Joamie designed with kids in mind

SARA MINOGUE

The coat hooks will come up to your waist. Bear paws on the floor will point from the kindergarten classroom to the library. And recycling bins will be low enough for kids to fill with glass, aluminum and paper.

“What I tried to do in the design is look at the needs of the spaces and needs of the students,” says Robert Billard, an architect who worked on the project before leaving FSC Architects & Engineers recently.

Little people are at the centre of the design for the new Joamie School.

Inside each classroom, every teacher has a desk area built into the wall. On one side, kids will find a place to put materials for recycling. On the other side, teachers can open the drawers to remove the materials.

“We even lowered the sink [in the dental clinic] so they can learn how to brush their teeth properly,” says Jerry Hillier of FSC.

The landscape outside of the school was planned with kids’ safety in mind.

The main entrance to the school is on Joamie Road – an area many people may think of as the old parking lot. The new design includes a drive-through area where parents can safely turn in and drop their kids off.

A new sidewalk in front of the school will deter rushed parents from dropping their kids off on the opposite side of the street on their way downtown, as frequently happened at the old school.

A playground has been plotted in a place that will deter snowmobilers from driving through the site.

“One of the things that lead to [this design] was that Joamie School had already made a commitment to be a green school on a more active level, like recycling and other things that kids can do,” Billard says.

In 1994, Joamie School became the first school in Canada to reach Earth Status from the SEEDS Foundation in Edmonton by completing over 1000 environmentally friendly projects.

When the new school opens in the fall of 2005, students will have a chance to learn about their new school through a pamphlet that FSC is putting together, and translating into Inuktitut, explaining its benefits.

“I made every effort to make the school as indestructible as possible, Billard says. “And very little of it will actually catch fire without a serious concerted effort.”