Page 26 - School Planning & Management, November 2017

INTERIORS
PHOTOS © PAUL BURK PHOTOGRAPHY
suggested not only by students and the community, but were also sparked during a visit by school officials and an archi- tect to the campus of Penn- sylvania State University, ex- plained Scott Inglese, assistant superintendent.
The result at Penn-Traf- ford: A central library area — also called a media center or learning commons — features a ring of independent, glass study rooms, each in its own vi- brant color, and includes a cof- fee shop with soft furniture, all beneath a large skylight. It is the center of the bustling school, an expanded, 21st-century version of a similar, popular space in the old building. It is a layout that suggests university settings to come for so many graduates.
Similar ideas are woven into
the interior of the $51.7-million renovation of East Hampton High School in Connecticut, which re-opened in Septem- ber 2017. SLAM Collaborative’s Richard Herzer and Eleana Lynch say that the building’s different furniture types, trans-
parency, natural light, learning technologies, and accommoda- tions for group style learning are all part of the comprehen- sive equation, as is a focal point of the building: a team-based learning center.
They explain that the learn- ing center, a space that was carved out of a section of an old gymnasium, is a higher educational type environment that has trickled down to K-12. The well-appointed center can accommodate 60 students at a time, and can house distance- learning sessions and other functions. According to Herzer and Lynch, the semi-circular shape of the room encourages student interaction, as do mark- er board surfaces, which appear on desk fronts on each tier of the space; the idea being “that you can change the purpose of the room almost instantly” from a lecture hall to a collaborative learning space.
Herzer and Lynch describe another feature at East Hamp- ton High: “nooks in the corri- dors for independent study or a brief teacher-student confer- ence” enabled by stepping out of the flow of hall traffic. It’s all about reflecting how many dis- tricts are teaching and learning,
and about educational settings in and out of classrooms.
As RB+B’s Arabasz adds, a school’s interior “expresses our values. An open environment says, ‘I trust you,’ display space says, ‘your work is important to me,’ connections to the exterior, environmentally preferable ma- terials, and energy efficient build- ing systems say, ‘there is an im- portant relationship between this building and the natural world.’”
All told, there is much to as- pire to, and great opportunities to inspire.
Two suggestions from experts: • Consider where education can happen. As RB+B’s Arabasz says, “what happens between dedicated learning spaces is just as important as what happens in the learning spaces themselves.” • Create balance. SLAM’s Her- zer and Lynch explain that the right size spaces and clearly or- ganized spaces and circulation must combine with “technol- ogy, new ways of teaching and the diversity of students and how they learn.” Interiors can enable “choice and the freedom
tomovearoundandlearn.” SPM
>> Scott Berman is a freelance writer with experience in edu- cational topics.
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