5th Graders Reveil Reuse Plans for Endangered Buildings
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| AAA Building at 3917 Lindell Blvd. |
Last night, 5th graders at the Center for Creative Learning (CCL) in the Rockwood School District presented their designs for new sustainable buildings and reuse plans for existing endangered buildings. The post popular building students chose for their projects was the AAA Building at 3917 Lindell Boulevard. Students devised plans centered on the retention of buildings. The buildings would house new businesses incorporating sustainable features such as solar panels and dual flush toilets.
The projects are the result of architectural history classes incorporated into the CCL's curriculum. Students learned about the major architectural styles and architects spanning from the ancient Romans to Flippo Brunelleschi and Frank Lloyd Wright. The study of architecture was also coupled with adaptive reuse and sustainable design.
Below are several examples of student's projects and their reuse plans.
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| AAA reused as a restaurant |
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| AAA reused as a library |
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| AAA reused as a daycare |
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| Students learn about the built environment |
Students even wrote letters to Mayor Slay over their concerns of the proposed demolition of the AAA Building and stated their plans for adaptive reuse. One example follows:
Dear Mayor Slay
We are writing this letter to inform you in the plan that I and my partner in this project have made for the old AAA Building on Lindell Blvd. to get turned into a day care center instead of demolition. This building location at 3917 Lindell Blvd. will benefit the community because it will be easy for parents to find and will be close to the houses in the community because it will be easy for parents to find and will be close to the houses in the community. The building is circular with long rectangular windows surrounding the whole building. The building will be used for a day care center. The building will benefit the community because it will reuse the AAA Building. Since it is a day care, parents in the community who need to work to earn money for their families and be able to. While the parents are at work their children will be entertained and learning by playing games, making art, and playing on the computer. Instead of tearing down a functional building it is important to restore this building. It can still be used. If we tear down the building it will cause unnecessary cost and cause many problems. For example, it will delay the start of the new function because it will take a while for it to get torn down and then pick up all the debris before making the new building and opening the new function. We think it will be better to leave the exterior like it is rather than remove working elements just to replace them with sustainable ones. Instead, we are adding sustainable materials such as dual flush toilets and solar panels. They are easy to install without having to rebuild, or tear down the building. The dual flush toilets save water and help the community by making less waste for the water treatment plant to clean. The solar panels will be put on the roof so that they will face the sun at all times. The solar panels will collect energy from a renewable source, the sun. We would like you to consider our plan instead of demolition. Thank you for reading this letter.