York’s Justin Davidson aligned the layout of these schools more with tech company offices. We’ve rounded up a few of the design perks that your middle-school self never dreamed of.

The Best School in the World exhibition explores this question from an architectural perspective: in what types of environments does learning take place today, and what kinds of physical settings are the most conducive to successful learning?

33 Alternatives to University or Design School in Europe

2012-05-14T20:45:00-04:00

To do things differently, it helps to connect with new people and contexts. Universities and design schools seldom make that easy... This handout contains the most interesting ones we’ve found so far. It includes [with their permission] the findings of a scoping study for Schumacher College in England. No quality judgment is implied by inclusion in (or omission from) this list.