Currently Animas High School's campus if strongly disliked by the users of the school for its bleak, limited outdoor space and its unpractical building. The freshman class of 2020 were given the task to redesign a school using everything we had learned this year from each of our classes. Here is our design adventure.
Our Fianl poster
Design Abstract
PROTOTYPES
Reflection
Student designed campuses are extremely rare yet Animas High School has taken it into their own hands to do one of the first in the west. As a way to wrap up the year and use everything we've learned from Math, Physics and Humanities we designed an a new school. The final product was a blueprint that consisted of a written design abstract, campus layout, shared space layout, shared space budget and shared space 3D rendering we named Animas 3.0
It was not until this project that came along that I realized the importance of sustainable building. Something that always dwelled on me was that the Earth is taking an immense amount of damage because of the carbon footprint that humans are leaving behind. When we were given the task to create a school that is more eco-friendly I was thrilled to find a way to help. In particular I focused on Earthships. Earthships are buildings that are made from recycled materials and harvest passive solar, thermal cooling, water recycling and lessen the albedo effect with green roofs. I used what I learned from Earthships and implemented them into our final design. Two concepts we used were green roofs and usage of passive solar.
I've grown as a collaborator in many categories. Because of the unique dimension in our group I had to constantly waver between leader and a follower in order to avoid clashing with my group members personalities. Im used to dominating but there was another leader type in my group and that caused us to butt heads quite a bit and create conflict so I had to learn how to step back. However there were a day where I was simply sick of the project and did very little work, this was a day where I was too much of a follower and needed to step up as a leader.
I think it is very important for students to have a voice in what their facilities and school look like because according to our empathy interviews many students feel like schools are too prison like and trapping. Putting students ideas, plans and concepts into a school could make a much more beautiful campus that people would actually like to learn and work in. However, students have a tendency to dream a little too big and a few school designs we made were very expensive and not at all obtainable.
It was not until this project that came along that I realized the importance of sustainable building. Something that always dwelled on me was that the Earth is taking an immense amount of damage because of the carbon footprint that humans are leaving behind. When we were given the task to create a school that is more eco-friendly I was thrilled to find a way to help. In particular I focused on Earthships. Earthships are buildings that are made from recycled materials and harvest passive solar, thermal cooling, water recycling and lessen the albedo effect with green roofs. I used what I learned from Earthships and implemented them into our final design. Two concepts we used were green roofs and usage of passive solar.
I've grown as a collaborator in many categories. Because of the unique dimension in our group I had to constantly waver between leader and a follower in order to avoid clashing with my group members personalities. Im used to dominating but there was another leader type in my group and that caused us to butt heads quite a bit and create conflict so I had to learn how to step back. However there were a day where I was simply sick of the project and did very little work, this was a day where I was too much of a follower and needed to step up as a leader.
I think it is very important for students to have a voice in what their facilities and school look like because according to our empathy interviews many students feel like schools are too prison like and trapping. Putting students ideas, plans and concepts into a school could make a much more beautiful campus that people would actually like to learn and work in. However, students have a tendency to dream a little too big and a few school designs we made were very expensive and not at all obtainable.