Making the Most of the Building as a Teaching Tool – Greenbuild 2018

Graphic designer explains the features of the environmental graphics at the elementary school, Greenbuild 2018 presentation.

Transcript,

“They couldn’t do it all. They needed to hire professionals. I was one of those. I came in at the end of the cosign I’d been lucky enough to work on every single project at [Robisham 00:00:09] since then. Coming in to do environmental graphic design. Helping to graphically communicate all those sustainable environmental elements throughout the school to become engaging for the students. You might ask, “Why do all this?” You’re all in Greenbuild so you probably care about LEED and that haunting score card, so you can get a point for this.

Not just in schools, but in any sustainable building. You can get an innovation credit for green building education, and that’s to provide public education focusing on the green building strategies and solutions. To do that, you have to provide active instruction, do two of the three things. Comprehensive signage program, a manual or a guideline, or guided tour. What we’ve really focused on is school as a teaching tool. You can also get a point for that. That’s to integrate sustainable features in the school facility with the school’s educational mission. Requirements are really to provide school staff with the knowledge and educate the students.

I paraphrase that by a lot. It’s really not an easy task. Not something that just us as designers can do, but really engaging consultants and educators together. It really becomes a symbiotic relationship of designing sustainable building features, the design collaboration between the entire team, and then faculty and staff engagement. It’s not an overnight process. That was something that we learned throughout the other schools at Robisham, that you can’t just come in at the end and try to do this. It needs to be integrated from the beginning and get everyone on board. You have to have the client champion and engage all the consultants along the way.”

Architect reviews the schools features.

Energy Dashboard, http://discovery.cmtasphere.com.

Transcript,

“Excuse me. I feel strongly that every school can be like Discovery. People ask, “Well you had this owner that started this way. I don’t have owners, the [inaudible 00:00:19] energy schools that are connected to learning and have that.” This is not the case. This project happened because the stars aligned. Rob mentioned we’re all product of our experiences and they have amazing experiences and they all bring that to a project. But at an event very similar to this, the [inaudible 00:00:43] event in 2011, our groups met. We had done the first year energy school in the country and started in 2007 and they had honestly done amazing spaces that are connected to learning.

And so we just got together and we said we’re gonna challenge that group. We’re gonna do two things. We’re gonna tell them that they do have enough money, and within that budget we can do more. And in fact, we think we can do a lot more. And two, that we’re not gonna heed their requirements, we’re gonna challenge them and we’re gonna push them and we’re gonna blow their standards, their goals out of the water. So they had a goal for a [inaudible 00:01:26] silver project. Here’s the budget, we don’t have any other money. How many people have that honor? Right, it’s all we got, not a dime more. We were 100% wrong. So one, they believed us and gave us the project, so thank you for that, but two, they challenged us. And looking back, this project started in 2012, looking back, in those three years where we designed, they constructed and got this going, they challenged us a lot more than we challenged them.”

 

The educator explains why it is important to break down the environmental principals and demonstrate them with the building.

Transcript,

“Everything we’ve heard today is true and actually happening. I know that a lot of places, that isn’t the case, but I can promise you that not only is it true but we continue to innovate and to try to make the positive changes that we can.

Our vision at Discovery is to create innovators of technology with a interest in our world and making an impact. So the building is a teaching tool.

We learned about how solar panels work and how much energy they produce.

In art class we made sculptures out of recycled materials.

We were helping the ecosystem by recycling water bottles, and we were providing decoration for our school.

We did a project that taught the first graders how to recycle. What goes where and why this really matters. Can you please do this? And they listened.

I didn’t realize we needed that many solar panels to power this school. It makes you realize how much energy you actually use.

As a parent, it’s amazing that my kids get to experience technology that’s on the forefront in their classroom every day.

We’ll have research projects completely centered around different components of the school, from the geothermal wells to the solar hot water generation for the cafeteria. So it makes things more authentic for students.

We did a project on the energy board. We were looking at how it’s using more energy in the school, because we had some pretty good ideas.

This is an opportunity for us to talk about science, technology, engineering, math, arts.

And tie them into a commitment to build buildings and follow philosophies that are environmentally sustainable over a long period of time.

My old school, we didn’t have anything close to this. I think it’s just so cool to be a part of this.

By coming to school I’m helping the environment and learning new things and I’m excited.”

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We’re volunteering to help the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati renovate their learning floor and implement some of these ideas. If you would like to help, get in touch: Chuck Lohre, [email protected], 513-260-9025.