Student-Centered Design
Samuel Brighouse Elementary School is the result of a collaborative design process that involved school district and city staff, parents, and neighbors. A critical additional voice was also heard: that of the students. Through charettes, illustrations, and videos that captured the qualities they wanted in their school, field trips through the construction site, and a project blog that kept the community up-to-date, the students offered the design team informed, dynamic, and environmentally progressive input. This input inspired the playful roof form and was used to substantiate many design decisions, such as the provision for touch-screen technology and lots of windows and color. This inclusive process has instilled a sense of ownership into everyone involved and was so successful it is planned to be repeated across the district.
Creating Connections
The design supports the school’s goal of transparency, collaborative learning, and connecting to nature and the community. Creating flexible and adaptable learning environments, the design includes indoor collaborative project areas and outdoor courtyards, low ‘peek’ windows that connect even the youngest students to nature, and a shared community garden. Additionally, a Neighborhood Learning Center has been integrated into the design, which will house community-based organizations offering adult literacy courses, and will extend the school’s operating hours into the evenings, weekends, and summer.
Education through Demonstration
The school was identified early on by the district as an opportunity to demonstrate its environmental stewardship policy and use the building as a teaching tool. Furthermore, the students made it clear that sustainability was important to them. The design pursued both passive and active strategies, including natural ventilation, daylight harvesting, material salvaging from the existing school, and the inclusion of triple-glazed windows, low-VOC materials, green roofs, wetlands, and low-maintenance vegetation. Through geo-exchange, carefully managed daylighting, and solar hot water collectors, the school has operated without the use of fossil fuels on a number of occasions and expects an overall 57% reduction in energy use. These combined strategies have made Brighouse one of the most energy-efficient and lowest carbon-emitting elementary schools in Canada.
Wood Expression
Wood was chosen as the project’s primary expressive material, providing a warm and inviting place to learn. Transformed into an evocative architectural gesture, the undulating atrium wood roof—constructed from typical 2x4s and steel v-shaped kingposts—is the signature architectural feature of the school and demonstrates the beauty and capacity of dimensional wood. Much of the roof and post-and-beam structure uses locally harvested wood, including mountain pine beetle wood, which provides an additional teaching element and supports an important local economy. The choice of wood was not only environmental—it sequesters carbon—but practical, allowing for an accelerated construction schedule that resulted in the school opening four months early. |
