Jacob Manch Phased Replacement Great Rooms

The school is comprised of 5 classroom groups. Four of the groups are for the older children. Each surrounds a great room.  The members of each group are like a family or a village.  We refer to them as "Houses".  The houses are Hawks, Aviators, Explorers, and Butterflies.  The members of each house all know each other and therefore it reduces the likelihood that any children will be able to be "Under the radar" or "Fall between the cracks".  The fifth house is the kindergarten and it surrounds an open exterior play yard due to differing educational requirements.  Principal Garcia directed the architects to address a major concern in the school routine.... Bullying.  throughout the existing building almost every classroom door has a sign identifying I that room as a "Bully free zone".  What happens when the kids are outside the classroom we wondered?  That idea set the concept of how the house areas work.  Each house has a private toilet because the toilet is where some bullying occurs.  With just one child in the toilet there could be no bullying in there.  Next we built it very close to every classroom so that bullies could not roam the corridors looking to make trouble.  Next we put windows in every classroom so that teachers could observe the kids going back and forth to the toilet and washing their hands.  Nothing insures child safety like the eyes of many adults upon them.  It's a great help.  This is the before picture.  Which is better?  Helping children to forget about bullying concerns and concentrate on learning is the idea.  Good architecture gives the teachers the tools that they need to help with problems.