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Embracing better school designs
Jul 22, 2008 11:00 AM
For years, school corridors were dark, narrow, and numerous. Classrooms were uniform, and often windowless. Brick was the building material of choice. It was the "kids on a grid" model of school architecture and design. As a facilities administrator for the Davis (Utah) School District in the 1990s, Gary Payne noticed that principals kept asking for design changes. After listening to suggestions from students, teachers, parents and school administrators, Payne and others in his department realized the district's long-standing design prototype was obsolete. Payne's story is part of an emerging plea for rethinking and reworking the way public schools are designed.
