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AUGUST 2016 | 67 St. Mary Catholic School PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY GRANDE PRAIRIE CATHOLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT; ACI ARCHITECTS INC. St. Mary Catholic School by LAURIE JONES I n the northern Alberta town of Beaverlodge, elementary school children are excited to be finishing their year off in the newly built St. Mary Catholic School. The current school's enrolment is 170 students but the new building will easily house 200 with future expansion capabilities to accommodate 300 children from kindergarten to Grade 9. "The uniqueness of the design is it has a lot of flexible spaces for students," says Karl Germann, superintendent of the Grande Prairie and District Catholic Schools. "We are trying to move away from the composite high school plan with one main hallway to having a lot of gathering areas. That is an important part of the Catholic school system because working on projects together and meeting in one area creates a stronger sense of family in the student and staff community." Another unique addition to the building comes by way of food preparations. "We have a traditional five-station food lab, but we also put a commercial kitchen next to it for future use. Then the school can have it for a variety of community events and they can cater out of either kitchen," Germann says. "Our main purpose for doing this was to get the community more involved with the school, from seniors doing some canning to a wedding reception." The other major expansion to St. Mary's amenities is the gymnasium. "The School Board contributed $1-million towards the construction of a high school-sized gym that is double the size of the old school to host provincial sports events and other large gatherings," Germann adds. To further ensure the students stay active, St. Mary includes a brand new playground that was secured when parents raised $200,000 for its cost. Germann says he loves the architectural design of this school because there is so much natural light. "It was amazing to see everyone's reaction because the students and staff did not do an early tour. The kids were walking around with their jaws open and everyone had big smiles." St. Mary Catholic School was part of a dual design build project with the Robert W. Zahara Public School in nearby Sexsmith, Alberta. Brett Woodrow, architect/associate with Workun Garrick Partnership and bridging architects for Alberta Infrastructure TWGP personalizes the schools to suit the client's needs. "The government has core designs that are used repeatedly throughout the province but modified to suit the school programing, area and student population," Woodrow says. "The footprints are exactly the same size as the previous schools and modular classrooms are added as required. All schools in Alberta need to be LEED Silver-certified, so we also take that into consideration." He says the open ceilings are another new design aspect that has been added to the basic features of the school. Devin McIntosh, associate with ACI Architects Inc., says that with the St. Mary design, the most important thing about the layouts of the rooms was the flexibility for different types of use for current programs and future use. "At St. Mary the drama room has operable walls that face both into the gym and into the flex space, which has a glass operable wall into the library. They can open all three walls and have a clear path from the library, through the flex space, through the drama room and into the gym." McIntosh adds that the colour scheme for the exterior of the school is blue in keeping with the old school's colour. On the interior, lively colours dominate the rooms that appeal to the elementary school students. "There are 18 colours that cross the spectrum of hues on the walls and six different flooring colours in both St. Mary and Robert W. Zahara schools," says McIntosh. "Kids have a lot of energy which does not suit having a room with just one colour," he explains. The construction and design team was able to tour other schools in the area to incorporate interesting features into this design build. "Seeing other schools allows our projects to keep getting better, like adding a shutter that opens from the kitchen to the gym for events," says Rene Dubeau, senior project manager, Jen- Col Construction Ltd. "The St. Mary project required the addition of two large water tanks to compensate for low water pressure at the school. This system can also be used by the fire department in case of emergencies."

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