Students at East Lake School had a chance to show off what they learned during their Architecture Challenge Project with an open house at the School Dec. 4.
“They’re so proud of it, it’s awesome,” said East Lake School Grade 9 Teacher Jill Winters.
For the project, the grade nine students were asked to answer the question, “If you could create an ideal space at East Lake School or in the community of Chestermere what would you create and why.”
As part of the project, the students have had guest speakers in to address topics ranging from architecture and landscaping to how to build community.
Students were then asked to apply what they had learned from the speakers to their answers as they created their model and digital presentation showing what they would like to see added to the community.
Winters said that the project has gone really well with students coming up with really good ideas.
They also put their problem-solving skills to work figuring out solutions to potential challenges their suggested projects could face.
“Once they got going they were completely engaged,” said Winters, “they were building, collaborating, problem-solving, thinking about finances and money.”
One of the students who really excelled with the project was Isabelle Nguyen and her pitch for a combination study hall and community space to be built at East Lake School.
Nguyen said she was inspired by the noisy distracting conditions in the school’s library at lunchtime.
“Us Grade nines, we always have to go downstairs and eat in the Library and its really loud and there’s people studying at the same time.
“Not a good combination,” she said.
In her experience, kids working in a comfortable environment learn better which is the goal of her proposed study space.
In designing her building and making the model, Nguyen thought of nearly everything.
She included, slopes and drainage on the balcony, considered the position of the sun as it moves throughout the day when designing the position of windows.
She planned on the building being a study space during school hours but open to residents to use outside of school hours.
The dual usage of the space comes from Nguyen’s proposed funding which would be a combination of tax dollars and fundraising.
“If they’re paying for it, then they should be able to use it,” she said of the public contribution to the building.
The thoroughness of her design and the detail in her model caught the eye of University of Calgary (U of C) Practitioner-in-Residence Harry Harker who attended the showcase.
“The most impressive thing was the thought process that Isabelle went through,” he said.
Harker said it was far more thorough than what he would have expected from a junior high presentation.
“I have graduate students who wouldn’t necessarily think through the problem as thoroughly as she had thought it through,” he said.
Harker was so impressed that he gave Nguyen one of his business cards and invited her to come out to the University and see the kinds of work done by Architecture students there.
He also told her about the summer camps offered for students at the U of C.
Nguyen said that it was pretty nice to have been noticed.
“I’m not used to this at all,” she said.
Nguyen said that building the model to scale was one of the harder challenges of the project for her.
“It’s really hard to measure everything perfectly and not make the building look weird,” she said.
The success and fun that she had with the project has spurred on her nascent architectural design interests.
“My cousin is learning architecture and when I saw him doing all that stuff I was like ‘ooh I want to try that’ and now I have this opportunity,” she said.
She is hoping to take advantage of Harker’s invitation to attend an architecture summer camp at the U of C.
Winters is proud of the good work her student did with the project.
“It’s made her learning real,” said Winters of Nguyen success.
With the presentation of their final projects Winters said that it has also been good to see students, like Nguyen, who are typically shy presenting their finished projects with confidence.
Along with experts in the architecture and community building fields, Winter’s said that members of city council were also in attendance.
She is hoping that they will have been impressed with the ideas presented.
“It would be amazing to see if some of these projects came to life,” she said.
To view the Anchor news video on this project, go to www.theanchor.ca or visit our YouTube channel to see all the Anchor’s news videos.
