Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1408886
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 1 | 77 Donna Gabriel Robins Elementary School R EN D ER I N GS CO U RT E SY S TAT I O N O N E A RC H I T EC T S DONNA GABRIEL ROBINS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL by SUSAN PEDERSON P hillis Giovani, principal of Donna Gabriel Robins Elementary, feels deeply honoured to be at the helm at Donna Gabriel Robins Elementary School, which is sited on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Kwantlen First Nation. "I had the pleasure of working with Donna Gabriel Robins when I was the principal at Fort Langley Elementary from 2010 – 2014," says Giovani. Donna Gabriel Robins is a recently retired, well-respected teacher in the Langley School District, and was lead of their Aboriginal Program for 26 years. This is the first time the Langley Board of Education has named a school after a member of the Kwantlen First Nation, where Gabriel Robins is from. The new school is designed to accommodate 475 grades one to five students, 80 kindergarten students, and up to 85 in childcare. "Many older schools have fewer classrooms in their buildings than this one, which has 23 and three neighbourhood learning cen- tres," says Giovani. "The modern design, including the interior hall- way floor-to-ceiling glass walls on the classrooms, will make learning more visible," she says. "The east facing glass wall is some- thing we don't always get to do, especially in a school setting," adds Alvin Bartel, partner with Station One Architects. "We try to maxi- mize glazing wherever we can and bring that glazing right down to the ground, especially in elementary schools where kids are shorter. Light is extremely important. Studies show learning and retention improve when kids learn in natural light. The glazed wall leads into the common corri- dor area. It stems from 20th century learning and trying to create stimulat- ing areas in a lot of our schools." Giovani sees the learning commons and multi-purpose room as the ideal spaces for teaching the applied design and skills technology portion of the B.C. Curriculum. "We want to be a place where students can also innovate and par- ticipate in things like coding and project-based learning, and where multiple grades and classrooms can meet to collaborate," Giovani says. Bartel adds that the school also features smaller learning pods that facilitate connection between students, and notes that the school is designed not just for 20th century learning, but also hits high marks for safety and sus- tainability, all while being constructed on a site that was less than ideal. "We incorporated a lot of glulams, which are very safe in a fire, because they char, but they don't burn, and we also used many other natural materi- als produced in B.C.," adds Bartel. The school is a partial single and two-storey design that takes advan- tage of the deep and narrow site, which needed significant alterations before the school design came to frui- tion, most notably excavating a large portion in order to level the ground, while maintaining the health of a creek on the north end of the site. "This was by far the trickiest part of the project," explains Steve Hawboldt, president of Yellowridge Construction. "It took a lot of co-ordination with the environmental and civil construction co-ordinator through the winter, to ensure things like the sediment isn't flowing into the creek and impact- ing the waterways … it's a unique challenge specific to this site, and we wanted to ensure the build was conducted in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way." Another tricky aspect of the project was the construction of an entirely new street in this rapidly-growing area. "Langley is growing so fast, and in order to keep pace with the area it made sense to construct a new road- way. There is a lot of construction going on all around the site as well," Hawboldt adds. While the materials throughout the project are pretty stan- dard, the application in this project, given the constraints of the loca- tion, make for a very well-adapted, and attractive project, no matter what angle it is viewed from. "We wanted to find a solution rather than stepping the school down on multiple levels. As you are look- ing down on the school in some places from an elevated portion of the site, we wanted to provide interesting roof planes," says Bartel. "Large cantilever sections provide visual interest with the metal roofing. We tried to hide some of the systems on the rooftop and added some nice exterior finishes, like flat metal panels and channel sid- ing designed to lessen the impact of the long, narrow design. It is a resi- dential area and using some of those more familiar materials that are typi- cally used on houses means the kids would intuitively feel at home." "This building says that learn- ing begins at age zero, not at age five," says Giovani. "My biggest hope is that Donna Gabriel Robins Elementary will be a school where everyone works hard and knows they are valued and that they belong." A LOCATION 7844 204B Street, Langley, B.C. OWNER /DEVELOPER Langley School District #35 ARCHITECT/L ANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Station One Architects GENER AL CONTR ACTOR Yellowridge Construction STRUCTUR AL CONSULTANT Bush, Bohlman & Partners LLP MECHANICAL CONSULTANT Integral Group ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT Jarvis Engineering Consultants Ltd. BUILDING ENVELOPE CONSULTANT CSA Building Services Western TOTAL SIZE 4,377 square metres TOTAL COST $28.6 million