Referendum vote is next major step for new elementary school project
PDT Architects and the building committee, composed of both community and RSU 39 board members, looked at building sketches created by architect Alan Kuniholm during their Feb. 12, 2016 meeting. Ultimately, the committee agreed that the two-story layout would create the best environment for both students and staff.
In a recent straw poll, the citizens of Caribou, Limestone and Stockholm voted to build the school on Bennett Drive. This was one of many steps in the long process of creating a new school in the community.
The next significant step in the process is a referendum vote for the construction itself, which will be wholly funded by the Maine Department of Education, though citizens may have the opportunity to vote on additional elements paid through their tax dollars.
PDT Architects started brainstorming ideas for the new building’s structure and surroundings after the straw poll victory, and Kuniholm presented three conceptual sketches to the committee.
“The idea behind this sketch is that we can move the park,” said Kuniholm while displaying scheme one. “We can still keep the schools in operation and build the school without having to move the kids. Part of the idea with this plan is that the biomass becomes attached to the tech portion of the middle school. Service (entrance) could come from Bennett Drive and then maybe all access to the school comes off Glenn street. In this site, the bus drop-off comes off Glenn Street and there’s a loop that comes off that street for the parking lot.”
This first diagram, which many members of the committee favored, has a central spine going through the school, with one door leading to the bus drop-off and the other door exiting to the playground.
These aspects all caught the committee’s attention, but they were particularly fond of the classroom placement. With the two-floor school diagram, there are five areas of the building that house classrooms based on grades. At the end of a hall near the main entrance, there are three preK classrooms on one side and three kindergarten classrooms on the other. This is repeated throughout the first floor with four classes for first- and second-grade area and also for the third- and fourth-grade area. “The central spine organizes everything in the school,” said Kuniholm. “The other thing this diagram speaks to is that there are multiple age groups here so you need multiple play areas. You need some hard ones, soft ones, and you need to be able to plow them.”
The second floor, which is almost entirely dedicated to classrooms, also follows this trend, but with five rooms for grades five through eight.
“As exciting as it would be for Caribou to have a three-story building,” joked RSU 39 board member Ron Willey, “one of the biggest distinctions I see in the floorplans is the way you’ve grouped the classrooms in sketch one. I like the intimate learning areas here.”
“I agree with that analysis,” said PDT Architects Principal Architect Lyndon Keck via Skype call. “You get a sense that it’s more cohesive socially. You feel as though there would be more interaction between staff and kids. On each of the diagrams, Alan has shown where future expansion could be. I think, on scheme one, another option for expansion is to go vertically if indeed the building grows in the future. In either one of those classroom wings you could add a third floor.”
In the past, PDT Architects have created similar vertical expansions to Mt. Blue Middle School in Farmington and at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School in Brunswick.
Kuniholm told the board that he would fine tune scheme one and bring detailed suggestions pertaining to that sketch to the upcoming March 11th meeting. At that date, PDT Architects will present the Building Committee with more specific options for the project, such as the orientation of the building, fitting the diagram’s square footage into what the DOE will allow, biomass configuration, and potential playground locations.
