Master Planning, Architectural and Interior Design
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
The Algonquin & Lakeshore Catholic District School Board hired FNI as their planning and design architect to create a new 400 student school which would bring three communities of Kinder through grade six students together into one state of the art building featuring innovative teaching and learning practices. Our process began by meeting with each of the three communities in discovery workshops, touring their existing schools, and developing a master plan to slowly bring the three communities of students together into the one building. The result of the process was a new school that took the metaphor of the three communities as its basis for design by forming three multi age learning communities around a large gathering stair and shared specialty spaces. Since day one, the student’s, teachers, and administrators have embraced the new spaces and are using the buildings flexible features to team teach, support underperforming students, and allow for more student autonomy throughout the day. The school has been so successful ALCDSB is using it as an exemplar by which they plan all their new schools and renovation projects.