The transformative power of design.
What can you do with a (big) box?

Picture
BEFORE
Picture
AFTER

Guiding Principles of Design

Accessibility, Inclusion & Equity

  • Access to learning, resources and opportunities for all
  • All-embracing societal ideology 
  • Cultural diversity

Flexibility & Adaptability 

  • Space and environment
  • Furniture
  • Curriculum
  • Learning opportunities

Sensory Learning & Active Play

  • Building connections (visual, auditory and kinesthetic)
  • Sense stimulation
  • Perception and understanding
  • Active and engaging

​Student Health & Wellness

  • Social and emotional learning
  • Biophilia and ergonomics
  • Equanimity spaces for students
  • Support and care

Support for Educators

  • Connections to others, resources and needs
  • Equanimity spaces for adults
  • Mindfulness
  • Varied space for varied needs

Outdoor Play
We have to have it. So what could it look like?

Questions to Consider

  1. If you could have anything in your new school – any type of space, furniture, storage element, or design feature – what would you want?
  2. What are the biggest needs not being met by your current facility/space, and how can your dream school resolve those issues?
  3. What elements of our case studies (Kearney Early Education Center, Pathfinder Kindergarten Center, Muscatine Early Childhood Center Study) did you love? Put them in your dream school!
  4. What does a student need in a learning environment in 2035? What do educators need?
  5. What important adjacencies need to be considered?

THE RESULTS

Draw your dream school!
​Time to be the designer.

Everyone has a design voice. 

In our last visioning session, we asked the groups to play architect. Building upon the values established in our prior two visioning sessions, what would a dream school look like? What would make North Kansas City Early Childhood Education the most successful it could be?

Two teams formulated fantastic solutions. Both had many aligned design elements, but also valuable differences to consider.

Group 1

  • Diversity of classroom size and flexibility
  • ECSE mixed throughout
  • Two outdoor play areas - with garage doors to link in/out
  • Community storage, dispersed throughout
  • Ample entrances for car riders
  • Administration zone at front 
  • Common spaces between classroom clusters
  • Therapy spaces dispersed throughout
  • Jack & Jill bathrooms for classrooms
  • Nurse spaces dispersed throughout​
  • Teacher space in each wing
  • Bathrooms! 
  • Activated corridor space for teaching and learning
  • Tricycle track - could go outside too
  • Low windows between some classrooms
  • Daylight!
  • Open, welcoming, homey
  • Back of house - use it

Group 2

  • Neighborhoods of classrooms
  • Spatial diversity within neighborhoods, or between neighborhoods
  • Two outdoor play areas - with garage doors to link in/out
  • Parent space at the front door
  • Gross motor room
  • Office environments with lots of collaboration
  • Back of house - lots of storage
  • Large gym/activity space centrally located
  • Flexible sized conferencing spaces
  • Coffee bar
  • Play areas for kiddos who cannot handle outdoor
  • Little schools within one big school
  • How can the corridor be structured, but fluid?
  • 3-ish flex office spaces in each neighborhood
  • Sensory areas in each neighborhood
  • Natural light! 
  • Soundproof room for hearing screenings
  • Waiting space for families
  • Zoned building
  • Shared storage resources