DESIGN EXCELLENCE
 We shape our environment and our environment shapes us. Nowhere is this more important than in our schools. Between the ages of 5 and 18, our children spend more time in school than in any other environment. It is our responsibility – as policy makers, decision makers and designers – to shape those environments in ways that promote excellence. Our discussion here will focus on the importance design excellence plays in the school environment and what this term means.
Design excellence is the reflection of quality in the built environment. In public school construction, design excellence can be measured through four key factors:
- The ability of the facility to enhance learning;
- How the facility reflects and responds to its context;
- How the facility builds community;
- The success of the facility in serving the needs of the users.
Along with a community based planning process, these four factors can be used to judge the success of a school solution to promote excellence.
Our schools of the past – in the earliest part of the century – reflected the value communities placed on the role of education in the community. The facilities reflected the needs of the learner and the teacher while adding value to the fabric of the community through high quality design and use of materials. We built for the long-term and invested great energy and resources into making the facility the best it could be as a symbol of community pride.
In the 1950's, growth became the defining factor in school design. The baby boom created a tremendous need for classroom space and developing methods to rapidly, and inexpensively, produce school housing ruled the day. Factory style schools with simple, low profile designs were easy to build and could be easily replicated in as many communities as were needed. Attention to the long-term value of the school was usurped by the need to build classroom space quickly. The results are schools that generally do not reflect the character and culture of their community, and are expensive to maintain and revitalize.
Today, we are back in a growth mode as immigration and population redistribution reshape our landscape. While our instinctive response is to move back into the production mode for school building and design, we encourage you to take time up front to consider the opportunity for recreating that sense of community pride and commitment to our legacy by investing in the design process in ways that will encourage the development of high quality design response to our educational needs.
- Tim Dufault
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