WKA Learning Environments I

Wheeler Kearns Architects Learning Environments

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Since our founding in 1987, we have been a diverse group of thinkers and designers who equally share the roles of designer, technician and manager. This model guarantees that your project architect is fully immersed in your project, from the very ﬁrst conversation to evaluating the success of your space after it’s occupied.

In our practice, every architect proactively trains across multiple project types ensuring that the breadth of experience and institutional knowledge built over time enriches each project. We build our teams to include individuals with a range of experiences and knowledge to avoid any preconceived notions about your project and ensure fresh ideas and continuous innovation.

We have over thirty years of experience with visioning/ master-planning, renovation, adaptive reuse, and new construction projects, working for residential, institutional, commercial and community-driven organizations. Spanning from alternative affordable housing to multi-family midrise structures, from a food pantry to an innovative visual and performing arts venue; we are drawn to complex design problems and constraints that challenge us to push the envelope.

We solicit multiple ideas from our entire team throughout the entire design process. Through ofﬁcewide studio pin-ups and internal reviews, all staff members contribute to every project to provide the best ideas and highest quality work. This philosophy offers a wider spectrum of possibility and has led to solutions that nobody anticipated, like transforming a shuttered lumberyard into a model, 21st-century school. Or discovering that the 70-foot tower of an abandoned food-manufacturing plant really can be a viable and exciting gallery and performance space. Our approach ensures that all of the best ideas will be explored for each unique project.

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Wheeler Kearns is a collective practice of architects.

We work with people who seek to enrich their lives in spaces that embody their purpose, energy and vision.

We want to see your challenge through your eyes. Doing this guides us to what we call the “emotional center,” the heart around which your entire project revolves. We return to that central idea as we craft concepts, help you make decisions, and reﬁne our responses to those choices.

The result is a space that responds uniquely to your mission. We know we’ve gotten it right when a creative rain catchment system that creates “waterfalls” from the school roof inspires questions from students about water management, ﬂow, and energy that are incorporated into the curriculum. For a new school with a bold and unprecedented vision, it meant understanding their academic model so well that we were able to introduce an entirely new way of using space that better supports learning.

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When a space we design resonates with your deepest intention, it has a lasting and powerful impact. As we work with you, we devote all our energies to understanding your core purpose, the transformation you seek, your mission.

Wheeler Kearns Architects ofﬁce is located in the Fisher Building at 343 S. Dearborn, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60604. WKA was named AIA Chicago Firm of the Year in 1996 and 2016.

Hansberry College Prep

Year Completed 2013 Location 8748 S. Aberdeen St Chicago IL 60620

Square Footage

59,000 sf (21,000 sf renovation, 38,000 sf addition)

Site Area

5.5 Acres

Grades Served 9-12

Capacity 1,100 students

Located in a neighborhood with the highest dropout rates in Chicago, Hansberry College Prep was developed through a creative partnership between the Noble Network of Charter Schools and another not-for-proﬁt.

Each courtyard features different types of native tree species, offering different types of structure, seasonal color, and shade. Instead of sending an opaque authoritative message to its surrounding, the school adopts a transparent, non-threatening posture.

In lieu of a traditional monolithic school building that paternalistically towers over the surrounding residential neighborhood, the mass of the 38,000 sq. ft. addition belies its size. The addition north of the gymnasium building was held to a single-story and punctuated by courtyard gardens that open to the street. Student and faculty workspaces line full height window walls facing the street at each courtyard, allowing generous views into and out of the school.

A 370-foot long hallway connecting the courtyards serves as a “college corridor”, where 435 college logos, geographically organized from end to end, emblazon hallway lockers surrounding a central alumni map. Digital touchscreens surrounding the central maps of the United States and Midwest identify and locate the colleges attended by alumni and faculty, along with a biographical sketch of each stakeholder. This creates a social connection to a network of others who have faced similar obstacles and have experienced success.

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8 1a Main entry 1b Auxilary entry 3 Classroom 4 Advisory 5 Shared lecture hall 6 Garden courtyard 7

overlook 8 Faculty lounge 9 Administration Phase 1: Major Renovation 3 33 3 5 3 3 3 14 3 33 8 9 7 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 13 3 3 1b 3 16 4 15 10 10 10 3 10 10 4 4 3 3 3 1a 7 7 Existing Parish Buildings 10 Science lab 11 Multipurpose space 12 Storage 13 Fitness room 14 Church 15 Rectory 16 Garage 11 12 Phase 2: Addition Site Plan 0’90’ 30’

Workspace

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Year Completed 2013 Location 5284 S. Stony Island Chicago IL 60637 Square Footage 13,300 sf Site Area 2.6 Acres

Grades Served 6 weeks to 5 years

Capacity 124 students LEED Gold

UChicago Child Development Center - Stony Island

Inspired by an adjacent historic landscape, the facility integrates the natural environment with its architecture and child-centered curriculum. The building, with a z-shaped footprint, responds to the narrow inﬁll site, optimizing limited sun exposure and leveraging visual connections between the interior and exterior.

The design places the emphasis on the ground plane, as experienced from a child’s perspective. While the building protects the security and privacy of its students, it subverts the idea of a fortress. It blurs distinction between nature, play, and wonder, inviting the public to consider that nature, not just tall buildings, can be exuberant, too, in an urban setting.

Instead of creating a place dominated by synthetic play equipment and primary colors, the design allows children to be immersed in the natural world to discover first principles first-hand. A rich ensemble of minimally processed natural materials engages the public along the sidewalk. Vines climb a gabion fence, filled with three different Midwestern stones in waving layers. Huge boulders, extracted from glacial till, march toward the central entry. Tree bark siding slides below a visible green roof, which folds its way over the eastern wing.

If children learn what they live, they will not only learn from nature here, but they will learn to value it. This project insists that nature, play, and learning should be seamless during all four seasons.

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20 1 2 3 4 5 6 Entry/Waiting Area Staff Ofﬁce Staff Lounge Transition Classroom Preschool Classroom Food Prep West Playcourt Gross Motor Room Infant Classroom Toddler Classroom East Playcourt Support Services Neighboring high-rise Residential Neighboring Garage Neighboring Elementary School Shared Driveway Drop off Area Metra Rail Line 12 13 14 15 16 17 7 8 9 10 11 First Floor Plan 1 3 2 2 4 4 5 5 5 7 8 9 9 10 10 6 13 12 14 15 16 17 18

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1. Raised Garden Boxes2. Green Roof3. Splash Tanks Below Valleys4. Bark Siding5. Clerestory6. Solar Reﬂective Roof 7. Sand Play8. Tree cookies ﬂoored willow tunnel 9. Gabion Fence 10. Musical Chimes11. Glacial Boulders12. Permeable Pavers/Vehicle Drop-Off

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Wolcott School

Year Completed 2013 Location 524 N. Wolcott Ave Chicago IL 60622

Square Footage 32,000 sf

Grades Served 9-12

Capacity 846 students

Since Chicago lagged behind major cities in hosting high-schools targeting Learning Differences, a grass-roots group of citizens responded to create Chicago’s ﬁrst high school tailored to the strengths and aspirations of students with Learning Differences. The project entails the adaptive reuse of the Union League Boys and Girls Club, a 1926 brick masonry building on Chicago’s West Side.

Designed as the antithesis to “one-size-ﬁts-all” school buildings, Wolcott School is designed to support individual learning styles in a community environment. It provides a wide spectrum of spaces, varying in size, intimacy, and tenor, that can be adapted for speciﬁc types of learning and interaction.

Ten-student classrooms, each served by a pair of instructors, are partnered with one or more semiprivate huddle rooms and common collaborative areas. Borrowed light connects all learning spaces throughout. The huddle rooms allow for specialists to work with one or two students at a time or for small group collaborative learning.

With learning spaces that could be mistaken for those of a contemporary college, the design consciously combats the stigma of a “special” school. There are no color coded ﬂoors, no oversized signage, and no digital clocks. While the populist perception of schools targeting Learning Differences tends to suggest lower expectations, the design intentionally implies an environment worthy of any rigorous college prep.

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28 3 4 8 9 2 2 2 2 1a 0’ 7’ 17’ 2’ 6 10 9 6 9 5 1b Building Section - East West 1a 1b 2 3 4 5 Entry Student Entry Student social space / circulation Gymnasium Tyree Center / Multipurpose Conference Room / Staff Break Room 6 7 8 9 10 Storage Ofﬁce Classroom Huddle Room Garden / Outdoor Classroom

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Intrinsic School

Year Completed 2014 Location 4540 W. Belmont Ave. Chicago IL 60641 Square Footage 58,000 sf Site Area 2.6 Acres

Grades Served 7-12

Capacity 920 students

Not many educators would look at a shuttered lumber yard on Chicago’s Northwest Side and declare it the perfect place for a new school. But Intrinsic School’s leaders weren’t looking for a traditional school, instead they were inventing a new type of learning space.

Seventy-ﬁve percent of the existing buildings, some over 100 years old, were preserved and left exposed within the new envelope. The combination of new and old reﬂects Intrinsic’s educational tactics, where adaptive online learning is blended with traditional teaching in small groups to personalize education.

At Intrinsic there are no 30-student classrooms, hallway lockers, or double-loaded corridors. Instead, up to 180 students and 8 teachers rotate within interconnected pods dedicated to each grade level, allowing for increased teacher-student time with smaller groups. The right-hand pod focuses on the Humanities, while the left-hand pod concentrates on STEM.

Multiple zones within each pod accommodate teacher-led instruction, student collaboration, and independent learning. A “coastline” of workspaces provides for personalized online learning, “exchange tables” host peer-to-peer learning, and “pop up classes” provide areas for teachers to work with 12 students at a time.

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First Floor Plan

Multipurpose Room Warming Kitchen Storage Learning Lab Reception

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Huddle Room North Atrium

Grade Level Pods Digital Lab Chemistry Lab

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Mechanical Room Electrical Room Staff Room South Atrium

Second Floor Plan

Multipurpose Room (Below) Administration Conference Room Learning Lab North Atrium

Grade Level Pods Storage Room Storage Room Mechanical Room South Atrium

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10’ 20’ 50’ 20’ 10’ 50’

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The Ocean

These soft seating risers are used as an alternative learning location for students during independent study periods.

Pop-Up Class

Prompted by real-time metrics, an instructor can gather up to 10 students struggling with the same concept and mediate understanding with an impromptu direct-instruction session around an interactive whiteboard.

Genius Bar

Typically attended by one instructor, this primary supervision location also serves as a place where any student can seek counsel.

Coastline

As the most introspective space in the pod, the Coastline affords students a place to focus on personalized learning, primarily mediated through digitally delivered video and audio on Chromebooks outﬁtted with earbuds. On the Coastline, each student learns at their own velocity, achieving mastery of foundational concepts before tackling more ambitious ones.

The Exchange, or Shade

As the home of collaborative learning, this is the place where students actively engage with one another, making connections and elaborating on topics to achieve a deeper and more durable understanding. A light ﬁxture with an oversized shade hovers over the tables, serving both as a landmark and an acoustical absorber.

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Typical Pod Conﬁguration

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Mansueto High School

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Located in Chicago’s most extensive “park desert,” Mansueto High School—Noble Network of Charter Schools 17th campus—transformed ﬁve and a half acres of industrial brownﬁeld into a place of opportunity for Brighton Park families. The new school centers on a park-like quadrangle, presaging a college experience for its students, who are 98% minority and over 91% low-income.

LEED Certiﬁed (pending)

Taut masonry facades along the streets, which relate to the historical context, transition to light gray metal panels on the quadrangle, which reﬂect images of trees and greenery. On two sides, window-lined corridors look out to the quad, where students and faculty can work at counters while overlooking the landscape.

Multiple state-of-the-art science labs with floorto-ceiling windows line the other sides of the quadrangle, which also serves as an outdoor learning space in good weather. With a strong dose of natural light, classrooms are airy and have high ceilings floating above exposed ducts and piping. The double-height gymnasium, located on the east side of the quadrangle, is daylit from above by twelve skylights. Further east, a competition-size soccer field is encircled by a walking track that is shared with the community.

The school is designed and built to leverage Noble’s culture of high-expectations and their mission to educate under-served communities in a high-performing and effective environment that encourages success, both short-term and longterm.

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Completed 2017 Location 2911 W. 47th Street Chicago IL 60632 Square Footage 67,000 sf Site Area 5.5 Acres Grades Served 9-12 Capacity 1,100 students