Page 10 - School Planning & Management, June 2019

HEALTHY, SAFE SCHOOLS
direct routes to rooms that can be locked down during emergencies. Safe Havens reports that one large school district, today, includes two doors in all of its newest office designs — to provide a second escape route in the event of emergency.
7. Roof Access: According to Safe Havens, easy roof access ranks as a serious threat to school buildings as an attacker can use the roof to find ways into a building. Safe Havens notes that roof sections built low to the ground as well as catwalks, exposed gutters, and railings designed to offer access to repair people also invite attackers. Such features require regular surveillance to insure against trouble.
HFI-U has developed a handbook for facility remodeling that includes a focus on safety. Of course, HFI-U designers also focus on safety in new construction. Now referred to as HFI-U, the firm’s original name was Healthy Facilities Institute University.
Among the many design issues taken on by HFI-U, internal air quality or IAQ ranks high. “Air is a complex subject,” says Allen Rathey, a principal with HFI-U. “We do a lot of research into air quality, which is a complex subject. We inhale about 30 pounds of air every day. By comparison we only ingest about four pounds of food.
“So, air is our largest exposure to the environment and our
Roof access. In addition to the safety issues that arise when students find their way onto the school roof, there is also the possibility of vandalism to the equipment that is placed there and the potential of gaining illegal access to the building after hours. There have also been instances when an attacker has used the roof to gain access to a school. Roof access areas need to be monitored on a regular basis and, if possible, locked in order to discourage illegal access.
number one source of environmental exposure. It is important to focus on three components of good air:
First, reduce pollution. Reducing pollution is the first and must important component of protecting and managing air quality.
Second, ventilation—bring in plenty of fresh outside air, which eliminates problems with air inside buildings.
Third, purify and filter air. Indoor air is contaminated more easily than you might think. New paint, for example, gives off pollutants that must be off-gassed. Then there is carbon dioxide or CO2. Lots of people inside a building raise CO2 levels when they exhale, and high CO2 levels make people tired—and in the case of people inside a school, less able teachers and learners.
Dina Sorensen, senior associate with the DLR Group, a design firm with offices across the country, designs interiors for K-12 schools as well as other kinds of buildings. She has taken what might be called a philosophical interest in interior design: “Since the industrial revolu- tion, people are spending more time indoors. To better accommodate this move inside, we need to take on some hard questions about the impact of our buildings on both humans and our natural environment.
“For example, we need to commission the right research going forward to gain a better understanding of how the artifi- cial climates that we design can contribute to the processes that help stabilize the body, mind, and emotions,” Sorensen says. “In other words, we need to know more about designing interiors for healthier outcomes based on our biological needs.”
The DLR design group works toward this goal by employing psychologists and behavioral scientists that research and evalu- ate how buildings perform and how people in various fields are influenced by their environments.
“This is an exciting time in the design field,” says Sorensen, summing up. “Today, there is much more willingness for designers and contractors to work across disciplines to find comprehensive answerstocomplexquestionsabouthumanenvironments.” SPM
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10 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / JUNE 2019
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