Sponsor:  Architecture for Humanity
Architect/ Project Designer:  Charles Marr
School Partner:  Environmental Charter High School, Classroom Partner:  Spaces of Blight

Program:
One, to integrate Environmental Charter High School (ECHS) into the community.

Two, to provide a laboratory classroom and other classrooms to enhance a collaborative and hands on environmental education curriculum.

Three, a project that is itself a “learning aid” modeling sustainable design to both students and the community.

Concept:
A “Community Advancement Center” designed to engage the community and youth about ECHS’s public outreach projects, environmental education, and generate income  for the school.

A tree house laboratory classroom named “The Birdhouse” designed to educate students and the community through their experience of a reclaimed urban wildlife habitat on an adjacent existing vacant lot.

To  enhance a collaborative and hands on environmental education curriculum with eight prefabricated modular classrooms sited to encourage collaboration and designed to embrace nature with outdoor classrooms oriented towards the habitat of “The Birdhouse.”

Conclusion:

The classroom of the future is a tree house on an urban reclaimed forest.