Ehrman Crest Elementary and Middle School is worthy of a Rethinking the Future award as it could truly forever change what’s possible in elementary school design.
Rethinking The Future Awards 2024
First Award | Interior Design Elements (Built)
Project Name: Ehrman Crest Elementary and Middle School
Category: Interior Design Elements (Built)
Studio Name: CannonDesign
The Seneca Valley School District and our design team wanted to create the best learning space and experience possible for students. With this as our quest, the decision was made to partner with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Children’s museums and elementary schools are working to achieve the same goals-educate and inspire children-but they come at it in very different ways. We believed the partnership would empower us to create a space that is more compelling, joyful, exciting and successful for students.
The result is a building that truly redefines learning and makes it possible everywhere-in classrooms, yes, but also the school’s corridors, outdoor spaces, group learning areas, its solar array and green roof, along peg walls, via environmental graphics and beyond.
As children would see in a museum, Ehrman Crest simultaneously brings multiple learning modes together-stunning artwork and photography engage visual learners, intriguing objects captivate tactile learners and interactive exhibits allow learning to soar.
This is also a massive departure from traditional school buildings that are composed of classrooms and assembly spaces that typically direct the types of learning and interaction students experience within them. At Ehrman Crest, fluid programming offers various experiences that develop critical thinking skills throughout the building. Students embark on an academic and physical journey through a series of porous environments—a room, collaboration space, work-in-progress area or the outdoors—to exercise choice in a truly unique way. The result is a captivating environment that transforms historically unused features of a school’s-built environment into educational elements that promote out-of-classroom learning.
At Ehrman Crest, students learn through individual instruction as well as group experiences. To accommodate both, each grade level is structured in communities that include classrooms, a collaborative area and small-group instruction rooms. This format caters to academic and emotional needs of students by creating adjacent spaces for teachers and students to engage in one-on-one instruction and for students to work in groups.
It is paramount to mention that Seneca Valley is a public school district. And, the infusion of these children’s design museum principles did not elevate the project budget, it just required reallocation of funds. This again is evidence that other school districts can absolutely follow their lead.
We are hopeful Ehrman Crest is a pivotal moment in the history of children’s school design. One, that turns heads, and makes others realize just what’s possible with creative thinking and design. Ehrman Crest is unlike any other school, but a decade from now this could be much more common worldwide.
