"If we are going to to chart our destiny, rather than careen from one overcrowding crisis
to another, we must build new schools now."
Dr. Peter Gorman, Superintendent, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

The facades of the cottages can easily match the look of the surrounding buildings.

School Design and Our Children

Figures show that approximately 20% of the students in the school system will receive a large amount of their education in mobile classrooms. 48% of the mobile units in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) system were more than 30 years old in 2003. In this fast-growing school system, the "mobile" classrooms have been fairly immobile. Often those units are only replaced when a permanent expansion is completed at a school.

CMS has given construction a high priority as administrators attempt to address the rapid growth in the school district. Facing an increase of approximately 5,000 students per year, they realize new construction will be necessary to reduce the need for mobile classrooms.

From the perspective of initial cost, the mobile trailer-style classroom may seem to have an advantage. Yet there are several disadvantages. Most mobile classrooms are poorly designed and constructed, lack sufficient windows for cross-ventilation and natural daylight, and are visually unappealing. These deficiencies cast a negative image over the school. They are often sited very close to one another with little usable open space between units.

Looking at the challenge and the facts, it became apparent that it was time to take the initiative to provide an alternative design that would provide quality classroom space with a positive civic identity for the next generation of the nation's students.

Inspiration from Katrina

In the aftermath of the destruction from Hurricane Katrina the Katrina Cottage was conceived as a preferred alternative to the FEMA trailers.  These pint-size cottages have resonated with the public and are being rapidly built to serve the homeless gulf coast population.

A campus layout could have shaded courtyards and plazas defined by the Learning Cottages.

Following a Charlotte Civic By Design Forum last Fall, several attendees gathered for dinner following the presentation on the Katrina Cottages being designed for the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast. Several architects, landscape architects, and interested citizens, began to sketch out a plan and an elevation for a Learning Cottage. After school officials from both North and South Carolina expressed interest in the Learning Cottage, the firm of DPZ undertook conceptual design at its own expense.

Today, the spark of an idea generated at a sidewalk cafe has grown to a pilot program being launched by the CMS system to test the Hurricane Katrina-inspired Learning Cottage as an alternative to the mobile trailer-style classroom. Learning Cottages are green, efficient, durable, flexible, aesthetically pleasing and cost-effective buildings that meet schools' demand for additional classrooms. If built with panelized construction techniques, these attractive, permanent structures can be built for approximately half the per-square-foot cost of typical school buildings. Several Learning Cottages can form the nucleus of a school campus.

The Learning Cottage provides a rapidly constructed and economical building system to accommodate the increasing numbers of students. The flexibility of the Learning Cottage allows it to be used for other purposes in addition to classrooms. With minimal design changes, it could become a community center, a commercial structure, or mixed-use lofts. It could even form the nucleus of a religious or institutional campus.

This is a national issue and a challenge for most of the school system across the country. We have provided a link for the learning Cottage Report download for you to use to jumpstart a relationship with your local school boards to move forward with a grass-roots effort to construct Learning Cottages across the United States.

Useful Links

• Katrina-Inspired Learning Cottages: Concept and Design Guidelines (pdf)
  Information in the report:
  • How the Learning Cottage provides an alternative to trailer-style units often used when there is school overcrowding
  • The flexibility and construction system of the Learning Cottage
  • Floor plans and elevations for the three different Learning Cottage prototypes as well as a basic architectural code
  • A "Memorandum of Understanding" that enables individuals to jumpstart relationships with their local school boards to move forward with a grass-roots effort to construct Learning Cottages across the United States
• Katrina Cottages
  Background, useful links, latest news on Katrina Cottages.
• Civic by Design: Learning Cottages, a design workshop

For more information, contact info@learningcottages.com.