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Improving K-12 Learning Through Building Design
This past week, I had the opportunity to attend the Learning Environments for Tomorrow [LEFT] conference at Harvard. The program was a joint collaboration between the Graduate School of Education and the Graduate School of Design, and was well attended by a diverse and international group of K-12 school administrators, educators, and architects. The focus of the conference was the…
King Open Begins Feasibility Study
Last week, the Arrowstreet schools team attended its first Cambridge Community Meeting for the kickoff to the feasibility study phase of the King Open/Cambridge Street Upper School Community Complex project. Arrowstreet is part of a team with William Rawn Associates, our neighbors here at 10 Post Office Square, that will design the combined King Open/Cambridge Street Upper Schools. The new…
Drones and the Built Environment
We here at Arrowstreet are pleased to add a new piece of technology to our arsenal – the architectural drone! I’ll leave the debate about the military, police states, and Amazon.com for a different forum, but we are excited at the potential for this new equipment.
And the Winner of the ABX 3D Model Competition Is…
Arrowstreet!
As we previously blogged, NRI hosted a 3D model contest at ABX. Our model was chosen as one of three finalists, and then the ultimate winner. Now we’re brainstorming how to use the $1,500 credit prize toward a 3D model of our choice.
http://www.nrinet.com/abx-contest-results
3D Model Competition at ABX
While attending ABX this week, I had a chance to stop by NRI’s booth and take a look at the three contenders for their 3-D printed model contest. It was great to see what had previously only been an image on-screen turn into an actual physical object I could touch, turn, and pick up. While all three entries were visually interesting, we’re all hopeful that the crowd liked ours the best – we expect to hear back with a final count sometime in the next few days.
3-D Printed Models at ABX
Among all of the other interesting things that will be going on at the Architecture Boston Expo (ABX) this week, National Reprographics (NRI) is holding a 3D-printed model contest as part of the event’s 3D Printing Pavilion. The model contest involved the design of a 5,000-seat performance space on an ambiguous “waterfront” site. It wasn’t a lot to go on as far as real-world design problems go, but that was actually a nice change because it left a lot of details up to the imagination. Once designed, contestants were to submit a digital model file to NRI so that it could be printed for the ABX show…
Rails and Trails
For the past seven years, I’ve lived with my family in a small house that abuts a long abandoned spur of railroad tracks in Somerville, MA. The tracks have had a colorful history, as they used to serve a factory that manufactured paper products, construction supplies, and root beer at various points in its history. We’ve also heard stories from former residents that circus trains used to park on the tracks overnight before their trips into Boston. So lions, tigers, and elephants may have been transient residents of our backyard…
KIPP Academy Lynn Wins BBJ Award
It was announced today that Arrowstreet’s KIPP Academy Lynn project was awarded the 2013 Boston Business Journal’s Best in Boston Real Estate Award for “Community Impact.”
The award is recognition of the fantastic impact that the KIPP program has had on the lives of its students and their families. The new facility has allowed the KIPP program to expand their middle school program and extend the experience for their students through high school, with both the middle and high schools being combined in the new building.
Congratulations to the entire project team!
Sustainability at KIPP Academy Lynn
Earth month seems like a good point to reflect on the recently completed and now fully occupied KIPP Academy Lynn project in Lynn, MA. Part of the challenge associated with designing this project was making the school comfortable during the warmer months without the luxury of having a budget that could support full air conditioning. While oftentimes this problem is lamented, we saw it as an opportunity to be creative with the building systems and fenestration to provide low-energy, passive, and (most importantly) low-first cost climate control…
New Photography at KIPP Academy Lynn
We’re happy to share this new photography of the new KIPP Academy Lynn, which just opened for the 2012 school year. Working with the dedicated staff at KIPP was a unique experience: the school is one of a network of charter schools across the country that follow a rigorous academic program that focuses on getting their students into and through college, and on developing character right alongside educational goals. The program has been very successful – 89% of the most recent class matriculated to college compared to 41% of their underprivileged peers nationwide…