NEWS
Medina school celebrates cycles of nature, learning
Medina school works green into its building and its curriculum
Demolition makes way for a new St. Thomas School
Medina school celebrates cycles of nature, learning
August 20, 2009
Natural symbols throughout St. Thomas School — the state’s first gold-certified LEED for Schools project — express its goal to nurture student growth.
By LORNE MCCONACHIE
Bassetti Architects
St. Thomas School, an independent school in Medina, is the first LEED for schools gold-certified project in the state. The $24 million, 55,000-square-foot building was designed with two main project goals: The building must demonstrate leadership in environmental responsibility, and it must support the school’s educational program by addressing the latest research on cognitive development.
St. Thomas is designed for children 2½ years old through sixth grade, and as the children grow, so does their environment. The building design celebrates cycles of nature and cycles of human learning, from nature to nurture to exploration. For students, these elements can have lifetime impacts of understanding.
Learning spaces
Modern research about the brain and learning such as Howard Gardner’s “Multiple Intelligences” and John Medina’s “Brain Rules” inspired the designers to ask, “How do we create spaces to support varying pathways to learning?” The response found at St. Thomas School includes flexible learning spaces that are designed to stimulate various senses and engage diverse learning styles.
Organized in grade-based pairs, classrooms spanning first through sixth grades comprise the two-story west wing. The north wing contains the Early Learning Center, library, and specialty classrooms for science, technology, language, art and music. A central core contains a multipurpose space, a gymnasium, administrative offices, kitchen facilities and mechanical rooms.
Each wing is designed to have its own sense of community. Classrooms open out into shared circulation and teaching spaces called plazas. These flexible areas provide an activity zone for multiple classes, group learning, tutoring, as well as special places for individual activities.
The irregularly shaped plazas are integral to the design strategy that layers spaces from structured to casual. This sequence begins in the nurturing space of the classroom, transitions to the free-form space in the plaza, moves to the protective roof of a covered outdoor area at each wing, and finally to the open environment of the playground.
The school creates a sense of safety and connection and provides a way for the children to move from layer to layer as they grow.
Sensory engagement
At early ages there is no separation between learning and play. The playground is designed for sensory engagement and learning through play, using a wide variety of big and small motor skills: running and jumping, or playing with a doll or car along a rivulet. There are places for kids to engage with a small group of friends, and places for kids to explore materiality in a sandbox or water box.
Sustainable design
During the early design stage of St. Thomas School, teachers toured Cottage Lake Elementary in Woodinville, a naturally lit and ventilated school, also designed by Bassetti Architects.
The group was especially impressed by the high level of comfort and quiet. As a result, daylighting and natural ventilation became two primary sustainable design strategies for the project.
School leaders also chose LEED gold certification as a way to demonstrate their goal of leadership in environmental responsibility. Finishes in each room emphasize natural materials and low-VOC paints to create a comfortable, healthy space for students and users. Wood throughout the building is FSC certified.
All learning spaces employ natural daylighting, supplemented by efficient lighting design, which allows them to function most of the year without electric lighting. Naturally lit spaces give the children a sensibility about how daylight occurs, and reduced glare and eyestrain improves the learning environment.
A natural ventilation system provides fresh air and controls temperatures without fans or ductwork, eliminating the need for air conditioning in classrooms. This system not only saves energy, it is also notably quiet, creating optimum listening and speaking conditions in the classroom.
The school achieved an Energy Star design rating that indicates the building will use almost 30 percent less energy than a typical school of this size. This energy savings reduces the building’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 130 tons per year.
Water is celebrated as it makes its way through the site. At the edge of the covered play area roof outside the Early Learning Center, rainwater splashes into a rock basin below. In an exploratory climbing zone, children climb on the rocks around a swale, where stormwater is stored on the site, much like they would play around a pond.
Virtually all paved areas on site utilize porous pavement. When it rains, water soaks through the pavement and percolates into the ground below to a gravel layer. The water is then piped through the swale where it is filtered by grass and other plants. The clean water enters the local watershed through a meter that mimics the rate of flow of an undeveloped parcel of land.
Cycles of nature
Signage and graphics throughout the school incorporate images of natural flora, expressing the school’s theme, “mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow.” Representations of the seasonal stages of the oak tree are embedded in the floor of each wing. From acorn to seedling, to leaves and trunk, the school uses the oak tree as a teaching tool to tell a story about nature.
The school’s mission is to develop responsible citizens of a global society. The environmental and educational project goals are reflected in a building design that clearly benefits the children’s educational experience.
Lorne McConachie, AIA, a principal at Bassetti Architects in Seattle, has worked with educators in developing design strategies for schools that support an array of teaching and learning pathways.
Medina school works green into its building and its curriculum
March 31, 2009 St. Thomas includes the latest version of a natural ventilation system Bassetti has been refining in its projects. By KATIE ZEMTSEFF
Photos by John Edwards The architects said it was important that the St. Thomas School building welcome people to the area and be a good neighbor. The St. Thomas School in Medina recently completed a $25 million, 55,000-square-foot building that is expected to be one of the first in Washington, if not the first, to be certified under the LEED for schools program. It has targeted LEED gold. Kristian Kicinski, project architect for Bassetti Architects, said the school needed space to grow. The existing building, he said, was an agglomeration of additions and remodels that had taken place since the 1950s. St. Thomas wanted to support more students so it needed new space. Bassetti was architect. Sellen Construction was general contractor. The new building was completed in August. It has two wings on two levels that branch out from a core area. The core has a multipurpose common space, a gymnasium, mechanical rooms, kitchen space and administrative offices. The building has 23 classrooms. Kicinski said St. Thomas strives to educate students to be global citizens by instilling ethics and a desire for learning. Because of that focus the school choose to target LEED gold. “They felt like environmental responsibility was a key component of that and they wanted to model that component in their building.” Public schools in Washington are required to reach LEED silver or to meet the Washington Sustainable Schools Protocol. Private schools are not required to meet any green standards. LEED for schools is a new program, launched in 2007.
The school’s symbol is an oak tree. Playgrounds shown here are designed for different age groups. St. Thomas is also designed to meet Energy Star certification. The building is designed to be 21 percent more efficient than ASHRAE 90.1. Porous concrete was used for all sidewalks, the playground and for the fire lane. All classroom space is daylit and 95 percent of other spaces are daylit. Kicinski said St. Thomas includes the latest version of a natural ventilation system Bassetti has been using and refining in its projects. Hot air is exhausted from classrooms through a shaft that runs to the roof. Fresh outdoor air is then drawn into classrooms, through a damper underneath the classroom windows, and into a large cabinet, where it is warmed by heat from a hot water pipe, and sent into the classroom. It cuts out the need for an HVAC system and eliminates fan and duct noise, making it easier for students to concentrate. Air quality is also monitored by CO2 sensors. The building uses low-emitting finishes. The finishes were also chosen to stimulate learning. Kicinski said there is research showing the best classroom environment is uncluttered and not distracting, so the team focused on natural elements like wood and neutral colors inside classrooms, and used more color in common areas of the building. “We tried to find the right balance between providing a bright colorful environment but not overdoing it.” St. Thomas's symbol is an oak tree, and the building is split into four geographic zones that are dedicated to different age groups and designed to support different phases of education. Each zone is identified with a theme, related to the oak tree. The four zones are: prekindergarten or acorn, elementary school or seedlings, upper grades or oak leaves and specialty classes or tree rings. Lorne McConachie, design principal at Bassetti, said children layer skills on top of other skills as they learn and grow, and the team tried to create those layers of space in the classroom. “That was pretty fun we haven't done a lot of early childhoodspace so we did a lot of ... thinking about how to make that work well.” The four stages of learning are also reflected in different play equipment on the playground. McConachie said the neighborhood also influenced the project. This school, he said, sits at the entry to Medina in a “rather proper neighborhood,” so it was important to create a building that would welcome people to the area and be a good neighbor. The site is next to a park and a golf course in an “idyllic pastoral landscape.” The building, he said, balances those two influences so the front is about being a good neighbor, but the back, he said, is about “the delight that comes from being a five-year-old.” Project members include Site Workshop, landscape architect; SvR Design, civil engineer; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, structural engineer; Stantec Engineering, mechanical engineer; Travis Fitzmaurice & Associates, electrical engineer; andSparling, acoustical engineer. For more information on the project, visit the Energy Star. Demolition makes way for a new St. Thomas |
JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES St. Thomas School, a private elementary school in Medina, is tearing down its buildings and beginning construction on a newer, larger campus to accommodate more students. |
Saturday, July 14, 2007
By RACHEL TUINSTRA
Seattle Times Eastside bureau
David Selby snapped photos with his cellphone as excavation equipment clawed into what was left of St. Thomas School's administration building and tore out walls, windows and plumbing.
"See where that pile of wood is?" said Selby, the associate head of school for St. Thomas in Medina. "That used to be the gym."
Over the past half-century, more than 2,500 students have come through the doors of the school that offers preschool through sixth-grade education.
But by Friday, the St. Thomas School campus was demolished into piles of wood. In its place will be a new, environmentally friendly and roomier campus, Selby said.
The campus should be complete by August 2008 and is expected to include a spacious, two-story building with two main wings that will replace the scattered, smaller buildings of the old campus.
The design will incorporate natural lighting and ventilation, and the new building will also include some recycled materials from the old campus. Three playgrounds, two covered play areas and a sports field will be added.
"It's so rare to have a chance to build from the ground up," said Kirk Wheeler, St. Thomas' head of school. "It's an opportunity for us to ask ourselves, 'What does a healthy learning environment look like?' "
While the acreage of the campus won't change, the new building will be 25,000 square feet larger and will include more classrooms and instructional spaces and larger common areas.
The new campus will allow the school to expand the number of classes it offers from pre-kindergarten (which the school calls pre-primary) through sixth grade, and add separate rooms for foreign language, science and media production.
The total cost of the project is $30 million, which the school financed through tax-exempt bonds. It has also raised $15 million in pledges so far through a capital campaign.
In the meantime, the school has taken up temporary residence in the Linbrook Office Park in Kirkland, next door to another private school, Eastside Preparatory School.
Eastside Preparatory also plans to expand its enrollment. It's projecting it will have 140 students in September, up from the 106 students it ended the school year with, said Kevin McQuade, admissions director for Eastside Preparatory.
Last year, Friends of Eastside Prep, a limited liability corporation, purchased 10 buildings on behalf of the school. St. Thomas is leasing three of those and another three buildings directly from Linbrook Office Park, Wheeler said.
St. Thomas plans to move back to Medina by the 2008-09 school year, he said.
St. Thomas' campus expansion is in response to increasing demands from families and to keep pace with growth on the Eastside, Wheeler said.
"Parents are recognizing they have a lot of choices for their children, and finding what school serves their children best," Wheeler said.
St. Thomas, which has an annual tuition of $14,440, is one of the oldest private elementary schools in the Northwest, Wheeler said. The school began with a class of first- and second-graders in 1951. It was a parish school of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, but in 1968 the school became independent and adopted a nonsectarian curriculum. The school retained its name and remains next door to the church.
St. Thomas has slowly grown over the years. Last school year the school had 167 students; next year it expects to enroll 198 students in preschool through sixth grade. By 2012, after the campus expansion, it anticipates having 290 students, Wheeler said.
Historically the school has had a waiting list, at times even getting calls from pregnant mothers who want to get a jump start, Wheeler said.
"We're are surrounded by a lot of growth; just look at Bellevue," he said. "We wanted to be able to respond to the growth."