Galesburg CUSD #205’s Bright Futures Preschool one of three schools to receive Illinois Association of School Boards’ Award of Merit recognizing outstanding school design and planning
Galesburg Community Unit School District #205’s Bright Futures Preschool received an Award of Merit at the Illinois Association of School Boards’ (IASB) 2023 Joint Annual Conference. The project, which transformed a department store-turned-church into a preschool and an administration center, was one of only three entries to win the Award of Merit.
The annual competition, sponsored by IASB Service Associates, is judged by architects and school district superintendents. It recognizes outstanding examples of school design and planning. Criteria considered for each project include challenges met, design, energy use reduction, safety, and how well each facility meets the educational needs of students.
Bright Futures and the recent Galesburg Junior Senior High School expansion and renovation were both displayed at the conference’s 2023 Exhibition of Educational Environments. Both projects were designed by Legat and built by Russell.
The Need for Change
Galesburg CUSD #205 housed its preschool program in a school designed for older students. Because classrooms had no connected restrooms, teachers had to walk students to restrooms at the end of a long corridor. The district also needed more preschool classrooms.
A History of Reinvention
The 54,000-square-foot facility across from Galesburg High School was built in the early 1970s as a Belscot discount store. The following decades brought additional manifestations including a regional retail chain and an educational supplies reuse warehouse. In 2011, Northwoods Community Church purchased the building and carved out a worship space, a school, and a resale shop.
Ten years later, CUSD #205 leased the church’s unused warehouse space for the Galesburg Area Vocational Center. That same year, the district purchased the entire facility with hopes of transforming the church portions into a preschool.
An Age-Appropriate Preschool
The district and Legat embarked on a project to create a developmentally appropriate, play-based preschool, as well as administrative offices. The design team conducted early learner research and led Galesburg CUSD #205 leaders on tours of Chicago-area early learning facilities. This resulted in the following programmatic objectives:
- Create a setting that inspires curiosity and captures the joy of learning but also reduces anxiety among students.
- Incorporate components that connect students with nature and welcome more daylight.
- Distinguish preschool and administrative functions but also offer visual connections between the two.
- Conceal the existing facility’s most unattractive elements.
The resulting 28,000-square-foot Bright Futures Preschool welcomes Galesburg CUSD #205’s youngest learners to a light-filled sanctuary where learning and nature unite. An adjacent center with offices and meeting rooms houses district administrative staff.
Curves, Nature, and Light: Enlivening a Nondescript Rectilinear Facility
The team’s research revealed that early learners thrive in environments that promote nature. The design counteracts the building’s rectilinear shape with a curving wall separating the preschool and administrative areas. The wall, based loosely on the shape of a leaf, extends at several points, offering window slats that display preschool activity.
A separate school entry leads to the facility’s feature: an arching circulation area surrounded by classrooms. The light-filled space offers a centralized haven steeped in nature and learning. Highlights include abstracted trees, vegetated walls displaying animals and letters, plots of green carpeting mimicking grass within the luxury vinyl tile, and a river-inspired blue floor strip that winds through the space.
The retrofit also brings more natural light into the facility. A new skylight fills the corridor with daylight, and every classroom offers outdoor views thanks to energy-efficient windows. New, large windows bring natural light into the multipurpose play area and reinforce the playful nature of the facility. Additionally, the design “splays” the main corridor in a triangular form to filter north light down the length of the office portion.
Reducing Early Learner Anxiety
Bright Futures Preschool was designed to reduce anxiety among early learners. Students sense the building’s liveliness as they approach it: randomly placed windows with pops of color identify the early learning portion of the shared facility.
Research shows that bolder colors can be overwhelming for early learners. Therefore, a subtle color identifies each pair of classroom entries within the corridor. Wood acoustical baffles reduce the scale of classroom entries, while large numbers embedded within a tactile surface indicate individual classrooms. Colorful floor patterns in front of classrooms support counting, lining up, and wayfinding.
Within the classrooms, an accent wall and wallpaper echo the entry color. Luxury vinyl tile flooring and carpeting distinguish messy and active zones. Classroom casework even offers a circular nook that students can tuck into for alone time.
Bulky Columns Remade as Learning Trees
The facility’s three unsightly steel columns posed a major challenge. The design turns the liability into an asset by transforming the columns into trees that become focal points in the corridor, lobby, and multiuse areas.
Leaves consisting of metal, plywood, and acoustic materials float above bent wood trunks. Lightbulbs hanging from the leaves and the stairs built into the base of the trunks make the trees ideal outside-the-classroom learning stations.
Parking Lots Recast as Outdoor Features
Although the retrofit added windows in every classroom, board members expressed concern that the windows in one wing displayed an asphalt parking lot.
The design responds with a landscape buffer 20 feet from the classrooms. The hill runs the length of the front of the building to not only give the students views of the grass but also create a safe student drop-off zone.
A parking lot behind the school becomes a play area with a soft play surface, a trike track, a large grass plot, and equipment designed for students of all abilities.
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