Cavelero Mid-High School

1. 2009 Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture Cavelero Mid-High School Lake Stevens, Washington Middle/Junior High School Project of Distinction – New Construction NAC|Architecture

2. Cavelero Mid-High School Main Exterior Image

3. Community Environment Lake Stevens is a small suburban school district located ten miles northeast of Everett, WA.  Prior to construction, the district had six elementary, two middle and one high school.  The construction of the Mid High alleviated over-crowding at the high school and both middle schools. Designed to eventually serve as the school district’s second high school, a location was chosen at the southern edge of the district where the new facility would provide community use and outdoor athletic amenities where none existed previously.  Formerly a horse pasture, the site sits along the edge of a ridge at the boundary between suburban development and semi-rural land.  The building is situated to take advantage of mountain and valley views to the east, south and southwest.

4. Community Environment With its integrated performance space within the central commons, the new school has become a popular location for many community events.

5. Learning Environment:A Cutting-Edge Mid-High In an effort to restructure the educational delivery model and promote student/educator interaction, the school board recognized that the building design would have to deviate from the typical cookie-cutter schools of the past. Rather than continue in the mode of processing students through learning stations in a departmental model, this 1,500 student school is divided up into four distinct “Personal Learning Centers (PLC)”. Multi-use, science, art and liberal arts spaces are integrated into each PLC, and were designed to promote an educational philosophy with a focus on “Rigor, Relevance and Relationships.” Rigor: High performing learning environments that challenge the mind. Relevance: Integrated and team project approach that make students employable. Relationships: A learning environment that fosters a bond between the eighth and ninth grade students and staff.

6. Learning Environment The building is organized around a central commons and circulation spine that connects to four Personal Learning Centers. The learning centers each contain general core classrooms, science, shared learning spaces, decentralized administrative functions and a multi‐use classroom that can be adapted to integrate a variety of programs from horticulture to computer science to drama directly into the PLC. This configuration is a direct response to the district’s desire to create smaller learning environments. Each PLC serves 375 students on two separate floors. In each center there are (3) 125 student learning groups with math, science, language, and social studies that surround a shared learning space, thereby encouraging integrated learning. The PLC’s also contain support functions and flexible labs for applied arts and sciences. Flexibility was the crux of the planning theme in applied science areas since programs frequently evolve to meet the students’ unique educational needs in the workplace. This “small school” within the larger learning environment fosters active engagement between teachers and students, as well as creates a more intellectually stimulating learning community among students, whom might otherwise be lost in a school of 1500 students.

7. Physical Environment: The environment in each PLC is enhanced with extensive daylighting, interior glazing to promote light diffusion in to interior spaces and an integrated Thermal Displacement Ventilation (TDV) mechanical system. The TDV system relies on natural temperature air stratification and provides 100 percent fresh air to all spaces. Exhaust air is passed through heat exchangers, negating the need to re-circulate air within the spaces, thereby reducing the spread of pathogens and allergens within the building. Air is exhausted from the tall central shared learning space, eliminating the need for return air ductwork.

8. Architects today use their skills to provide sustainable architecture whether the client requires certification or not. The use of a thermal displacement ventilation mechanical system allows a balance between the benefit of indoor air quality or energy savings, while maintaining the mechanical budget. Renewable resources such as marmoleum flooring and recycled steel were used. Low VOC paints were used. Low emissivity glazing, sun shading, proper building orientation were used to maximize quality daylighting for learning while minimizing solar heat gain. Artificial lighting was coordinated with daylighting and monitored for energy efficiency. Indirect lighting was prevalent in classroom learning environments.

9. Planning Process:The Big Idea Reflecting the client’s change in thinking, the old paradigm of a central spine connecting double-loaded corridors (diagram 1), is “cut” by a shed roof form that bisects and splits the building into the four PLC’s (diagram 2). The “cutting” form, which contains the building’s public and administrative spaces, follows the slope of a ridge and is oriented to a view to the south. The four two story PLC’s are aligned in pairs with a common gridline that extends across the central slicing form, further emphasizing the goal of moving away from traditional departmental educational delivery (diagrams 2 and 3). Shared learning spaces are created in each PLC by splaying the PLC form into a trapezoidal shape.

10. Planning Process The school district defined six focus areas that drove the design: curriculum, instructional strategies, school environment, technology, organization/time, and assessment/accountability. District staff, community members and students toured various schools throughout the region prior to design commencing. This gave the planning committees a visual and experiential base from which they could visualize the future for their new school. Students and staff were involved in all phases of the educational specification process, as well as present during critical design review workshops.

11. Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture 2009 Project Data

12. Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture 2009 Project Details