Client:
West Feliciana Parish Schools,
Size:
128,755 SF
Completion Date:
2022
Design a new elementary school that will account for the projected 12-year student population growth in the rural Louisiana parish of West Feliciana.
Flexibility and adaptability to different learning styles and needs
Efficiently develop the sloping, heavily wooded 20-acre portion of the site
Address challenging bus and carpool access and flow in concert with the adjacent middle and high school campuses
Outstanding Design Featured Project
American School & University
2023
The complex is situated along a central concourse which serves as an expanded Media Center, technology lounge, and various learning spaces. Administrative and multi-purpose assembly spaces anchor opposing ends of the concourse, while food service and academic “schoolhouses” are located along its length. On the first floor, grades 1 through 3 each have a separate schoolhouse; located also at this level is the academic center and arts/music area. At the upper level are the 4th and 5th grade schoolhouses. Each grade level schoolhouse is designed with 10 standard classrooms, a teacher resource room, restrooms, and a multi-function “flex” learning space.
During the design process and investigation, the central theme of transportation, in both the historical and contextual sense emerged. Situated along the student concourse are a series of exploratory graphic walls, that bring to life this history and context of the site and school. Students are encouraged to interact and learn with these graphics, as they traverse the school upward to the upper grades, and ultimately progress as you move south toward the middle and high schools.
Embracing the Site
Bains Elementary School is located on a fully forested site of approximately 35 acres in rural West Feliciana Parish. The plan and layout consider the primary automobile/traffic challenges that exist and create separate entrances, access ways, and patterns for buses, carpool, and staff/visitor vehicles. Due to the site’s sloping terrain, which varies approximately 55 ft. along it’s length, the south end of the building is situated 15-feet higher than administrative wing at the North end; the concourse serves as not only horizontal, but vertical transition space as well, linking the schoolhouses and wings as the building follow the natural slope of the site.
