Facility design was pretty standard back then, with classrooms lined up along corridors, blackboards front and center, and rooms shaped like rectangles to house neat rows of desks. There was no need to wire up classrooms for the Internet, because it didn't yet exist. Schools designed today are expected to last half a century or longer and allow for more forward-thinking educational practices. Craig Mason, the Seattle architect who designed Whittier Elementary for DLR Group, says strategies have changed considerably in his profession. Teachers want flexible spaces that will accommodate more active classrooms, weave in the latest technology, allow them to collaborate with their colleagues, but also give them workplace basics such as storage cabinets and nearby restrooms.
Parents often ask for attention to safety and smaller class sizes.
School boards worry about escalating costs for buildings and the land to build them on. And community members, looking at the investment they're asked to shoulder, clamor for buildings that can be used around the clock by people of all ages. Recognizing that districts across the country will be struggling to meet these complex demands on a limited budget, the U.S. Department of Education is encouraging new schools to be designed not only as effective places for learning but also as centers of their communities. At a National Symposium on School Design sponsored by the Department of Education in 1998, six principles for designing and planning new schools were outlined. Serve as center of the community.