This project is for a private school accommodating grades 1 through 8, which is to be located on the urban edge of a fast-growing city in an area that was once primarily large farm and is being targeted for high density commercial and residential development. The program includes eight classrooms, a nursery kindergarten, school administration, and specialty class space for music, dance, art, and crafts. The entire program was to be housed within 19,000 square feet and built for approximately $150 per square foot. The project was taken through the Design Development phase and then suspended for fund-raising.
A school is the place of mediation between the child and society. A project for a Waldorf school presents the challenge and opportunity to accommodate and interpret the philosophy and aesthetic of Anthroposophy and its founder, Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophy is an early twentieth century movement that sought a synthesis of mysticism and science. Rudolf Steiner was the author of both the philosophy and architecture, which has its administrative and cultural center in the Goetheanum in Dornach Switzerland.
Steiner believed that architectural spaces shaped the minds of the occupants, especially children. He sought to create geometrically complex and round rooms to interpret the world within each classroom. This desire to avoid orthogonal corners and to shape space extends to the trimming of the corners of paper used in student art work.
One solution that was developed combined light steel framing with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) to generate an affordable plan geometry in keeping with the Waldorf philosophy. The corners of the classrooms would be further shaped with cabinets and drapery unique to each grade. The configuration of walls in the single-storey section of the building aligned with the prevailing breeze flow. The roof form of the two-storey west wing was inspired by vernacular structures that combine a gabled barn with a lean-to shed.