After years of designing and redesigning education spaces at Amtek, we’ve worked out the kinks that come along with the design process. Some of these potential challenges don’t always come to mind when you’re dreaming up a fresh new learning space. Here are a few pointers I’ve learned to stick to over the years.
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Identify Your Functional Needs First
Our process always starts with an on-site consultation and needs assessment. This is where we talk about the challenges with existing furniture layouts and the ultimate goals of what you’d like to achieve. We start with your pie-in-the-sky ideal vision – then get into design and budget limitations later.
I recently redesigned a local middle school TechEd lab in Northern Virginia. Here’s a bit of insight into how our design process went:
First, we identified the teacher’s challenges with her current classroom. Then we discussed potential solutions for each challenge.
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Current Challenges
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Potential Solutions
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- Existing layout was designed for a completely different curriculum and learning style
- Furniture is built into the classroom and can never be reconfigured or moved
- Lack of adequate storage for student projects
- Bland and colorless classrooms do not inspire students
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- Mobile furniture that can be quickly reconfigured
- Flexible, mobile storage solutions that can be customized and reconfigured for your specific storage needs
- Storage solutions that double as mobile work benches to maximize functionality
- Introduce a variety of color choices that breathe life into the classroom
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Overall, one of the goals was to make the room look and feel more modern and vibrant. By identifying the above functional goals first, we can then figure out how to incorporate modernity and vibrancy as part of our functional solutions.
Respect – and Plan for – the Process Timeline
So what happens after identifying current challenges and potential solutions? An initial design, feedback and redesign – for as many iterations until our customer is satisfied.
Here is a basic flow chart showing how this process typically unfolds:
Here’s an example of a hand sketch / notes of the space during our initial meeting with this middle school:
The hand sketch then gets converted to a CAD drawing of the space:
We then send this drawing off to our manufacturer partner (in this case, Wisconsin Bench) and schedule a call with one of their designers. We discuss the teacher’s problems and goals with the designer and determine which furniture is best suited to meet the goals and stay within our customer’s budget range.
After relaying this information to Wisconsin Bench’s designer, we revised the floor plan with our customer’s changes and recreated the renderings. This middle school teacher was ultimately pleased with our second iteration and accepted it.
After we receive the order, we coordinate with our manufacturer and customer to schedule the installation. As is common at middle schools, this building had no full height loading dock or access to a forklift. Since most furniture deliveries come on a full size truck with no lift gate, these logistics details are critical to a smooth installation. We handle all the logistics and make this a true turnkey experience for our customer. We coordinated with the manufacturer, shipper, forklift rental company, and customer to make sure everything arrives at the right time and our installation team was on site to meet the truck and bring everything inside. This coordination is a large part of the value that we bring. You give us your vision; we handle the rest.
A very rough estimate for project time line is about 3 weeks for the planning process and 6-8 weeks for delivery. However these timelines can vary widely based on some of these factors:
- The size and scope of the project
- The level of customization of the project
- Color choices – some colors are stocks, others are made to order
- The number of individuals responsible for approvals at each step of the process (you know what they say about cooks in the kitchen!)
- The time of year – summer is a very popular time for these type of projects, so the lead times are always longer.
- Is the project going out to bid or purchased off of a contract. If the project must go out to bid, the project timeline will be extended by weeks or months. Amtek has contracts with several states and school systems that allow school systems to purchase without the need to go to bid, which shortens the overall timeline significantly.
Be Flexible with Your Vision
Our initial design for this middle school utilized sit/stand desks with hardwood tops for all the student desks. We then added color via locker doors under the wall workstations.
After taking our initial idea back to our customer and showing her the rendering, she liked wanted to add even more color. After seeing how the tables were grouped, she thought it would be a good idea to make each table group a different color – this would accomplish the goal of adding color and add a practical benefit – she could easily create 3 teams in her classroom – red, blue, and yellow. However, the sit/stand student desk frames were ultimately outside of the project budget, so we ultimately settled on the standard adjustable legs for the tables.
Storage Is Not Just Wall Cabinets
The primary concerns for this middle school was not having enough space to store student projects.
Traditionally educators may think of a wall of cabinets for storage. However, there were windows along the wall that was best suited for storage in this classroom. Instead, we suggested a combination of cabinets where there was space as well as mobile workbenches with lockers underneath to serve the dual purpose of storage and a flexible work bench. We also suggested additional mobile storage solutions that could be easily accessed by simply rolling them over to the student tables.
The ultimate result was more space to learn and work, but also more than enough storage space to meet the teacher’s and students’ needs.
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Don’t Be Afraid of Color
There are a lot of studies about the psychology of color and how it affects learning. We really love how our customer used color in this space to make the space vibrate as well as add functionality to the room by allowing her to use color to create teams.
Ultimately, we made this teacher’s vision a reality and we cannot wait to find out what her students think of the new space!
