Forgive me. I’m a lurker, or a troll or perhaps as a much nicer description, an observer.
I pop in from time to time for a glimpse at a place I grew up called Lakewood. I don’t even pretend to be up to date on all the drama, demographic and socio-economic shifts that have happened in the last 32 years since leaving.
I went to McKinley Elementary, Horace Mann Junior High and LHS. What I get from the gist of the conversations is that folks are concerned about safety (how far children have to go to school), cost (how much schools cost to build, close, move, operate, etc.) and adherence to Phases or 50 year plans (a half century plan!).
I’m not really quite through being gone a half century, but I’m guessing that kind of a plan is folly, when we all live in a time, accelerating beyond anything imaginable just ten years ago. Folly only because of the very reasons described, shifting and unpredictable needs.
What do children need in order to learn? Could it be the classic architecture of Horace Mann, Grant, Roosevelt and Lincoln? It’s probably not that important. It is important to have space, climate control, good light and structure. LHS slapped on a modern appendage in the late 60’s because it could and it had to, but it didn’t need to go anywhere. Older children could come to it.
If you talk to kids, they don’t care about what the school looks like. They barely care at all about school. That is one thing that hasn’t changed in all these years.
But what if they did care? What if they LIKED the schools visually and experientially?
What if the residents and school board became really smart about this and put Lakewood on the map nationally? Easily handling whatever shift the economy or demographics could come up with for the next 50+ years?
What if it was as easy and cheap to put up 3-5 more schools to add to the 6 you have?
Maybe the daunting assumptions of cost and complexity are based on the traditional, expensive ways that schools have been built in the past?
One more question. Could it be a vision challenge?
http://designcrave.com/2009-06-22/10-brilliant-boxy-and-sustainable-shipping-container-homes/Shipping containers are abundant and built like tanks. With creative architects, they can be configured, welded, sliced and combined into anything a school could possibly need. At 40 ft. x 10ft wide each, they can have windows, stairs, atrium's, skylights, the works and combined into nearly any design.
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A big container can be had for $7000. If purchased in bulk, far less. It does not take too much math to figure out how much $1 million would buy. Consider where the rest of the traditional budget could go for land purchase, interior design and equipment, landscape and exterior design (yes the boxy corrugation can be painted, surfaced and adorned in many ways). You’d have money left over and be up and running in a year flat per school.
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Is it about the kids, or the adults? Survey a few hundred kids with pictures of a custom container complex and ask if they would dig going to school in one. Would they dig going to a school in something so unique they felt like it was theirs? Guess what they’d say?
What about the neighbors – not in my back yard syndrome?
These could be built to look so cool and so invisible, they would not care. Show them very detailed 3D renderings of what each would look like beforehand. Get their input. You could pop small ones into residential neighborhoods and no one would care because they looked great.
Imagine a community that seamlessly integrated custom-fit education facilities into neighborhoods wherever they were needed? Without the incredible overhead that is being discussed?
Could it be a vision challenge?
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