Architects participate in rebuilding Joplin schools

JOPLIN, MO (KCTV) -

In an effort to help the city rebuild after last year's devastating tornado, one Kansas City firm is lending its hand to help design Joplin's new schools.

It's a huge undertaking with the schools covering 223,000-square-feet and a price tag of nearly $50 million.

Hollis + Miller Architects said in a release it is excited about the opportunity to merge architectural design with 21st century educational teaching and learning concepts.

One successful example of the collaborative design process to date features the conjoining of the elementary and middle schools. This solution will not only save the community financially in relation to operation and construction costs, but, most importantly, it will leverage educational benefits for the Joplin community for many generations to come.

The new Joplin Elementary School is designed to house more than 450 elementary students, grades kindergarten through five, and the new Joplin East Middle School is designed to house more than 750 middle school student, grades six through eight.

Hollis + Miller Architects designed the new elementary and middle schools on a 36-acre site.

One of the features of the school is called a "learning park."

"Each one of those rooms have walls. They're glass walls, so you have good visibility and transparency," architect John Brown said. "These walls can open up and create larger areas for big groups, and you can open them up in a variety of ways to regroup and look at students. You can even work where you have all the teachers teaching the same subject at one time in a large group and even breaking out and studying in these individual areas, as opposed to working with English, math and history at different times."

Significant effort and time was spent soliciting input from school district patrons through a series of community forums and work sessions.

Excerpt from:
Architects participate in rebuilding Joplin schools