KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- After a redesign for the Kaiserslautern High School to incorporate 21st-century learning criteria, the school's construction was one-third complete in late September.
The Department of Defense Education Activity defines 21st-century learning facilities as collaborative, flexible and dynamic. The 21st-century schools will support student-centered learning and provide continuity to military children worldwide, according to the agency's website.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is one of the design and construction agents for the construction and renovation of DoDEA schools worldwide. The program, with a cost of nearly $4 billion, launched in 2010. Shortly afterward, DoDEA introduced 21st-century learning criteria, which meant the original plan for Kaiserslautern High School, and other school designs, were updated and USACE redesigned the schools implementing the 21st-century criteria, said Bernhard Ochsenreither, a USACE Europe District project engineer who has been involved with the project since its inception.
Erika Sparkman, district project manager for the Kaiserslautern High School, said the school will feature a commons area that will function as a lunch room and a performance space. Branching off the commons will be seven learning neighborhoods that will include learning hubs and learning studios. This is a shift from individual classrooms. The more flexible spaces will accommodate large, medium and small groups, one-to-one pairings and individual learning, which are a feature of 21st-century schools.
There will be science labs, an art studio, a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps center with a pellet firing range and a functional area for music education. Also included is a new gym that includes spectator seating, locker rooms, a weight training and fitness room and an auxiliary gym that can be used for dance classes, table tennis, wrestling or other activities.
The 185,100 square-feet facility will have clerestory windows and skylights to provide natural lighting, and in each of the neighborhoods will be an enclosed green wall with a skylight as part of the three-dimensional learning space, Ochsenreither said.
The $74 million high school will have a "green" roof that will capture 70 percent of the rainwater and provide insulation. Ochsenreither said this type of green roof is maintenance free because the plants are similar to ground cover and won't grow higher than 4 inches.
This element is one of the reasons the school is on track to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Sustainability and energy efficiency are hallmarks for 21st century schools, according to DoDEA.
The building is designed to use 30 percent less water to save more than 300,000 gallons of water per year and to consume 54 percent less energy which should result in an anticipated annual energy cost saving of $182,000 for the life of the project, said Rich Gifaldi, Sustainability program manager for the district.
DoDEA received a LEARNING BY DESIGN excellence award for the Kaiserslautern High School design in 2013 because it encourages students to use the building as a living classroom. The architecture firm SchenkelShultz, one of several teams that worked on this project, submitted the design.
The building should be completely "rain tight" by early December, said Ochsenreither as he described how computer-aided design and computer-integrated machining tested the steelworkers' abilities.
There is a 5 millimeter (the size of a pencil eraser) leeway when placing the round, main steel beams, he explained. But the connecting beams are so exact the steelworkers had to remove and reposition them in order to make them fit.
The steelworkers were frustrated, but it didn't destroy the schedule, Ochsenreither continued.
Angel Hernandez, a facilities engineer for DoDEA, said the school's mascot, the Raider, will remain the same when the school opens for the 2018-19 school year with a potential enrollment of 850 students.
Dr. Barriett Smith, Kaiserslautern High School principal, said the community is very excited about the new high school.
"I hear from parents all the time about how they drive by periodically to see the progress in construction," Smith continued. "The current building has been here for 60 years and has served our students well, but the advances in design and capabilities offered by the new school provide even more resources to prepare our kids for college and careers in the 21st century."
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