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RENDERINGS COURTESY STANTEC D eveloping plans for the Emerald Ridge Elementary School in White City, Saskatchewan involved international travel to the U.S., countless meetings with stakeholders and community members, and creating a full-scale mock up to �ine-tune the design. The end result has everyone involved excited about the school's of�icial opening in September 2014. Bev Kowalchuk, principal of Emerald Ridge Elementary School, has been involved with the project from its inception. "We are so fortunate because our CEO/director of education, deputy director, CFO and the Board of Education made the conscientious decision to hire the principal designate a year in advance," she says. "Our CEO and director Ben Grebinski is a long-time edu- cator and has experience in designing and opening schools," adds Lyle Stecyk, superintendent of project management for Prairie Valley School Division. "Together with our CEO and deputy director, Naomi Mellor, they were instrumental in pulling together the vision, concept and design. This school is really needed because the community is growing quickly and the only other elementary school in the area was having signi�icant enrolment and utilization pressures." Stecyk says the new school, built to LEED Silver, is a good balance of traditional, practical educational space and new concepts that facilitate the abilities for educators to deliver the curriculum. "Students all have different learning styles and the openness and �lexibility of this design works well to accommodate how the classes are being taught today." The K-8 is in a unique region where residential develop- ment butts up against the town of White City. "Emerald Ridge Elementary School is built on 10 acres, and will be one of the top three schools in the province," says Ben Kuzmicz, presi- dent, Great Plains Leaseholds Limited. "They have an excellent principal in Bev Kowalchuk and when you talk to the people in the Department of Education, this is the school of choice for teachers if they have the opportunity to work here." Kuzmicz says the new school �its well into a socioeco- nomic group of people that his company sell residential lots to. "From a developer's point of view, there will be no prob- lem �illing seats in this school quite quickly with many young families moving into the area. The school is a key component of people buying homes in the subdivision." With these demo- graphics in mind, a 51-spot daycare was also incorporated into the design. Stantec brought its creative team together to develop a design that incorporated all of the components in the tender LOCATION 15 Motherwell Drive, White City, Saskatchewan OWNER/DEVELOPER Prairie Valley School Division and Saskatchewan Ministry of Education PROJECT DEVELOPER Great Plains Leaseholds Ltd. ARCHITECT/STRUCTURAL/ MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Stantec GENERAL CONTRACTOR Quorex Construction Services Ltd. TOTAL AREA 60,536 square feet TOTAL COST $18 million for Emerald Ridge Elementary School. "The initial design was meant to break the traditional mold of what a school design is," says Bron Nurkowski, principal/project architect. "Our philosophy, together with the Prairie Valley School Division's philosophy, treated every area as a learning space, whether it was a corridor, a hub, or a classroom. We also considered how we could make the school an experience more than just a function." Part of that experience involved recognizing it is a prai- rie school so prairie landscapes were incorporated into the design features through the school to separate the individual learning pods. Grades K to two is called the Spring Field, with appropriate colour coordination, the grades three to �ive classrooms will be referenced as the Summer Field and the middle years – grades six to eight classrooms – are referred to as the Harvest Field. A �lowing river design is incorporated into the �looring throughout the school. "The nicest feature is the way the stage or performing arts area/band room has been placed in the middle of the school together with the hub and the gym. The music room opens up on two sides – one side onto the hub, which opens up to the gym. There is a movable wall between the gym and the hub, and a movable wall between the hub and the stage area," says Nurkowski. The �lexibility factor of the school's design also includes overhead doors incorporated in classrooms to create a sense of openness. "We've used sliding glass doors for a number of rooms considered project zones," says Nurkowski. "This cre- ates options between the corridor and the spaces so that the classroom can spill into the corridor when required and vice versa. A classroom can also meld into the classroom across the hallway if needed. The garage door itself has etched glass three quarters of the way up so when direct instruction in a quiet classroom is required, the option is there." He says a signi�icant amount of glazing allows natural light to �low into the rooms, which is bene�icial on dull winter days. "Having the natural light also allows students to relax their eyes from studying by looking to the nature outside." Other unique educational factors at Emerald Ridge Elementary School are the cutaways to expose the con- struction process. "We have one area that is covered with glass to see the pipes for the in-�loor heating, and a wall sec- tion has been cut away to show the steel studs, wiring and plumbing," says Rylan Grueter, project manager with Quorex Construction Services Ltd. "The crew was intrigued that they had to create a clean rough-in for an educational piece rather than cover- ing everything," says Grueter. He adds that one of the challenges of the project was co-ordinating the custom-designed items, such as the decorative ceiling clouds in the exposed ceiling areas. Kowalchuk is looking forward to opening day in September. "The �irst K-8 school in this area was built 32 years ago. This school is an exciting and neces- sary addition to the community." ■ Emerald Ridge Elementary School by Laurie Jones AUGUST 2014 /71 Emerald Ridge Elementary School