Page 31 - School Planning & Management, April 2017

And then there are large school districts that have a set of building standards in which materials are determined in the mas- ter planning stage for the entire district before thoughts are put into place about how each individual school will look. “That’s done well in advance of the design of any schools,” says Tully. “When this is the case, there really is only one predetermined option, with choices given to finishes, colors or patterns, which are determined during design.”
One benefit of design standards is eliminating issues with re- placement parts being able to be purchased in the future. Another is maintenance consistency. A third is time savings during the design process.
Who Is Involved in the Process?
Knowing what materials to use requires a team effort — a large team, in fact, because there are different areas of expertise that have to be addressed. Each team member is vital to ensuring the right products are chosen.
“We involved everyone early on,” says Brooke Trivas, prin- cipal and K-12 practice leader at Perkins+Will’s Boston office, referencing the new Billerica Memorial High School (BMHS) in
New School. Children observe the construction of their new school. But before ground could be broken, someone had to decide what materials were going to be used to build the facility. Making those types of deci- sions requires a team effort — in most cases a large team. In the case of the Billerica Memorial High School, in Massachusetts, that team included staff from Perkins+Will, the superintendent, principal, facility director, building committee, owner product manager (OPM) and construction manager (CM). On many projects it is also wise to include a group of students and staff.
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