We wanted to make a quick post of our current standings for everyone to see. Also, I will take this opportunity to describe some of the aspects that are and are not illustrated in these renderings.
@ the Fortney/Richwood intersection, definitely an optimal view to maintain. What you see is the existing building (in orange) being enveloped by additions, giving us the opportunity to create very unique spaces inside, meshing the traditional exterior materials with contemporary interior treatments (great example shown to the right). The bottom two parts of the white addition were removed, per safety of the children, so they couldn't climb up on the roof. To see how the angled addition would work, please refer to my previous post, here, its still conceptual though and mostly just forms. Out front we are planning to incorporate some unique play structures/designs, but these plans have yet to make it to the model. Outdoor classrooms currently would be behind the white addition, on the hillside overlooking the area.
Thomas & Hazel Little Library Expansion @ Eastern Kentucky University
On the backside of the school, we are proposing 2 pick/drop offs, one for parents and one for buses, both located on the backside of the building. The parent pickup would run directly next to the school, with a sheltered roof over top of the road to ensure year round use. Of course they aren't modeled yet, but the grey box on the back in the middle is approximately the location and height we are thinking about.
An important contextual view, here most people get their first sight of the school as they enter the Woodburn Community near Mario's Fishbowl. The top floor face has been oriented to this view to acknowledge this, while perhaps telling about the story of Woodburn school (its a spiderweb now because its a neat pattern, but its totally open to ideas. We've been considering a wolf-related pattern, but are finding it a bit harder to find shapes to tell that story.)
Obviously, we still have lots of work to do developing our outdoor classrooms, physical services, playgrounds, and just general site layout - which you can see our concepts for the masterplan in my previous posts, here. Below is the project program that we are working from, so you can we have started to address some of the designs while others have yet to surface in the model.
Jared Gorby & Andrew McKee
Woodburn Green School
1-25-11
Mission Statement:
Our mission is to redesign the current Woodburn Elementary School site, by providing an intelligent and imaginative school site selection and design. We plan to integrate our design with surrounding natural elements. Doing so will provide sufficient space for a school building, interactive educational facilities, a strong connection to nature, and integration with existing structures – while maintaining an adaptive reuse of the current site with low impact construction methods. Thus, a visual and cultural connection will be established within the Woodburn community, while showing respect for the local heritage and environment. The end result will produce a natural campus, for Woodburn Elementary, which encourages sustainable education.
Goal 1: Establish a creative school campus.
Objective: Design a school building with a capacity for 450 students at approximately
32,000 square feet of building space, and contains all necessary facilities.
Objective: Design a building layout that takes advantage of surrounding topography,
amenities, utilities, and green building practices.
Objective: Provide a low maintenance, native planting design on campus and outdoor
classroom areas that can accommodate 30 students.
Objective: Provide trash and recycling receptacles at convenient location throughout
the campus.
Objective: Establish an energy efficient, low impact outdoor lighting system throughout
the campus.
Goal 2: Create a variety of interactive-educational opportunities.
Objective: Allow for architectural design and landscape elements to provide and
support student oriented interactive learning opportunities.
Objective: Green building features, such as: green roofs, cisterns, and other water
management techniques, can be utilized as educational benefits for students.
Objective: Integrate recreational opportunities with educational opportunities by
providing stimulating toys, playground equipment, and a variety of other interesting and
thought-provoking amenities.
Goal 3: Develop a children’s playground, within the schools’ campus, which is
environmentally sensitive.
Objective: Create a theme for the playground and surrounding campus areas.
Objective: Protect and enhance quality views on and off-site by highlighting these
views with view sheds.
Objective: Integrate interactive learning experiences throughout the playground with
the use of creative playground equipment and a variety of other experiences.
Objective: Incorporate a variety of children’s playground equipment.
Goal 4: Create a connection between the Woodburn Elementary School and the
Woodburn neighborhood.
Objective: Enhance pedestrian connectivity and safety throughout neighborhood and
school campus by limiting the amount of vehicular traffic through campus.
Objective: Multiple uses for school, as a small-scale neighborhood event center.
Objective: Limit the amount of vehicular traffic on-site through the use of on-street
parking and other vehicular stipulations.
Facilities:
School Building, Parking Lots, Playgrounds, Maintenance Facility, Recycling Area,
Common Area (Courtyard), Open Green Space, Outdoor Classrooms
Here are some personal renderings by Andrew as part of his personal designing process, which have their own nice style to them. We've been looking alot at architect Frank Gehry, and find his style of line drawings to be loose and conceptual, but stylized to a point of elegance, in which they hold up as presentation graphics.
I do wish to thank Tony Christini @ http://newwoodburncommunityschool.org for his support and input, as well as the kind reporter at the Dominion Post, Jim Bisset, for his interest and willingness to share our ideas, not to mention our professors for their hard work molding us into young designers, and anyone else who has given their input or shared this with others. The most rewarding part of doing what we do is seeing others embrace our designs!
