Moody Nolan Community Presentation
Feb. 25, 2016 – The Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District community met with the architects who will be designing the upcoming facility projects at Monticello and Roxboro Middle Schools on Wednesday evening.
President Curt Moody and Executive Project Director Anne Hartman were on hand to represent Moody Nolan, the architectural firm chosen by the District to work on the middle schools project. Jack Kellogg, Project Manager for Turner Construction, and Gwenay Coniglio, President of the Coniglio Company, were also there to represent the Construction Manager at Risk (CMR) team.
Moody and Hartman made a presentation to community members explaining the process that will go into designing the middle schools. The two also talked about their firm Moody Nolan (MNI) and its philosophy of “responsive architecture”. MNI does not have a set style that it designs buildings in but rather responds to the specifications of clients and communities.
MNI also uses a design process referred to as the “9 Square Process”. The firm essentially has an internal design competition that begins with nine different designs that are then pared to three and then finally to one consensus-driven design that meets the client’s specifications.
Moody Nolan is still early in the design process. Last week, the firm held a charrette visioning session with representatives from each middle school including staff, students, PTA members, FAC, City Council and teachers’ union members. The purpose of this exercise was for the architects to gauge the group’s reaction to potential design elements or building layouts.
MNI will also present to CH-UH Board members at the March 15 work session, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the BOE Offices in University Heights. The design team is also planning a second community input session for a to-be-determined date in early April.
Roxboro eighth-grader Jonah May attended Wednesday’s meeting and impressed the architects with his own floor-by-floor schematics that he designed for a community project. See the images below for Jonah's designs.
CH-UH community members in attendance expressed their desires for the following issues or building features to be considered:
- Auditoriums – Many community members made it clear that they value having a dedicated performance space in each middle school building.
- ADA accessibility
- Community gathering spaces with a specific community entrance
- Respect the neighborhood context in terms of building design
- Outdoor learning space
- Bigger study hall space
- Kitchens for students to cook in
- Safety features
- Technology support
- Sustainability measures
- Parking, traffic flow and student drop-off points
- Keep teachers engaged in the design process
- Equity between the Roxboro and Monticello sites
- Possibility of having just one middle school
- Advantages of renovating the existing facilities versus building new
- Heating and maintenance costs
The design team will now take the community input and include it with their on-going assessments of the middle school sites and buildings.
Roxboro 8th-grader Jonah May's Design Schematics:
