Professor:
Nils Gore

External Support was provided by:
Hillcrest Elementary School
Kanbuild
Austin Turney
USD497

Designing Better Portable Classrooms

The studio was based on the observation that virtually every school district in the US utilizes portable classroom units as a way of relieving overcrowding and as "short-term" solutions to changing enrollments, shifting demographics and uncertain funding for capital improvement projects.

But even when truly intended for short term occupancy, these buildings have a way of staying around much longer, and get used as classroom environments year after year. It's fair to say that even the best of these units is sub-optimal, in the sense that they have not been designed for maximum educational effectiveness: they have, instead, been designed for transportability, for minimum cost, for rapid deployment. These may be laudable goals for many school systems, but often at the expense of effective learning. Other potential liabilities include poor energy performance, high life-cycle costs, compromised safety and security, teacher dissatisfaction, and negative parent and community perceptions.

This studio assumes that these buildings are here to stay, that they do serve a useful function for school districts and that they could be better designed if districts could forgo a "cheapest is best" attitude toward their procurement. For example, a standard portable unit costs 20% of the cost of a 'bricks-and-mortar' classroom. So what would a portable classroom be like at 50%, or 75%, or 100% of the same cost? It could be substantially better, while still maintaining the advantages of portability.

Program: Develop a portable classroom that will be better than what the market currently offers. Design the construction system, the manufacturing assumptions, and the transport and installation of the building on unknown sites.

The students worked in teams of 3 or 4 people per team.

Selected Projects:
Katie Hamilton, Steven Dragan, Adam Paulitsch, Matt Zellmer or (download 39mb PDF)
Mariana Moreira, Jennifer Essen, Jessica Jenkins or (download 31mb PDF)
Ricky Thrash, Ashley Hicks, Allen Oghenejobo, Andy Davis or (download 3mb PDF)
Stephanie Winn, Danielle Dobsch, Jason Sadler, Katherine Meeder or (download 39mb PDF)

click here for a group website built for preliminary research.