Charter schools are amazingly resourceful; they’ll ferret out some bruised gem of a building and then do what’s necessary to make it good for their students. It’s not perfect but it works. Our job with KIPP was to bring their existing facility closer to perfect.
Project Highlights
Type: Education, Adaptive Re-Use
Size: 60,000 SF
Location: Minneapolis
Completion: 2020
Project Collaborators
RJM Construction www.rjmconstruction.com
TenSquare Charter School Support www.thetensquaregroup.com
Schools with dignity mean kids with dignity.
KIPP’s building was originally an elementary school built in the 1950s. Its spaces had since become outdated and dilapidated from decades of deferred maintenance. The cafeteria was so undersized many students ate their lunch behind ratty stage curtains in the gym. Some teachers had to office out of mechanical rooms with furnaces belching hot air inches from their desks. Cracked windows and crumbling brick were aplenty. It had become a place that no longer offered students the dignity they deserved.
On top of these existing issues, the school was expanding and needed more space. We were able to stretch their budget to cover both a comprehensive interior remodel and a new addition that provided more space to meet their growing demands. The new addition provided more classrooms for the kids. But it also added office space and a conference room for the teachers, whose comfort and welfare is too often overlooked. So beyond the new offices, we worked to squeeze every square foot out of the existing building towards to win them more of what they needed. By strategically repositioning secondary spaces, we were able to carve out a dedicated breakroom.. Kids come first but teachers do too.
