Aaah to be a kid again- the carefree days, the lack of financial responsibility, and awesome prefab school environments like the Country School designed by Jennifer Siegal. The Los Angeles middle school expansion project opens next month to some very lucky kids who will enjoy classrooms filled with light, open learning spaces, and the best and healthiest materials. We’re big fans of Jennifer and her Office of Mobile Design here at Inhabitat, and we’re thrilled that her great prefab designs are being successfully applied to educational contexts- what better way to learn and teach than in a wonderful healthy classroom?
The Country School is an expansion of an existing school that includes 5200 square feet in three new buildings assembled from eleven prefabricated steel-frame modules. Materials include bamboo flooring, biocomposite cabinetry, and homasote wall cladding. The landscape features outdoor classrooms and gathering space, a theater, vegetable garden, and even a frog pond. Ample natural light and ventilation bring the outdoors in, while eco-friendly materials and well-engineered construction techniques make the three structures responsible and healthy learning environments- environmentally, academically, and economically.
Office of Mobile Design has shown a long commitment to applying great prefab design strategies to academics- from the Portable Construction Training Center (PCTC) project to the Mobile EcoLab. This is a great example of designing user experience, creating spaces and structures that enhance education, environmental understanding, and the welfare of children. “We feel that a beautiful and flexible campus encourages children to form a special relationship to and appreciation for their place of learning. Our goal is for each individual child to feel a sense of importance and belonging on their new campus by providing wonderful outdoor spaces for socializing, gardening, playing, and discovering, as well as inspiring interior classroom environments.”
+ Office of Mobile Design
are you kidding me? must be a slow news day! i dont mean to start the comments of negative, but this is what drives me crazy about “prefab” and “green”. they are such trendy words, just because it is “prefab” and has “bamboo flooring” doesnt make it worth publishing, give us some substance guys, there are much more interesting projects out there…we deserve better. i would expect this out of someone else, but not inhabitat. ohh and I love the site
I find Ms. Seigal ‘s work admirable I do find her a bit of a “media whore”… the Paris Hilton of the design set, way too much in the news over too little content. Some projects are deservably published but many are not. I don’t think every project needs to be in my face. Let’s maintain the high level quality or groundbreaking projects in focus but not every shed that get’s built off site with bamboo flooring.
Absolute lowest denominator.