Committee on Architecture for Education

Message: I recieved an interesting email from Howard Partch regarding small rural schools.  Please take a moment to read below and let me know your thoughts:

Dear Brian, I am a seven year retired architect who lived in Alaska and moved to Anacortes, WA in December 0f 2010. I was wondering about small, isolated rural schools in the 48 states and if some were struggling with reduced populations and higher energy costs. I believe it may be possible to cold soak portions of these facilities and make standard energy improvements to bring these facilities back to a more efficient status. In early 1980's we cold soaked a MAR Facility for the Air Force at Tin City, Alaska. It turned out well as we re-insulated the resulting smaller, usable, existing building for a fragment of the operating force originally conceived for the building. As I said earlier, I have been inactive for seven years, unlicensed for three months and my expertise is obviously out of date. Still, rural Alaska afforded me a unique opportunity to deal with a number of house-sized rural schools existing in places you would not believe. My 40 year Alaska experience included 100 buildings, 60 of which were schools. IE: you might want to check out one Alaska rural school (Google Earth Nelson Lagoon, Alaska). In my day, the runway you now see did not exist. We landed on the beach or in a field to reach the village. Our Nelson Lagoon school in the 1980's (shown larger today) consisted of three classrooms, a small library alcove, a shop and two toilet/shower areas. It was built over an all-weather wood basement/foundation for ME area. We also used Elymus Mulis planted as you would corn to stabilize the adjacent sand soil. Being so close to the ocean there were no soil binders to hold things together. Finally, the close presence of the ocean to Nelson lagoon (the village sits on a narrow spit) made it necessary to excavate for a horizontal infiltration gallery to grab a shallow aquifer of drinkable water. Normal wells would be too salty. Enough said. However, I hope some of the small rural schools in the U.S. could be saved rather than having rural students spend even more time on the bus traveling to larger, regional schools. Howard A. Partch

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Brian Minnich AIA
Rubeling & Associates, Inc.
Towson MD
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Rex Peterson AIA
Baker & Associates
Scottsbluff NE
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What is "cold soaked"?





Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2012 09:08
From: Brian Minnich
Subject: Small Rural Schools

Message: I recieved an interesting email from Howard Partch regarding small rural schools.  Please take a moment to read below and let me know your thoughts:

Dear Brian, I am a seven year retired architect who lived in Alaska and moved to Anacortes, WA in December 0f 2010. I was wondering about small, isolated rural schools in the 48 states and if some were struggling with reduced populations and higher energy costs. I believe it may be possible to cold soak portions of these facilities and make standard energy improvements to bring these facilities back to a more efficient status. In early 1980's we cold soaked a MAR Facility for the Air Force at Tin City, Alaska. It turned out well as we re-insulated the resulting smaller, usable, existing building for a fragment of the operating force originally conceived for the building. As I said earlier, I have been inactive for seven years, unlicensed for three months and my expertise is obviously out of date. Still, rural Alaska afforded me a unique opportunity to deal with a number of house-sized rural schools existing in places you would not believe. My 40 year Alaska experience included 100 buildings, 60 of which were schools. IE: you might want to check out one Alaska rural school (Google Earth Nelson Lagoon, Alaska). In my day, the runway you now see did not exist. We landed on the beach or in a field to reach the village. Our Nelson Lagoon school in the 1980's (shown larger today) consisted of three classrooms, a small library alcove, a shop and two toilet/shower areas. It was built over an all-weather wood basement/foundation for ME area. We also used Elymus Mulis planted as you would corn to stabilize the adjacent sand soil. Being so close to the ocean there were no soil binders to hold things together. Finally, the close presence of the ocean to Nelson lagoon (the village sits on a narrow spit) made it necessary to excavate for a horizontal infiltration gallery to grab a shallow aquifer of drinkable water. Normal wells would be too salty. Enough said. However, I hope some of the small rural schools in the U.S. could be saved rather than having rural students spend even more time on the bus traveling to larger, regional schools. Howard A. Partch

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Brian Minnich AIA
Rubeling & Associates, Inc.
Towson MD
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Here is a link regarding cold-soak:
http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/743.html
It is basically the concept of long term storage of buildings, aircraft, etc.

I had the pleasure of working with Howard many years ago, and went on to design many rural schools in Alaska.  Decades ago, legislation was passed to require the state to provide educational facilities for rural communities so that they wouldn't have to export their children to boarding schools, with the risk that they may never move back, and with great loss to local community and culture.

Under more recent legislation, the state could cut funding if the school population fell below 10 students. I had a 2-3 classroom school that fell into that category and had to be put into "cold storage" or cold-soaked.  

The idea that Howard proposed was to decommission only part of a school's mech/elec systems, and to run the downsized schools more efficiently. 

I'm not aware if there is a need for the downsizing of existing schools in the lower 48, but I do remember the sad esthetic results of efforts of the late 70's to brick up the windows of beautiful old schools, to accommodate smaller glazed openings in the interest of energy efficiency. I went to a windowless high school that was desigend during that period of time.  It was subsequently renovated after all the daylighting in education research came out.

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Marcie Errico AIA
Studio Errico, LLC
Anchorage AK
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-11-2012 07:55
From: Rex Peterson
Subject: Small Rural Schools



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Rex Peterson AIA
Baker & Associates
Scottsbluff NE
-------------------------------------------

What is "cold soaked"?





Original Message:
Sent: 04-10-2012 09:08
From: Brian Minnich
Subject: Small Rural Schools

Message: I recieved an interesting email from Howard Partch regarding small rural schools.  Please take a moment to read below and let me know your thoughts:

Dear Brian, I am a seven year retired architect who lived in Alaska and moved to Anacortes, WA in December 0f 2010. I was wondering about small, isolated rural schools in the 48 states and if some were struggling with reduced populations and higher energy costs. I believe it may be possible to cold soak portions of these facilities and make standard energy improvements to bring these facilities back to a more efficient status. In early 1980's we cold soaked a MAR Facility for the Air Force at Tin City, Alaska. It turned out well as we re-insulated the resulting smaller, usable, existing building for a fragment of the operating force originally conceived for the building. As I said earlier, I have been inactive for seven years, unlicensed for three months and my expertise is obviously out of date. Still, rural Alaska afforded me a unique opportunity to deal with a number of house-sized rural schools existing in places you would not believe. My 40 year Alaska experience included 100 buildings, 60 of which were schools. IE: you might want to check out one Alaska rural school (Google Earth Nelson Lagoon, Alaska). In my day, the runway you now see did not exist. We landed on the beach or in a field to reach the village. Our Nelson Lagoon school in the 1980's (shown larger today) consisted of three classrooms, a small library alcove, a shop and two toilet/shower areas. It was built over an all-weather wood basement/foundation for ME area. We also used Elymus Mulis planted as you would corn to stabilize the adjacent sand soil. Being so close to the ocean there were no soil binders to hold things together. Finally, the close presence of the ocean to Nelson lagoon (the village sits on a narrow spit) made it necessary to excavate for a horizontal infiltration gallery to grab a shallow aquifer of drinkable water. Normal wells would be too salty. Enough said. However, I hope some of the small rural schools in the U.S. could be saved rather than having rural students spend even more time on the bus traveling to larger, regional schools. Howard A. Partch

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Brian Minnich AIA
Rubeling & Associates, Inc.
Towson MD
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