Science Education Facility
Prospect High School
Project Outline
- New Facility on Existing Campus
- Classrooms, Labs, Support and Collaboration Facilities
- Exterior "Cosmo" and "Bio" courtyards greatly expand teaching areas at the low cost of landscaping
- Genuine Green Features
- Design For Teachable Moments
- Architecture designed to harmonize with gracefully existing campus
Our Science Buildings not only house the teaching of Science, they participate in the teaching of Science.
By utilizing a series of exposed "moments" the building reveals its own logic, systems and structure. It is designed to stimulate questions, curiosity and to offer, with the right teacher at the right moment, the ability to tie those questions to the teaching of critical scientific principles.
What more could a building offer to education: Getting kids to ask "Why"?
Why is the concrete floor red in the middle and gray at the perimeter? Because the floor consists of a floating radiant slab on a bed of insulation in the center of the room that warms the rooms without warming the earth. The radiant manifolds are exposed so the kids can read the water temp. going in and coming out. An impassioned teacher will lead them to measure temps in the room and at the floor and compare these to the water temps heating the floor. Lessons about thermodynamics as well as good earth keeping are possible.
The building includes many such teachable moments:
- Structural systems are exposed and designed to demonstrate various aspects of mechanics.
- Building geometries indicate true north and courtyards include metrics for studying the annual changes in solar and lunar cycles. One room is skewed to match the campus geometry as a means to stimulate questions about orientation.
- Natural lighting is provided from north facing clerestories that include operable windows for ventilation and sound infiltration. You can't learn about the world of you can see it or hear it.
Key Sustainability Features
- Minimum 100 year service life for the building.
- Fully adaptable "Project Rooms" support changing uses so that obsolescence is delayed.
- Lighting systems have continuous dimmers that respond to ambient light sensors, automatically dimming lights in response to natural light.
- Photocells sense ambient light levels and automatically dim or raise indirect lighting fixtures for a constant light level. Occupancy sensors switch lights off when no motion is detected, and return to the last position when motion is sensed again. Interior colors were selected to reflect and distribute natural light.
The building is designed to offer subtle lessons in true sustainability, both in the inclusion of energy reducing systems, but also in the lesson that building substantially, for longevity, reduces the overall impacts of resource use.
