![]() “At other schools, you can’t wait to go home,” said one. How do the students like their new school? A sampling of fifth graders elicited a unanimous thumbs-up. The library, imagined as a sky garden, has a palette of bright colors and a ceiling of white hexagonal panels arranged to suggest clouds. The gymnasium has windows of fritted glass for light control. The dining hall on level five, finished in rift-cut white oak and colored tiles, opens to a terrace running the full length of the building and has tables with marker-board tops, so kids are encouraged to take notes and doodle over lunch. ![]() Each typically incorporates two LCDs with software applications that allow iPad-wielding students to use Web-based communication such as Skype to connect with other classrooms and with other GEMS schools around the world.Ĭommon areas are generously scaled and nicely detailed. The classrooms are all that tech-savvy students and teachers might want in a thoughtfully designed-and well-funded-new school. Landscaped setbacks provide a terrace on the fifth floor-which also breaks up the mass-and a rooftop playground on the tenth floor. Even the stairs-on all but the lowest levels-have oversize windows and views, prompting students to use them rather than the elevators. The generous reliance on glass gives the south-facing classrooms, library, dining room, and gymnasium abundant light and panoramic vistas. In addition, we modulated openings in the exterior panels so they’re appropriate for both the functions contained within and the exposure to adjacent buildings.” “Using color in a playful manner seemed natural among the muted residential high-rises. “We strove to make this building reflect the fact that children are the primary users,” explains Kerwin. The result is a handsome backdrop for the park and a civic focal point for the neighborhood. The antic boldness and linear rhythm prevent the school from appearing dwarfed by the much taller and more sober towers nearby. The school’s concrete structure, which allows higher ceilings and good acoustical isolation for noisy spaces such as the gym and music room, is enclosed by a vertically syncopated curtain wall of glass and brightly colored metal panels. The first level of an adjacent parking garage helps provide a secure drop-off and pick-up area, used by a majority of students. We quickly realized the learning spaces must be organized along this face to take advantage of the natural light and views.” And so emerged a parti, with circulation placed on the north and classrooms and common areas on the south.Ī complex site section-due to multilevel Wacker Drive along the Chicago River-resulted in two entry levels, one off the park to the south and another off an upper pedestrian plaza (corresponding to the fifth floor) to the north, which will also provide an outdoor link to the upper school. “The lowest four floors abut existing buildings and have only one exposure,” notes bKL principal Tom Kerwin. The 83,000-square-foot lower school accommodates 650 students (preK–8) and will share amenities with the institution’s upper school, soon due to begin construction on an adjacent property.Ī site of only 9,500 square feet led the architects to stack the program vertically. While tuition is high (about $28,000 to $35,000 annually), the school plans to attract a diverse student body, thanks to a generous financial-aid program. debut with the Chicago campus, which opened in September 2014. Global Education Management Systems or GEMS, an international network of private K–12 day schools, is making its U.S. ![]() Despite topping out at a modest 10 stories, the GEMS School-the new kid on the block-holds its own by enhancing the park’s northern edge and giving the neighborhood another kind of eye-catching architecture. The area’s centerpiece is the lush 6-acre Park at Lakeshore East designed by James Burnett. These will soon be joined by Wanda Vista (Studio Gang again), a sinuous 93-story skyscraper of light, faceted glass shafts for residences and a hotel. Lakeshore East, a 28-acre mixed-use planned community east of the city’s downtown Loop and north of the new Maggie Daley Park (record, October 2015, page 78) is the home of two local landmarks: the 82-floor Aqua hotel and apartment tower (Studio Gang, record, May 2010, page 60), with undulating concrete balconies, and Harbor Point (Solomon Cordwell Buenz, 1972), with 54 floors of curved black curtain wall. How do you give civic scale and stature to a mid-rise school in a high-rise context? This was one of the challenges faced by bKL Architecture in designing the new lower school of GEMS World Academy in Chicago. ![]()
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