This post was written by the Office of Facilities Planning and Construction, which is overseen by Tony Arnold, director. 

With careful planning and anticipation, design has been wrapped up on the combined facility for Old Donation Center (ODC) / Kemps Landing Magnet School (KLMS). A direct result of input from school and community stakeholders, more than a dozen workshops and public meetings were held until the final concept for the facility was agreed upon.

The hard work that the school division’s many stakeholders put in will start to take shape this summer, as construction begins on a single consolidated 226,000 square foot building, which will provide gifted and talented services for grades two-eight. The new facility will be built on the existing ODC site on Independence Blvd and Ferry Plantation Road. The new 21^st century learning environment will provide students with spaces that are relevant and engaging, both inside and out. The school will serve the gifted core student population as well as those from division-wide pull-out programs. Students and staff are scheduled to move into the new facility in September 2017.

The new combined facility will provide ample opportunities for individual student engagement as well as group collaboration. Designing the building from the inside out, learning areas are intended to promote opportunities for collaboration while respecting the differing needs of elementary and middle school students. Two wings comprised of core classrooms, exploratory labs, resource rooms, and extended learning areas, pair grade levels with one another while bordering a shared courtyard, which is designed as an outdoor classroom. Core classroom wings will offer a sense of belonging to student groups while offering opportunities for collaboration between grade levels. Flexible classroom spaces provide opportunities for integrating disciplines and promote easy access to tools of exploration.

Productive learning environments will continue through the core of the building. Students will share spaces in an engaging central Commons Area, cafeteria, office, library and schola. A shared gym, theater, music spaces, performing arts spaces and visual art spaces will also be accessible from the central core of the building to serve the student’s needs.

Intended to provide an environment with ample natural light, high-quality acoustics, and healthy indoor air quality, sustainable building features will be accessible to routinely engage gifted learners in problem-based and project-based learning. Through building feature investigation and understanding, students can gain better insight into how these practices can become a natural part of future solutions for 21^st century issues, both locally and globally.

Site and building features will support a better overall learning environment, while also providing students with tangible building and site data that can be used in the curriculum. Some of these tangible data collection sources for students will come from closed-loop geothermal wells that will be used for heating and cooling, collection of rainwater in cisterns that will be used for flushing toilets and the ability of the site to hold rainwater during a once-in-ten-year sized storm

Student investigation of building and site materials, which were chosen for their long term durability, recycle-ability, environmental factors, and for their positive human health factors, will also be possible. Students will be able to assess the impact of light colored pavement and light colored roof materials, which were chosen to reduce ambient temperatures, with the goal of energy savings and greater student comfort. Students will also be able to investigate the impact of intended energy savings and the benefit of the overall student environment from ample daylighting designs, low-energy building lights, and LED fixtures.

With some examples above, all aspects dealing with the site’s sustainability; community presence, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality, will provide hands-on learning and creative problem-solving opportunities to students. Student investigation into these solutions to real world issues will promote critical and creative thinking skills and problem solving processes in spaces intended to encourage collaboration.

Note: Old Donation Center and Kemps Landing Magnet students can be found at the former Princess Anne Middle School on Seaboard Rd for the next three years while their new school is being constructed. Princess Anne Middle School students can now be found at the former Kellam HS on Holland Road.

 

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