Design dilemma
The cost of building schools, like most things lately, is climbing. That’s especially true in Massachusetts, where the escalating cost of the new Newton North High School ($197 million at last report) has drawn plenty of attention. The state’s treasurer, Timothy P. Cahill, who also doubles as chairman of the state’s School Building Authority, wants to rein in those costs. His suggestion? Have the state’s cities and towns use prototype facility designs instead of creating plans from scratch, The Boston Globe says. Cahill believes such off-the-shelf building designs could cut school-project costs by 30 percent. But, as the article notes, some architects and school administrators question “whether New England’s rolling hillsides, marked by such construction obstacles as wetlands and rock outcroppings, can ever be conducive to a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Do you think using prototype schools is a good way to build school facilities more efficiently?
Leave a comment below.
July 22nd, 2008 @ 8:16 am
Local districts should have control over building design. Often education institutions are leaders in innovations in design as well as learning. Many of these innovations have led the way in “green” buildings and other socially responsible buildings.
July 22nd, 2008 @ 11:09 am
There is no doubt that ‘prototype schools’ do offer cost reductions by re-use. However, historically there have been two major problems–first, school districts have paid architects too much for re-using prototypes (trust me, I know–I had my own architectural practice and we could get about 50 percent of the full fee for just changing the title blocks on the drawings!!). Second and more important, changes and revisions to prototypes take forever to be implemented, and the crazy bureaucracy that now exists in nearly all school districts literally takes years rather than months to get anything changed.
As a CM building schools, I always was horrified how stupid and costly mistakes on a set of plans would be repeated on every school — whether it be using twice as many audible fire alarms in every classroom or just plain old incorrect references of makes or models that hadn’t been available for years! By the way these were both on an ‘award-winning’ architects plans!!
July 22nd, 2008 @ 11:52 am
This is a very interesting question because both sides of the argument have many compelling benefits.
On the one hand, off-the-shelf designs have the potential to reduce costs during both design and construction. Standard details and layouts reduce design effort. Specifics of construction, particularly typical problem areas like flashing and trade sequencing, typically are already vetted through past experience. Both design and construction aspects can be revised constantly to incorporate “lessons learned” as more and more projects are designed and built. Because there are an inherently limited set of design options, the off-the-shelf designs can be refined over time.
On the other hand, unique plans have the potential to create designs that relate to their surroundings and better inspire a connection between students and their environment. Even though an overall design may be unique, most architects have vast libraries of “standard details” that have been used on several projects and therefore benefit from “lessons learned” — though perhaps not as much as an off-the-shelf design. There are few sites that are truly exact copies. Creating a unique plan for a school follows naturally from dealing with unique sites.
One of the more intriguing aspects of architecture is that most buildings are prototypes that are never put into mass production. Even if they incorporate “standard details,” most buildings feature unique elements that respond to project-specific issues. Geographic elements such as site location, solar orientation and topography should not be ignored. Neither should functional elements such as user-group input and community access. Yet, there can be a happy medium.
In my experience on K-12 projects for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the best approach is a combination of off-the-shelf components combined into a site-specific campus plan. LAUSD maintains an extensive “room standard” library of prototypes for just about every component in a school, from classrooms and libraries to administration units and custodial support services. Architects are free to adapt the prototypes to the unique requirements of a particular site, but the eventual design is reviewed for compliance with the various room standards. In this case, the off-the-shelf components provide a vetted standard and a starting point for designers to create unique plans that respond to unique elements.
July 22nd, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
Just as humanity comprises a multitude of individuals, our cities and infrastructures have always carefully evaluated specific local issues prior to designing new schools. Twenty-eight years of quality school analysis, always looking for the better mouse trap, continually reassessing individual components and providing new innovative designs will always improve the educational environment. Just as technology is constantly changing so we must be flexible and ever in search of the better built environment.