Page 26 - School Planning & Management, July/August 2017

FACILITIES PROGRAMMATIC SYNERGIES
while DIY work settings will become more common. Work environments will become more transformational to accommodate and support visual, auditory and kines- thetic working modalities.
• Healthcare: 3D visualization will allow surgical teams to practice procedures before performing on actual patients. 3D printers will be used to design and manufacture cus- tom devices for individuals such as hearts, bones and joint replacements, human tissue and hearing aids.
• Higher Ed: The importance of open- source curricula and emerging socio- techno-economic programs which will enable the future platform of pedagogy that cross-shares learning at all levels of society.
• Branding: Our buildings should tell a story, support a common vision and mis- sion, spark emotional human connections, trigger pride and motivation and create a sense of belonging, excitement, engage- ment and ownership. Leveraging stories to create environments that embody the mis- sion setting the stage for experiences that connect with your community and fuel the imagination of the students.
• K-12: Personalized learning, infused tech- nologies and hybrid facilities. Strategies are needed to support problem solving, project- based learning and analytical thinking and spaces to promote innovating, teaming, networking, creating and leading.
This ability to synthesize our wide knowledge base enables us to deliver a future-ready educational environment.
Creating Critical Adjacencies
At the new 324,000-square-foot Billerica Memorial High School (BMHS) in Billerica, Mass., we learned that we could help foster and encourage interdisciplinary and project- based learning through thoughtful planning practices. It became clear that if we placed the garden near the main kitchen, culinary next to the main kitchen, the snack shack next to culinary, life skills next to culinary, inherent synergies would be naturally established. The science students could
Critical adjacencies. The Media Commons (top image) at Billerica Memorial High School in Billerica, Mass., is strategically located so that the school’s fine arts program would be enhanced through
the integration of all types of media. Interdisciplin- ary space, like the one in the bottom image, are located in each of the academic neighborhoods.
institute best practices for the garden, the life skills students could harvest the crops, the culinary students could prepare snacks from the fresh produce, the students from the life skills class could learn cooking tech- niques, the graphic students could design the menus, and the business students could run Snack Shack — all enjoyed in the ad- jacent Civic Commons. A perfect symbiotic relationship was found through the careful application of critical adjacencies.
It was also important to recognize that in order to foster project-based learning at BMHS it was necessary to bring the hands- on experiences into the general academic environment. The shop, once thought of
as the only fabrication space, has broad- ened its range to include “makerspaces,” robotics rooms, FAB LABs and engineering classrooms. These spaces are moved front and center and made visible to the students to bolster the prototyping of ideas and solutions. These hands-on spaces support the science and general disciplines and are located near the open interdisciplinary areas in the academic neighborhoods. The inten- tional organization of spaces blur the lines between subjects and allow for the encour-
agement of problem solving and innovation. Another example of the deliberate
creation of programmatic synergies to pro- mote project-based learning can be found in the co-location of art, graphic design, computer labs, innovation spaces, media, video production, editing and huddle spac- es. We understood the immediate impact these adjacencies would have on student creation by breaking down the disciplinary barriers. BMHS’s exceptional fine arts pro- gram would be enhanced through the inte- gration of all types of media and mediums so that students can have space to work on individual or collaborative projects and flow through these creative environments. Projects would be researched, filmed, de- signed and fabricated in these spaces. The depth of the arts program would be even more far reaching and could stand alone or support the general academic programs.
Distribution of Programs
The importance of supporting a variety of learning and work styles is evident in the facility. With emphasis on the adher- ence to the educational program and overall building square footage, the BMHS design team looked for creative ways to develop additional spaces to support the range of individual study and collaborative learning. This was realized through the distribution of the square footage of some existing programs throughout the facility. For example, the media center space al- location was distributed to create interdis- ciplinary spaces in the academic neighbor- hoods. While this reduced the immediate square footage of the media center, it had
a far-reaching impact on the overall needs of the facility generating the much needed areas for the enhancement of learning on a smaller scale. This was a simple planning strategy to develop important spaces which the initial program did not support.
Designing for Flexibility
Another simple planning modal-
ity to ensure the long-term educational sustainability is to design for the greatest
26 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / JULY/AUGUST 2017
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