Page 46 - spaces4learning, Spring 2021

spaces4learning BUILDING BLUEPRINTS
to manage the existing conditions from a code perspective. One of the unique stipulations of the building code is that changing from office use to school use triggers a requirement for the space to comply with a whole new set of construction requirements, simply unfeasible in a building like this. Wheel- er Kearns developed a strategy to present the project to the Building Department's Committee on Standards and Tests to seek regulatory relaxation on some existing stair egress issues while offering additional life and safety provisions that would compensate for some of these deficiencies. Most notably, the proposal included turning a convenience stair serving three of- fice floors into an egress stair that would run directly to grade.
Space Planning: While the project had a phased construc- tion sequence to work with adjacent conditions and a planned tenant vacating one of the floors, we had to develop a strategy and space plan to organize the school’s space requirements. This would ensure that the spaces worked cohesively, fit within the allocated space and could be sequentially deployed to
work with the required timeframes. The core concept is that the public, gathering and lobby spaces all land on the second floor, with a dedicated entry from the street bringing students up to a gracious lobby with a set of tiered seating for informal lectures and other professional engagement events. As students ascend by grade level, they move to a higher floor. For example, the freshman start on the 2nd and 3rd floors, while seniors have most of their classes on the 6th floor. All students' spaces and facilities, such as the multipurpose room for lunch and the fitness center, are on lower floors.
Student movement within the building needed to be able to be carefully choreographed as students move between classes. Hallways were negotiated with classrooms to maximize width, particularly on floors with the most students. All doors are recessed so as not to impact the hallway flow. Stairs are designated as an “up” stairwell and a “down” stairwell to create an intuitive flow of students both vertically and within a floor. Building systems such as security, door-hold opens/alarms, and security camera locations were all thoughtfully integrated to create a secure school perimeter for students that isolates the school from adjacent office tenants.
Flexibility
46 SPRING 2021 | spaces4learning.com
PHOTOS CREDIT KENDALL MCCAUGHERTY - HALL + MERRICK/TOM HARRIS
Intrinsic's unique blended learning model utilizes Pod learning, where a single classroom of 60 students is team-taught by three teachers and whose “students rotate between teacher led in- struction, independent and small group work, and project-based learning,” according to Instrinsic Schools website. Wheeler Kearns collaborated with Intrinsic to define the space that could support Pod learning in their first campus. The unique design attributes of the Pod are that it is 2–3 times the size of a typical classroom with flooring, furniture, acoustic and lighting changes that help to differentiate zones within the room. The Downtown Campus provided the opportunity to refine this model further and adapt it to the constraints of a downtown setting.
Whereas the original campus included similar pod rooms for each grade, the Downtown Campus provides a gradient of room types ranging from standard-sized pods for lowerclassmen to smaller pods and seminars for upper-level students. While the Pod as a model is inherently flexible as a space, it needed to be support- ed by discrete rooms for more specialized education as students take more diverse and tailored class trajectories. This distribution matched the designed flow of students with the unique form of the building where the floorplates get smaller as the floors go up, which matches this increased specialization among upperclassmen.
Conclusion
Intrinsic’s Downtown Campus demonstrates that new build-
ing typologies such as high-rises can be reimagined for places
of learning with thoughtful design. As new gig economy and post-pandemic working methods change our cities' nature, new opportunities can emerge for school locations—certainly in the commercial real estate sector, among others. School design that identifies more closely with the open office than the typical school aspires to give the next generation an early seat at the table.
Brandon Hall is a Project Architect with Wheeler Kearns Architects and the Lead Architect for Intrinsic Downtown. Based in Chicago, Wheeler Kearns Architects is a collective practice of architects devoted to creating spaces that embody their clients’ purpose, energy, and vision.