Project Details
- Project Name
- Arlington Elementary School
- Architect
- Mahlum Architects
- Client/Owner
- Tacoma Public Schools
- Project Types
- Education
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Shared by
- Ayda Ayoubi
- Consultants
-
Civil Engineer: AHBL,General Contractor: Neeley Construction,Landscape Architect: AHBL,Structural Engineer: Coughlin Porter Lundeen
- Project Status
- Built
From the May 2019 Issue of ARCHITECT:
A new elementary school trades dedicated classrooms for flexible learning environments.
At the heart of Seattle-based Mahlum Architects’ Arlington Elementary is a pedagogical provocation: “What if a school had no classrooms?” As eccentric as it sounds, the architect’s solution proves so effective as to make one wonder why schools ever had classrooms to begin with. In Tacoma, Wash.—as in school districts around the country—graduation rates have been declining at a worrisome rate. Looking to reverse the trend, local officials were open to radical new ideas, and the designers responded by casting out the conventional gridiron of discrete learning spaces.
In its stead, they have created an entirely open plan of movable partitions, unfixed furniture that can be readily put aside and stored, and floating teaching platforms that allow staff to drift from area to area as the day progresses. Walls can be written on, a hallway/cubby zone doubles as a kind of mini-lounge, and even the recreation spaces are adaptable, with an indoor/outdoor playground separated from the surrounding grounds by a perforated, operable metal door.
For all the novelty of the interior scheme, the envelope is reassuringly close to the typological norm: A long, low mass of brick and glass set off with colorful doors and window frames, its only truly unusual feature is a series of protruding sawtooth skylights breaking through the roofline. Those, along with the innovative program, signal the designers’ commitment to forging a unique conceptual hybrid—the silhouette hearkens back to industrial buildings of the last century, while the open floor plan recalls the anti-cubicle tendency of Silicon Valley offices—as though the school were positioning itself as a factory for learning and innovation. For a city (and a country) looking to break out of a long-running educational rut, the design represents a promising line of flight.
Project CreditsProject: Arlington Elementary School, Tacoma, Wash.
Client: Tacoma Public Schools
Architect: Mahlum Architects . David Mount, AIA (principal-in-charge); JoAnn Hindmarsh Wilcox, AIA (project designer); Corrie Rosen, AIA (project manager); Karen Wood, AIA (project architect); Royce Bixby, AIA, Laura Poulin, AIA (architectural staff);
Dwayne Epp, AIA (quality assurance)
Interior Designer: Mahlum Architects
M/P Engineer: Metrix Engineers
Structural Engineer: Coughlin Porter Lundeen
Electrical Engineer: BCE Engineers
Landscape Architect/Civil Engineer: AHBL
Geotechnical Engineer: Migizi Group
Construction Manager: Greene Gasaway Architects
General Contractor: Neeley Construction
Cost Estimator: The Robinson Co.
Food Service: Halliday Associates
Acoustical: A3 Acoustics
Hardware Consultant: Adams Consulting Group
Size: 54,000 square feet
Cost: $27 million (total project cost)
Materials and Sources
Acoustical System: Rockfon
Acoustic Panels: FSorb
Wall Sound Diffusers: G&S Acoustics
Appliances: Summit (under-counter refrigerator/freezer, under-counter icemaker); GE (stacking washer/dryer, drop-in electric range, hood, side-by-side refrigerator)
Building Management Systems and Services: Alerton
Carpet: Shaw Contract
Curtainwall: EFCO Entrances: Pemko
Doors: Curries Steel Doors (metal doors); Fleetwood (multi-panel glass sliders); Cookson (security grilles)
Exterior Wall Systems: Interstate Brick (light brick); Elgin Butler (glazed brick); Morin (metal panel concealed fastener system); Architectural Sheet Metal (metal panel weathering Steel Fabrication); EFCO (metal/glass curtainwall); VaproShield (moisture barrier)
Flooring: Dal Tile (tile); Forbo (resilient flooring)
Furniture: VS Furniture; McDowell-Craig; Herman Miller; Sico; Tenjam; Wisconsin Bench; Teknion
Glass: Hartung
Gypsum: Georgia Pacific Gypsum
Hardware: Horton Automatics (closers); Von Duprin (locksets, exit devices, pulls, and security devices)
HVAC: Mitsubishi (VRF System); Nortek (air-handling units, heat recovery units)
Lighting Control Systems: Wattstopper
Lighting: Betacalco (interior ambient lighting, downlights); Philips (exterior)
Masonry: Interstate Brick (light brick); Elgin Butler (glazed brick)
Millwork: Genothen (cabinetwork, custom woodwork)
Paints/Finishes: Rodda
Plumbing Fixtures: Elkay (sinks); Chicago Faucets (faucets); Sloan (water closets); Elkay (drinking fountain with bottle filling station)
Roofing: Sika Sarnafil (elastomeric)
Windows: Hartung (glass); Bristollite Daylighting Systems (skylights)
This project won a 2019 AIA Institute Honor Award in Architecture.
An exploration of the spatial possibilities that emerge when schools are envisioned as living, breathing organisms, this Tacoma, Washington, elementary school eschews basic assumptions and promotes a new model of civic practice in education. Designed to be the center of the community it serves, Arlington Elementary School fundamentally redefines what a student is by assuming we are all learners.
The design process began with a robust framework of inquiry created by Tacoma Public Schools, which like many other districts across the country has seen declining graduation rates. Bolstered by state legislation that supports new, innovative school programs, the framework asks a series of provocative questions rather than providing rigid solutions. The first school constructed from the ground up since the framework was published, Arlington is a case study in what can happen when a community rethinks standard schools and instills a culture that continuously challenges and supports students.
At Arlington, flexibility reigns. There are no classrooms, only spaces for learners and learning activities. In addition to serving 450 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, the school is a resource for adult education, offers community programs, and functions as a regional hub for preschools. Mobile teaching stations liberate teachers and enable smooth transitions between spaces. Stackable furniture creates soft divisions of space, and walls can be written on and moved, affording students room to explore.
A central tenet of the school’s design was to support the relationship between indoor and outdoor learning. A covered play area that doubles as an outdoor theater allows students to go outside, even in poor weather, and water tables prompt early explorations of fluid dynamics. The school’s saw-toothed roof floods natural light into interior spaces, and views of green spaces and the sky throughout demonstrate its embrace of nature.
The design team turned to modular construction to meet the project’s budget demands without sacrificing the program. Constructing the new school on the playfields of the school it replaced, the project was delivered for a mere $283 per square foot.
Project Description
FROM THE AIA:
Like many districts across the country, Tacoma Public Schools has experienced declining graduation rates, hitting a low in 2010 at 55 percent matriculation. In 2011, the state legislature created the Innovation Schools and Zones program to encourage districts to create new, innovative programs. In 2012 Tacoma Public Schools was selected as the first Innovation Zone catalyzing their commitment to educational innovation that empowers student achievement.
They analyzed the data and found that two factors, socioeconomics and peer relationships, account for 85 percent of their students’ success. They recognized that the rate of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch is a statistic associated for lower test scores, and that in 17 of their 35 elementary schools, more than 80 percent of their students qualify for the free or reduced lunch program. Put simply, the data showed them that their influence would be limited if they continued to think of schools in the traditional way. They recognized that to accept the challenge for their schools to be an agent for serious change, work must happen that touches these deeper levels by rethinking the concept of school, empowering community partners and establishing a positive culture.
To begin, Tacoma Public Schools developed a robust framework of inquiry towards “A New Vision for the Elementary Learning Environment” that asked a series of provocative questions rather than providing concrete solutions. The result is a non-traditional educational specification that allows new interpretations to be created while providing the District with guidelines for building planning and design that stipulates relentless reinterpretation, deep analysis, creative synthesis and meaningful reinvention at every turn.
Arlington is the first ground-up elementary school constructed since this framework was published. It is a case study of what can happen in school design when you explore the spatial possibilities that emerge when a community sets out to totally rethink the basic assumptions behind traditional elementary schools in order to build a culture that wraps around kids. This culture allows them to learn all day, every day, and throughout the year in environments where learners are continuously challenged, relentlessly supported, and engaged in a way that is both safe and healthy.
To understand the context of this community in need, the team embraced a collaborative, immersive approach with broad user engagement. Each participant provided unique understanding into design opportunities. By drawing on individual strengths of all participants, the community of practice surrounding the Arlington Elementary School project has kindled innovation from initiation into completion.
Designing for the myriad of ways in which students learn necessitated that we challenge the basic givens in schools: do we need classrooms; do we know how to program for learning and not numbers; can we fully integrate furnishings that support a rapidly variable and flexible instruction space; do we understand the impact of transparency? The response at Arlington is a collaboration between the design of learning programs, the design process and a design result that moves the needle away from traditional cells and bells.