Buckingham Primary + Elementary Schools
The former middle and high school buildings, built in 1954 and 1962 respectively, are transformed into a modern learning campus for K-5 students with the aim to address the growing concern of student health and well-being.
Project Details
- Client: Buckingham County Public Schools
- Location: Dillwyn, VA
- Scope: Renovation and New Construction
- Completion: 2012
- Size: 134,015 SF
- Performance: LEED Gold | EUI 50 kBTU/sf/year (measured) | 11% reduction (regional CBECs 2003 K12 School baseline)
A renovation of the former Carter G. Woodson campus, Buckingham Primary and Elementary school provides a holistic and health-focused learning environment for the county’s youngest learners. In collaboration with public health researchers, the design team co-authored design guidelines for healthy eating and physical activity (HEDG and PADG) as an antidote to the childhood obesity epidemic. These replicable design guidelines provide research-based strategies for school planners, architects, and educators to use in promoting healthy eating and physical activity as school-based obesity prevention.
The existing school campus was re-designed as a sustainable landscape that promotes active and diverse opportunities for play, exercise, and learning. The school highlights natural ecologies and local resources to spark environmental awareness, stewardship opportunities, and hands-on learning. The interior design, graphic identity, and branded wayfinding communicate playful and sophisticated themes related to sustainability, health, and energy conservation. Ergonomic furniture promotes dynamic sitting and comfortable, flexible settings in which children are free to move. Reading nooks and open learning hubs transform pathways into active, child-centric “learning streets” with day-lit views and access to gardens and eco-paths. The Dining Commons serves the heart of the community by re-orienting school breakfast and lunch within the context of a healthy food-based learning environment.
The design of the school instills in students a sense of well-being and a love of learning. The building works to make “all thinks seem possible” by rendering educational moments visible and celebrating learning and healthy in all its diverse forms.
Preventing childhood obesity and helping to educate ‘food smart’ children is so important in today’s society.... The value and potential results in offering unique features such as Buckingham’s Food Lab, a Teaching Kitchen, Edible Native Landscaping, School Garden, Fresh Food Storage and Exterior Dining are obvious to me.
If we can make healthy eating and physical activity the easy and default option in the school environment, we will help children practice a healthy lifestyle without making it seem like work. Over time, healthy lifestyles become healthy habits that endure. The key to obesity prevention is to work across multiple levels from individual children to parents, schools, and the community, simultaneously.
Collaborators
MEP Engineering: 2rw Engineers
Structural Engineering: Springpoint Structural (formerly Fox & Associates)
Civil Engineering: Waterstreet Studios
Landscape Architecture: Waterstreet Studios
Contractor: Blair Construction
Project Photography: Alan Karchmer and Tom Daly
Additional Drawings
Edible School Yard Sketch
Central Commons Vignette
Sustainability
The campus’ design supports the health of students and the environment by incorporating sustainable features. Natural daylight from windows is supplemented with environmentally-friendly Solatube™ daylight harvesting found in ceilings and light louvers in classrooms. A water-source heat pump system supports energy-efficient heating and cooling of the school, and innovative stormwater strategies integrate green space, native landscaping, and natural hydrologic functions to generate less runoff on the site. A LEED Gold school, the project has also achieved the LEED “Design for Active Occupants” credit.
Health + Wellness
Dining Commons Axonometric
The design-research team developed and incorporated a number of healthy eating design strategies in the Buckingham campus, including:
- Design spaces that facilitate the incorporation of fresh and healthy food choices into the school.
- Design facilities that engage the school community in food production and preparation.
- Apply evidence- and theory-based behavioral science principles to “nudge” the school community towards healthy-eating behaviors and attitudes.
- Use building and landscape features to promote awareness of healthy and sustainable food practices.
- Conceive and articulate school spaces as community assets to multiply the benefits of school-based healthy food initiatives.
The dining commons is an enriched learning environment that serves as a shared, connecting space between the primary and elementary schools, and with the wider community. The commons includes a teaching kitchen, innovative food and nutritional displays, open serveries that promote demonstration cooking, a food lab/lounge for small group labs and catering, a scratch bakery, dehydrating food composter, natural daylight, flexible seating arrangements, an outdoor student dining terrace, and kitchen gardens.
The commercial kitchen in particular was designed to provide an important educational experience – retaining key food service functions while allowing students visual access to the kitchen as they move through the “open” serving lines. The transparent treatment of food in the school, from the gardens to the open serveries, allows students to gain awareness about how their food grows, how it is prepared in the kitchen, and how it fuels them in their activity and learning. These educational opportunities are creating shifts in food culture and improving student health and well-being.
