Fairfield Welcomes Architects of Burr Elementary to Speak to Students

Perspective design was one of the many concepts discussed as Burr Elementary School’s fourth and fifth-graders enjoyed a visit from the architects who designed their school, which included internationally renowned architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM).

Chris McCready, architect, SOM Director, and the project manager for Burr School, and Scott Duncan, architect and SOM Director, and the senior designer for Burr School, treated students to an informative afternoon.

Tracing the building’s design from initial concept and site planning, through design and construction – the architects held the students’ attention throughout.

“It was inspiring to sense such positive energy about the school’s design coming from the kids and teachers,” Duncan said.

Specially molded steel beams were created to construct interior courtyards that bring nature inside the school, and allow for open reading nooks. Motivated also by the desire to vary the traditional layout of a school, curvilinear passageways fill the space with light, allowing the flow of the imagination for students and staff alike.

“The building’s design concept — to bring nature to the day-to-day experience of the students — really works,” Duncan said. “The students, faculty, staff and parents have embraced that idea and have made it part of learning at Burr.”

A winner of numerous awards for its design, Burr School is constantly studied and held up as an example of great design, even ten years after opening its doors.

“It is so rewarding to visit the school 10 years later and see that the building is still beautiful and how much the students and faculty appreciate being there,” McCready said.

SOM sought the commission of Burr School as part of its then new education studio, whose mission is to provide great design while respecting the limits of municipal budgets, making leading edge design accessible to entire communities.

“During our talk it was so interesting to hear that everyone thought Burr was a more expensive school than others in Fairfield,” McCready said. “This was not the case. Burr was built at the same time as McKinley School and was actually less expensive per square foot. Innovative design doesn’t need to cost more.”

Also highlighted in the presentation were examples of SOM’s recent projects. These included McCready’s award-winning design for the University Center at the New School in Manhattan, and Duncan’s stunning Pertamina Energy Tower in Jakarta, Indonesia, which is “the world’s first supertall tower for which energy is the primary design driver” as it generates its own wind power via a dramatic opening at the top of the 99 story skyscraper.

The students were very excited to learn about one of SOM’s newest schools, slated to open in the fall of 2015, Staten Island’s P.S. 62 — the first “net zero energy” school in New York City and one of the first of its kind worldwide.

McCready said the future of architecture and engineering is sustainability, and he issued a challenge to our future leaders to be bold innovators in this area.

Great design can and does inspire, the speakers said. Students saw that physical space can be a manifestation of a vibrant learning community.

Many students at Burr have expressed an interest in becoming architects, and the robust Q&A session with dozens of queries from the students underscores the speakers’ the hopes that a whole new generation of visionary engineers and architects will trace the seeds of their future calling to their days in the light filled, meandering corridors of Burr Elementary School.