Freeman Companies Goes Back to School!
September 19th, 2017
THE DESIGNERS AT A GLANCE
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| Heidi Berg Hajna, PLA, ASLA Director of the Landscape Architecture Studio Heidi Hajna is an award-winning Professional Landscape Architect with 31 years of professional experience involving large scale master planning for public improvements, small private site development plans, economic development, streetscape/public spaces, education, historic properties, parks/recreation/trails, public housing and private residential. Her Project Management experience has involved leading a dynamic team of design professionals to create master plans, alternative land use concepts, preliminary design concepts, final design plans, technical analysis design, specifications, and cost estimates. Heidi is known for her dedication to quality designs that cost-effectively enhance sense of place while paying special attention to stakeholders and state and local agencies. |
...... | Paul A. Rodrigues, PE Manager of Civil Engineering Paul Rodrigues is a highly skilled and popular Project Manager with 16 years of civil engineering experience. Mr. Rodrigues' experience includes hydraulic analyses for site development studies, roadway and parking lot storm drainage networks and the analysis and design of retention basins for stormwater management. Throughout his career, Paul has gained a worthy reputation as a reliable and responsible problem-solver for owners and peer collaborators alike. Paul's work as a Project Manager at Freeman Companies focuses largely on public projects, including several Connecticut public school and university buildings, campuses and athletic fields/facilities. A former employee of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, Paul has a unique understanding of compliance and regulations. |
What do you typically do for a school project?
H: When designing for schools, Landscape Architects typically work on playground design, pathways, and parking lots for staff and faculty. These designs can vary a lot based on the size or needs of the school. It's always interesting to figure out creative ways to best use the resources you have in any project; we've even helped design a parking lot that had a playground incorporated into it to better utilize a small space.
P: That's something we've been coming across more and more. Land is running out. Civil engineers typically work on drainage layouts, and making sure parking lots and the surrounding campus around the school buildings are designed in a way that they won't flood. With land becoming more and more limited, many schools are being built on steep slopes or near wetlands, which requires a lot of care, caution, and permitting. With these projects, there is lots of permitting, but not always enough land.
What trends are you seeing in campus design?
H: In terms of safety, a big trend we are seeing in school design is separating drop off's. Schools are growing in size, so making sure that parents, teachers and faculty all have their own designated areas is vital for flow of traffic. We're also seeing a lot of creative and efficient ways for students and faculty to egress from the building in an emergency. It's all about increasing efficiency, no matter what the situation. Outdoor classrooms is another trend, which you will see in New Haven's Strong School.
P: Green infrastructure is also big. Any way that we can incorporate green infrastructure--such as using plantings or rain gardens to aid in drainage, like what we'll see in Amistad--are ways to bring nature back into something that was initially only put there for practicality. All of our designs are also created in compliance with the Connecticut High Performance Building Standards; we want designs that will last for as long as possible and remain high quality throughout the duration of their lifespan.
What is unique about working on schools?
H: Jumping off what Paul was saying; that's very true, land is running out. Something that we're seeing a lot now is re-purposing old buildings. There are a lot of schools being built that are in historic buildings or former industrial buildings. For historical sites, it's always important to maintain the structural integrity of the site while still incorporating modern elements, whereas with old industrial or office buildings, it allows engineers and designers to give a dull, blank slate something innovative and fresh.
Why is the integration of Civil Engineering and Landscape Architecture important to campus design?
P: The two definitely compliment each other. Civil engineering is very much "behind closed doors" in that a lot of what we do helps make things work, but it's not something you necessarily notice about a campus.
H: Yes, and designing a landscape that both looks aesthetically pleasing and functional is vital to every school project. Working together on these projects helps ensure that every campus is pleasing to the eye, but that these eye-catching components also have practical functions that you wouldn't necessarily expect, like a garden that helps prevent parking lots from flooding. Civil engineers would design the drainage leading out of the garden, and LA might design the garden itself and the layout of the surrounding area. You need both to complete a project, and I think bouncing design concepts off of each other creates more space for ingenuity because we bring different perspectives to the same design.
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS, REVISITED
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CREC Museum Academy
Bloomfield, Connecticut
CREC's Museum Academy is an inquiry-based learning environment that incorporates visual and hands on practices for student-learning. It will be opening its doors for the 2017-2018 academic school year.
P: The original structure was an old town school that got torn down. We designed drainage and parking lots for the entire area surrounding the school. We were able to get creative with our drainage design--an open pond was created using wetlands grounds and overgrown plantings to be used as a new stormwater surface detention system. By disguising this system as a natural-looking wetland, we've created something that is aesthetically pleasing and functional to prevent campus flooding. The existing stream crossing was also redesigned with a new culvert that connects two wetland areas. Another element is the natural turf athletic field with underdrainage.
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Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy at the Learning Corridor
Hartford, Connecticut
Freeman Companies was on the team with lead architect TSKP Studio, along with Consulting Engineering Services, Macchi Engineers, and Blades & Gloven. This design team was the recipient of an AIA Connecticut Design Award for this project.
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P: The campus here is completely "hardscape", that is, in an urban setting. It was already a very dense campus--we had to fit an entirely new structure on an already existing site, as well as redirecting utility alignment so that it didn't interfere with the existing utilities already on the campus site. The end result is a compact yet incredibly effective space that has been naturally integrated into the Learning Corridor.
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CREC Aerospace Academy High School
Windsor, Connecticut
P: This campus is incredibly unique both architecturally and because it incorporates so many different design elements that are very effective and intentional. This project consisted of the re-use of an existing office building that was partially demolished and then partially renovated. It's a large space, so there are a lot of different parking areas here and the drainage design is very complex throughout the site to accommodate each areas' purpose. We also designed the campus turf sports field here.
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West Middle Community School
Hartford, Connecticut
P: For this site, Freeman Companies performed grading and access. This is a great example of historic preservation--Because the school is built amongst all these historic buildings, we had to get creative in order to work around them. The playground was placed very intentionally. Much like Trinity, this campus is hardscape, and there were a lot of existing structures we had to work around and pay close attention to.
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Amistad Academy
New Haven, Connecticut
P: A rain garden was created on this campus, and Freeman Companies designed the drainage, grading, and created the landscape layout for the parking lot and surrounding the garden and grounds. The rain garden here is a nice example of taking something practical-like drainage and flooding prevention-and turning into something that's nice to look at and enhances the aesthetics of the site. The athletic field on this urban campus is designed to accommodate multiple sports.
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ON THE BOARDS
Strong 21st Century Communications Magnet and SCSU Lab School
New Haven, Connecticut
H: This is a city elementary school that is being built on the Southern Connecticut State University campus. It's a very integrated educational approach that allows college students pursuing education degrees the opportunity to work with the children in a project-based educational experience. There were a lot of fun challenges on this project in the topography-there are beautiful 200 year-old oak trees that we wanted to preserve and create our designs around, as well as nearby multi-family homes that we needed to consider. And because the school is in an area with a lot of hills, we designed the playground to include a slide that the students can go down that will actually flow with the natural slope of the field.
Another challenge was the emergency exits because the school will be built into a hill. We created a system of ramps and sidewalks working with the existing slopes to create a natural pathway, which is better than all the students walking down the steps would could be potentially dangerous in an emergency. This way, the elementary, pre-K, and kindergarten students can egress from different points throughout the school in a way that is much safer.
This site also features an outdoor classroom under the 200 year-old oak trees; instead of traditional amphitheater seating, we decided to design anchored picnic tables in the area to make the space more interactive and create easier access to the surrounding nature. A fenced in vegetable garden will also be incorporated into the area, available for class curriculum.
The schools vision is to "empower 21st Century learners by giving them the communication, academic, and social skills necessary to succeed in a technologically advancing world," and plans to open in 2019. Second graphic courtesy of JCJ Architecture/Pickard Chilton.
Weaver High School
Hartford, Connecticut
P: For this project, everything but the structure of the school was demolished, so the existing shell of the school, called pile foundation, is being re-purposed to create the new school. Again, we see this as a great way to reuse the old building while also making every aspect of the new building completely modern. Some design elements we'll be seeing with the finished school are new track and field venues, as well as a natural turf multi-purpose sports field.
Our geotechnical team had to run pile tests to ensure the old structure could support new design-now that all the tests have passed, we're ready to go. There is also an existing 109-inch pipe that crosses the site from north to south which we had to work around and reused for storm drainage; another great way to incorporate existing structure into the new design of the school.
The renovation of Weaver High School began in 2014. The school is anticipated to open August 2019.
