450 architects Sketchbook

A competition organized by wonderful people of GOOD, LAUSD, The USDA People’s Garden Initiative, The Environmental Media Association, The National Gardening Association, The Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, The California School Garden Network, and Mia Lehrer & Associates challenged designers to create a multipliable module which transforms a boring, blacktop playground into an outdoor sanctuary enriched with green school yard components. These exciting new elements create environments conducive for elementary school children to learn more about plants, wildlife, and the earth upon which we live.

450 is proud to have entered the competition with our, designed to engage a child’s imagination in fun and creative ways.

GROW - edible foods and community
LIVE - witness the life-cycle of plants and animals
LEARN - explore, dream, touch, think, nurture
FLOW - life forces, harmony, connection, water, animals, plants, and people

Our primary goal is to make learning a life-long, fun experience. We believe an effective outdoor learning classroom combined with an experientially based curriculum will have a positive impact for the life of the child. We have designed a green schoolyard with a wheelchair accessible outdoor classroom, edible garden, interpretive center, water features, solar collectors, solar oven, tool storage, and native, butterfly and aquatic plant gardens.

Our concept features natural materials combined in an artful and expressive manner. The outdoor classroom is designed as a series of spaces – connecting and flowing into each other. The Interpretive Center is made from recycled tree trunks and has space for teaching/learning, a solar oven for cooking food, and solar collectors on its roof to heat water and run the water feature pumps. The edible garden has space for growing fruits and vegetables, benches, railings and a trellis made from tree branches – reinforcing the connection of learning with nature. The water feature is designed to be fed from rain water and flow through the garden linking the spaces creating a variety of plant and animal micro-climates.

The 20′ x 20′ module is designed to be scalable to different school sites, incorporating adjacent spaces and functions, and capable of maintaining its own intimate learning experiences. We envision children using all the spaces simultaneously – learning at their own pace – as a community, sharing and working together.

Local School:
20′ x 20′ module designed to be located on the existing playground at Bancroft Middle School, LAUSD

Design Components:

• boulders
• edible garden top soil
• fruit trees
• irrigation system
• native plants, aquatic plants, and seeds
• path (decomposed granite or bark)
• rain water collector
• solar collectors (hot water & electric)
• solar oven
• tools
• trees for trellis structure
• tree stumps for seating
• tree branches for benches and railings
• water feature pumps, filter piping and valves

We commend GOOD, LAUSD, The USDA People’s Garden Initiative, The Environmental Media Association, The National Gardening Association, The Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, The California School Garden Network, and Mia Lehrer & Associates for organizing this design competition.