Design team sets up shop at Chartiers Valley High School for a week-long, interactive design charette.
January 12, 2015 — Having been selected as the architects for the evaluation, planning and design of renovations and new construction associated with the Chartiers Valley High School and Middle School project, IKM has been working with the school district and members of the community to create a vision for success.
This week the project moves forward with the design team setting up shop at Chartiers Valley High School for a week-long design charette and department conferencing session. IKM is packing up computers, projectors, flip boards, sketch pads, tracing paper, pencils, easels, markers, note pads, and other items to create a mobile design studio. Students will have the opportunity to see how the design has progressed to date, but more importantly, contribute to further refinements and modifications allowing the design team to reach the best solution possible for this community.
“We are literally moving in. After months of listening, researching, testing and evaluating ideas, our goal is to share out this information and expand the conversation to the broader school community,” said Matt Hansen, AIA, Project Manager and Designer for the IKM team. “We are making great progress and the involvement of key stakeholders, including students and community leaders, is critical to our success.”
Since last September, the IKM team has worked with more than 70 parents, students, community members, teachers, administrators and school board members in multiple “collaborative discovery” planning and design workshop sessions to learn what is important to them in a school. The sessions are focusing on how to make the middle and high school environments support a 21st century curriculum and inspire success for all students in the district.
Along with collaborative discovery meetings on site, the IKM Design Team and the School Design Advisory Teams embarked on a Washington DC-area fact finding trip visiting two schools in DC and two in Baltimore as well as several schools in neighboring districts.