horizon line

p. 2

Sunny Fischer of The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation aptly described the mission of the project to “develop exciting and ethical designs and design solutions to the issues that face us today, combining universal design, small schools, and green design.”

Sharon Haar, "Schools for Cities: Urban Strategies"

p. 3

"There shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township." The Continental Congress, Land Ordinance 1785

Throughout United States history, educators and community leaders have linked democracy and a healthy civic life with the architecture of the nation’s school buildings. As schools represent significant outlays of capital and are major components of the nation’s physical, economic, social, and cultural infrastructure, there exists an ongoing conversation and debate about the place of education in the development of cities and urban life.

p. 4

The essays that form the core of this volume derive from a conference held in the spring of 2000. Schools as Catalysts for Community Development was a national session of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD) cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Architectural Foundation, The U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

. . . how schools function as both civic institutions and urban infrastructure within the realm of urban planning and development policy.

p. 5, citing Anthony Vidler

Architecture is not simply concerned with the technical details of planning and construction but, most important, with the relations between the envisioned curriculum and the space in which it is put into practice. The architect plays a crucial role in the consideration of the complex relations between a large institution and its neighborhood, of the careful responses in scale and spatial layout to the needs of teachers and children, of the very materials out of which a good learning environment is built.…the architect can serve as catalyst and collaborator, conscience and coordinator.

It is equally important that the school enhance the urban community, not simply as an aesthetic object, but as a site for programmatic development, neighborhood resource development, and urban restructuring.

p. 6 - Mentions projects where schools serve also as civic spaces in Wichita, Kansas, and Lynn, Massachusetts. Also, Roy Strickland's "City of Learning"

More than any institution of civic life, educational facilities are highly subject to the ebb and flow of demographics: “natural” population rises and falls; local shifts occur between cities, suburbs, and exurbs; and migration and immigration bring new life to cities.

p. 7

In the early 20th century, architects such as Dwight H. Perkins began the movement to design public schools as urban neighborhood centers tied to the dense urban fabric. Check this reference!

Streetcar and railroad suburbs could not have been conceived without the development of schools to absorb the youth of this family-centered culture. After World War II, schools were an important component in the planning of the Levittown communities. Developer William Levitt stated the case succinctly: “A school has to be ready when the house is ready. It’s as important as a water main.”