designbelt

new balance     Cleveland, OH     (2011)

Jeremy Smith Design 

entry text from the Cleveland Design Competition

new balance proposes an integrated educational model that embraces global learning while supporting local collaborations to extend the classroom beyond the student body. The school is treated as a campus; separated into faculties or departments, eliminating the hierarchical segregation of the traditional model and allowing rooms to gain a level of specificity that utilizes shared equipment, laboratories, and storage. The “mixing” of grades supports a greater energy in the corridors and common areas that allows unique additional programmatic elements to be successful. As a globally oriented school, a large assembly / projection area supports web chats with enough space for the entire student body, while its glass volume engages the pedestrian on the street and extends the boundary of the educational experience. The adjacent art gallery gives students the ability to exhibit work regularly, and the cantilevered agricultural green provides hands-on learning; lifted off the ground for security, the canopy and orientation further integrate the school into its environment. The purpose of new balance is to go beyond technology without focus, and integrate a program that excites and inspires students to learn. New educational models, like the Cleveland International School, are emerging at an imperative pace, leaving the question: Can architecture make a difference in pushing the frontiers of education?

new balance is ready to prove it can.