Background: The vocal demand on teachers may predispose them to vocal difficulties. This concern is exacerbated by unfavourable classroom acoustics and a large number of learners in a classroom in developing countries such as South Africa. There is a dearth of classroom acoustic protocols in South Africa, which intensifies the effect of noise on…

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is in need of several thousand houses to alleviate overcrowding and improve living conditions. The United States government has failed to provide appropriate or sufficient housing and other individuals and organizations that have attempted to build homes for the Lakota have met with widely varying results. This paper…

The two campuses that make up the West Valley-Mission Community College District (WVMCCD) in northern California's Santa Clara County share a history typical of many community colleges across the country. Its buildings were constructed in the 1960s and '70s, and like many public structures of that vintage, today they bear the ravages of time--in…

Efforts to reinvent public education in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have drawn such interest that it's easy to lose sight of some very concrete changes that will become obvious over time: A generation of brand-new school buildings is rising across the city. New Orleans is in the early stages of a construction spree both to build and…

Shelter has been a concern of humans and animals alike for the millennia. Animals, through their natural instincts, build nests and shelters to meet their needs for protection against predators and seasonal changes in the weather. Early humans sought shelter in caves and cliff dwellings and later began to design and build shelters based on the…

This article presents an activity that gives students a practical understanding of how much energy the average home consumes and wastes, and shows how the construction technologies used in home design affect overall energy usage. In this activity, students will outline the cost of a home's electrical system, give a breakdown of how much power the…

The authors describe their individual and collective experiences reconstructing their New Orleans-based university composition program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They emphasize how the concept of "floating foundations" helps account for changes in their students' interests, and they suggest that this idea is applicable to the…

Discusses how charter schools often struggle in their search for suitable educational facilities, and offers some possible solutions such as cooperative ownership. (EV)

Describes how developing a master plan can help school districts anticipate their facility needs and the problems that may arise, and help school administrators articulate their expectations to educational planners and architects. (EV)

A growing school population and deteriorating facilities are among the problems faced by the nation's educational system. Finding solutions to both the overcrowding and the crumbling condition of this nation's schools has fueled a bit of a construction boom, first among colleges and now in the nation's school districts. Within different states and…

Delineates the enrollment, program, and funding factors that contributed to a facilities crisis in the Fairfax County Public Schools, explains the planning process implemented to address them, and offers suggestions for adaptation by other institutions of learning. The focus is on the need to be proactive, to scan the environment for change, and…

In the future, administrators will devote more time to master planning for their districts' facility needs. More attention will be given to form, shape, surfaces, size, and materials. This article outlines internal assessment questions to be asked by planners, discusses common facility design complaints, and recommends using a facility assessment…

A fifth- and sixth-grade project is described that requires each student to build a bridge to specified dimensions using only specified materials. (MK)

To meet the need for a new 750-student elementary school and avoid future underuse problems in one Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland) neighborhood, Thomas Clark Associates developed a program of prefabricated classroom and classroom support spaces. This program will allow the school to be moved to another site if enrollment changes. (MLH)

Labor requirements dropped about 20 percent during a nine-year period, partially because of labor-saving devices such as modular and prefabricated units. During the same period, the cost of building college housing increased 74 percent. (Editor)