Today’s Assignment: Design Your New School!

Pedagogical trends, such as project-based (PBL) and personalized learning, require dynamic, engaging schools that support student-driven education. Therefore, student input is critical to how facilities are designed, built and operate. After all, who better to tell architects, designers, educators and the community how to achieve spaces that support transformative learning than the students themselves?! That’s why SHP firmly believes that today’s classroom assignment should be an invitation: design your new school!

Winton Woods School District in Cincinnati transitioned to PBL 10 years ago, and this year, opened two new campuses that reflect its innovative approach to education. But the district didn’t get there alone.

SHP and our clients at Winton Woods were recently invited to share how the district’s educational visioning and community engagement process — especially the incorporation of student voices, perspectives, likes and wonders — led to the cutting-edge, exciting and cool spaces these new campuses boast. Download a copy of our presentation, as featured at EDspaces and the Ohio School Board Association Conference, by clicking here.

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Beavercreek Schools to receive nearly $500,000 in energy efficiency rebates from DP&L for new schools.

Beavercreek City School District residents will be pleased to learn that the district will receive $492,051.90 in energy efficiency rebates from Dayton Power & Light (DP&L) for its use of innovative construction methods at Coy Middle School and Trebein Elementary. This sizable award represents the largest single DP&L rebate to date.

When I was in architecture school I had a professor, Udo Kultermann, who was legendary for his encyclopedic knowledge of world architecture. As one would expect of a resident authority on architectural history, he knew everything about Byzantine, Medieval, Gothic, Greek Revival and all the rest of the significant architectural periods and styles as well as all of the important figures throughout the course of history which was impressive, but nowhere near as impressive is his comprehensive knowledge of contemporary architecture.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents the opportunity to envision and create more efficient, more strategic and more focused spaces if we are willing to abandon entrenched paradigmsand make room for new ones.

The Consortium for Advancing Adult Learning & Development (CAALD) recently held their second annual conference to discuss what is and […]