All-Around Excellence
Only a couple of hours into the two-day judging process for this year’s Learning By Design competition and the veterans on our esteemed panel were in agreement: The quality of design project submissions keeps getting better and better. And those judges who were new to the panel made similar remarks about the high quality of projects.
An increasing number of educational facility design projects are incorporating more of the many characteristics that create rich learning environments for our nation’s students—from pre-K to post-secondary. Judges commented that the very best submissions were those that incorporated several design best practices, including plans for abundant daylighting, sustainable construction strategies, flexible learning spaces that encourage student interaction, and making educational facilities part of the greater community.
This year’s Grand Prize Award winner—Bioscience High School in Phoenix—illustrates all of these design features and more. A project of Orcutt | Winslow, the 52,000-square-foot comprehensive high school is located on the Phoenix Biomedical Research campus. Judges said this new school “fires on all cylinders,” incorporating an impressive combination of best practices, and so did so many of this year’s projects—including the 14 that received Citations of Excellence and six that received Honorable Mention Awards.
Our feature articles this year include the latest news from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Starting on page 18, learn about Green Ex², a new toolkit that will help make the operations and maintenance of existing schools more environmentally friendly. This year’s features also address a critical facet of educational facility design—keeping students and educators safe. See “Equating School and Safety” (page 14) for examples of schools that have effectively implemented safety strategies.
Other topics in this year’s issue include trends and best practices in performance facility design, historic renovations, and sustainable strategies that help make the school building itself a valuable learning tool.
In the interest of consistently serving our readers throughout the year, we recently launched Learning By Design
E-News, a bimonthly e-newsletter that delivers news, trends, information about events and conferences, case studies, and much more. If you aren’t currently receiving this free e-newsletter, send a subscription request to LBD@strattonpublishing.com.
As always, we appreciate the support of the educational facility design and construction community, all of the outstanding architects, visionary educational leaders, and everyone who plays a role in such an important mission—creating rich and inviting learning environments for our nation’s learners. Thank you.
|
Debra J. Stratton
Co-publisher, Learning By Design,
President,
Stratton Publishing & Marketing Inc.
|
Marilee Rist
Co-publisher, Learning By Design
Publisher,
American School Board Journal |
