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Penn’s New Residence Facility on Schedule for 2021 Opening

School News — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 17:56:37 +0000

By Aziza Jackson

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Construction on New College House West, the University of Pennsylvania’s (Penn) new 250,000-square-foot residential building, is currently underway.

The $163 million project will be designed specifically as an undergraduate college house, part of Penn’s residential system of shared communities.

The new undergraduate college house will occupy a site bounded by Locust Walk, Walnut Street and 40th street, adjacent to the West Philadelphia branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which will remain open.

“This exciting project will serve as a new western gateway to campus,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “Since the College House system was introduced in 1998, it has become enormously successful, forming intellectually dynamic and supportive, shared communities within the larger Penn community. Life in a college house has come to define the undergraduate experience at Penn, providing learning and co-curricular opportunities outside of the conventional classroom.

“New College House West will enable more Penn students to participate in the College House system, and it will also give us the capacity and flexibility to continue renovating existing student housing.”

Designed by Philadelphia-based, internationally-renowned Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects, the firm that recently completed the New College House at Hill Field, the three-year 450-bed residence will house sophomores, juniors and seniors. With a mix of six- and five-bedroom two-bath suites and four-, three- and two-bedroom one-bath suites, New College House West will also provide many programmatic common areas including study, living, seminar and music practice rooms.

The project will target LEED Silver certification and its design introduces both a private courtyard for residents and green roofs and maintains public green spaces adjacent to Locust Walk, north of Harrison College House and east of Rodin College House, as well as the space near Gregory College House. These common green spaces are openly accessible to public pedestrian access and available as gathering spaces and for University and community events.

The project began construction in spring of 2018 and is expected to open for occupancy in Fall 2021.

PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Construction on New College House West, the University of Pennsylvania’s (Penn) new 250,000-square-foot residential building, is currently underway.

The $163 million project will be designed specifically as an undergraduate college house, part of Penn’s residential system of shared communities.

The project began construction in spring of 2018 and is expected to open for occupancy in Fall 2021.

The post Penn’s New Residence Facility on Schedule for 2021 Opening appeared first on School Construction News.

Urban Schools: What’s Next

Urban school facilities can be very challenging because they have undergone extensive change during the last 60 years. It began in the 1950s when urban school districts and first-ring suburbs experienced major growth. This was followed by the impact of desegregation in the 1960s and a rapid decline in enrollment in the 1970s related to lower birthrates and migration to the suburbs. To add to the challenges, urban school facilities were neglected due to lack of resources in the 1980s and 1990s.

Fortunately, there was renewed interest in urban school facilities in the late 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. However, monetary resources are not keeping up, so facilities have suffered again. A lack of cohesive federal and state policies to address schools and cities adds to the problem. This has resulted in less than desirable results compared to other cities in developed counties.

Today there is a potpourri of “public” schools operating within urban school districts, including typical PK-12 neighborhood schools; magnet, thematic and choice schools; and a wide variety of charter schools that are operated by the school district or independently. This fragmented scenario creates new challenges and opportunities for facility planners and the facilities divisions in urban public school systems.

Fifteen years ago, while teaching in Harvard’s Executive Education Program, I shared with participants that I felt urban school districts would eventually become a loose-knit confederation of independent schools. This arrangement would significantly change the approach to public education and decrease the bureaucracy in school districts because each school would implement its own school board and decision-making process.

Today, evidence suggests we are definitely moving in this direction. New Orleans, post Katrina, is a great example as the school system is building schools and leasing them to charter organizations. This is a new way of delivering educational services, and it’s working because academic achievement is rising.

However, in cities nationwide, it is not uncommon to find:

• Public school districts that build a replacement school or renovate an existing school but suffer enrollment loss when a charter school opens across the street.
• Charter schools that scramble to find facilities and can’t open on time.
• Charter schools that operate in inadequate facilities — sometimes in buildings that were discarded by the public school system.
• Large public school facilities that previously served 2,000 or more students and now operate at 50 percent capacity.
• Urban schools that continue to be plagued by deferred maintenance issues.
• Large numbers of closed school buildings that are unoccupied.

The time has come to rethink how we address urban school facilities. Historically, they have been operated and managed by school districts; however, times are changing. The typical public neighborhood school is no longer the only game in town. In fact, as already pointed out, it is not the only game within the public school system itself.

An alternative approach would be to create a non-profit real-estate organization that manages all educational facility assets in a city. This organization would assume responsibility for developing new facilities, renovating existing buildings, and maintaining buildings. It would also be responsible for creating more efficient use of assets by leasing facilities to educational organizations, including the public school system, and disposing of excess assets.

This new, non-profit real-estate venture would be set up independently from the local school district. It would work with the local school district as well as other public schools, such as charter schools, and possibly other non-public institutions. It would have the expertise to facilitate and broker arrangements.

This might be similar to a leaseback program. Schools would decide how much space they need and lease only what is necessary. For example, it would be inefficient for a school to serve 500 students in 200,000 square feet of space because that equates to 400 square feet per student. If the school chose to lease 100,000 square feet of space, the non-profit real-estate organization would find compatible tenants and make building modifications to utilize the facility more efficiently.

There are already situations in which more than one school shares the same building. But schools aren’t the only compatible tenants. Colleges and universities, social services organizations, non-profit community organizations, and even private companies are symbiotic possibilities.

New construction also presents opportunities to develop shared sites and shared buildings. For instance, a building could house a hospital and include a floor for a thematic health magnet school. A university campus could include a high school, an IT center could include a technology charter school, and an art museum or performing arts center could include a school for the performing arts. There are many possibilities.

Urban school district facility departments are not equipped to effectively dispose of excess property. In fact, traditional real-estate organizations and private developers are not equipped either. Closing a school is a dramatic community event, but what is worse is when school buildings sit idle or decay. Furthermore, too many school districts are paying upkeep and utilities on closed schools.

Closed school buildings are often looked at as a problem, but they also provide new opportunities. If the right type of organization collaborates with the community, governmental organizations, financial institutions and private developers, many of these eyesores and discounted assets can be turned into something that has positive economic and social impacts. In some cases, closed urban schools are sitting on prime redevelopment sites for hospitals or office buildings. In other cases it may make more sense to raze a building and use the grounds for a park or community garden. This requires proactive approaches that the current system is not equipped to handle.

The urban educational landscape is changing. As facility experts, we should get out in front of this and figure out a better way to deliver and manage these assets.

William S. DeJong, Ph.D., REFP, is senior advisor at DeJong-Richter and DeJong-Healy. DeJong co-founded Schools for the Children of the World.

www.dejonginc.com

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Q&A: Designing Urban Educational Facilities

In New York City, the location of some 1,600 K-12 public schools and dozens of private institutions, and where building space is at a premium, “working with what you have” is the mantra of school designers. This according to Harris Feinn, senior project manager and vice president at the STV Group architectural firm, with corporate offices on Park Avenue and in Douglassville, Pa.

School Construction News spoke with Feinn about the innovative planning measures it took to build a new public school in space-deficient Brooklyn. Completed last September, the $60 million facility required several architectural elements that are becoming standard in urban schools. Feinn also discussed the NYC School Construction Authority’s mandate of compact and efficient school design in an effort to conserve space in metropolitan New York.

Q: Why are innovative planning measures needed to create more classroom space in New York City?

Feinn: In New York, new sites are hard to come by and many of the sites that do exist can’t be built upon because they contain contaminated soil, or they are too small, or they have any number of other problems. Consequently, the NYC SCA looks at both new sites and existing sites, where perhaps a school was built 40 years ago, in its assessment of suitable locations for new school buildings.

Most of the buildings going up today in New York are designed for multiple schools, which is part of a program to keep each school relatively small rather than create facilities that house several thousands students. So in the case of P.S./I.S. 237 — the Lucretia Marcigliano campus — there are two separate Pre-K-8 schools within the four-story building, which accommodates 1,100 students. One school is centered on the second floor and the other school is located primarily on the fourth floor. The third floor houses shared spaces, including a library and science and music rooms.

In designing urban schools, the ground floor and the basement typically house what we call the ‘assembly spaces,’ i.e. the auditorium, cafeteria and gymnasium. We put those rooms on the ground floor or in the basement so that they are easily accessible for community use when the school is not in session. Plus, it’s less expensive to place those areas on the bottom floors and it’s easier to get a large number of people out of the building from those spaces in case of an emergency evacuation. Because of all these reasons the SCA encourages the use of basements in school design for gyms and cafeterias.

These are design elements that STV typically builds into urban schools in New York. If the basement is only partially used, the building is not taking advantage of the entire site footprint. Both the kitchen and school cafeteria are located on the basement level in P.S. 237, as is a two-story high gym that draws light from a bank of clerestory windows on the first floor.

Q: What are some areas within P.S./I.S. 237 and other urban-set schools that are easy to manipulate to increase space?

A: With P.S. 237 we had success in uniquely designing the auditorium to provide increased academic space. Because this school building is Pre-K-8, the students are not full-grown. Urban school auditoriums are typically two-story spaces but in this case we were able to build it as a one-story room. We did that by depressing the auditorium floor by 2? feet, a design change that was made possible because below the auditorium is the kitchen, which does not require high ceilings. By strategically upturning the main structural beams and narrowing the long span above the auditorium’s ceiling, we were able to add 18 inches to the room’s height. By using this design, we gained back the upper story of volume, where we built in two additional classrooms.

We probably would not have been able to do this design for a high school, but when the kids are 4-feet or 5-feet tall it works well. Even for an adult, the space feels quite comfortable.

Q: What are some other ways P.S./I.S. 237 was unique or challenging to design?

A: There were a couple of unique elements to this project that make use of a rarity in an urban setting — an open space. There is a triangle-shaped park located diagonally across from the site. We wanted to recognize and draw attention to this unique park, which had trees and benches, so we organized the building so that as students and faculty look out many of the windows they can see some of the greenery and the activity across the way.

We also located the entrance on the corner of the site, at the street crossroads, so when people use the front entrance they can see across to the park. We organized several traffic patterns within the building to accommodate views of the park. In a way, the entire building was generated from this unique urban environment that we wanted to enhance in our design.

Plus, the diagonal site plan allowed us to be creative with the main entrance, which features a series of colorful glazed terra cotta columns that begin under the entrance canopy and continue through a small rotunda. Inside are a ceiling mural and a very visible security desk and central control point for the school.

Q: What are some other elements that make efficient use of the space within the building?

A: All the classrooms are laid out on double-loaded corridors, which is an efficient way to pack academic spaces along a hallway. To enhance interior spaces, no corridor ends against a room but instead against an exterior wall that allows natural light in. The building is basically a rectangle with two corridors per floor that run at 90 degrees to each other and end at exterior walls. Where they come together is where the administration offices are located. The natural light at the end of the corridors provides an end-goal for small children walking up and down the halls.

Q: As development space in NYC becomes more rare, will more designers be forced to find unique ways to shoehorn schools into a building?

A: Yes, I think that’s an accurate assessment. Designers are already having to find new ways to make school buildings more compact, more efficient and friendlier to the students without sacrificing the size or cost of the program. I’m sure — given how difficult is to find sites that are useable — that this is the way urban school design is going to proceed in the future.

Q: Are there one or two elements you see as more important to what you just spoke about — making urban situated school buildings more efficient and more compact?

A: The SCA mandates a certain level of efficiency in terms of the net to gross of their new buildings. Basically, all the designers must meet this level of efficiency or do better. From the initial layout we try to produce a compact building in which the various elements — the classrooms, offices and larger spaces — are stacked and packed in an efficient way. We’re in the process of building a school called Spring Creek School, which sits on a more open site allowing us to provide a more animated exterior to the building. However, the overall efficiency is about the same as P.S. 237 in terms of how the space is arranged, the use of double-loaded corridors, and the incorporation of spaces that serve multiple functions.

One of the requirements of SCA is that spaces serve multiple functions. To that end, designers will build in something called a “cafetorium,” which is a combined cafeteria and auditorium.

Another design element we incorporate is creating schools that belong to the students. In other words, buildings that are appropriate to the age group we are dealing with in terms of color and lighting. We want the students to feel that they own the environment. We also try to plan schools that will work today and in the future in terms of flexible environments that can be manipulated and expanded.

STV Group

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