Page 18 - School Planning & Management, October 2017

FACILITIES OUTDOOR SPACES
No longer a dump. The Medicine Crow Middle School, in Billings, Mont., is built on a former gravel pit and concrete dump. Now, in addition to the new school, there is a wetland area surrounded by bushes and trees that serves not only as a holding pond for the site, but also, in the future, it will become an outdoor learning space. The district wanted a space that would serve as an outdoor activity hub for the students as well as the community at large. In addition to a path for bicycling and walking, there is a new football field and improved baseball fields that are also used by the local Little League.
“When a school makes outdoor spaces a priority, it sends a message to the community that this is a place where students and the public alike are welcome; it’s a true community place.” — Dusty Eaton
campus,” as Eaton calls it, has a mean- dering, popular and lit path for bicycling and walking — it is a section of a 17-mile trail through Billings — a new football field, improved baseball fields, which host a keenly active local Little League, and ample space for parking.
On another tack, a former gravel pit pond has been nurtured into a wetland area surrounded by bushes and trees that serves not only as a holding pond for the site, and home to ducks and two white- tailed deer, says Lew Anderson, the dis- trict’s bond project manager, but also likely in the future: an outdoor learning space, reports Nicole Hofmann, school principal.
According to A&E Architects’ Paul Goldammer, the aforementioned path, in concert with a long angled sidewalk, help lead students onto the site — incidentally, Hofmann points out that many kids ride or walk to school — with some bike racks placed near raised concrete planters that appear on two sides of the school. Gold- ammer explains that while the planters may require some careful snow removal, they provide a seating element while importantly breaking up the scale of the space at the main entrance and at a busy plaza, which is equipped with outdoor furniture in rubber-coated, expanded metal. Youngsters eat lunch at the plaza, where they also do outdoor lessons such as math projects measuring area.
Take Billings District #2 in Montana, for example, where a recent search for the site of a new school led the district to a lot near an elementary school. There were hurdles: While some saw the site simply as an unattractive gravel pit and asphalt and concrete dump, others saw tantalizing possibilities. The district, A&E Architects and Dick Anderson Construction have delivered Medicine Crow Middle School, an attractive, 118,000-square-foot facility,
opened in 2016 on a site that draws plenty of use by the school and community.
As A&E Architect Principal Dusty Eaton puts it, the campus “is designed
to serve as an outdoor activity hub for the students as well as the community at large.” The district’s mission, he recalls: to create “community-focused schools where the opportunity to use the facili- ties extends far beyond typical school hours.” The 37-acre “community-focused
18 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / OCTOBER 2017
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