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INTRODUCTION TO THIS PAGE
This structured reading list in school facilities contains articles written by Fred Tepfer, as well as links to other web sources, for use in EDLD 636 School Facilities at the University of Oregon. My students are free to use this information in whatever way they want. Others are welcome to read and link to items at will, but reproduction (in print or electronically) requires my permission (freely granted for non-commercial use).

Feel free to send comments, corrections, suggestions, and other sources to me via e-mail. I'm always on the lookout for improvements. For example, if you think making all articles available in Adobe Acrobat format or on CD would be useful, let me know. If there is some interest out there, I'll make it happen.

INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL FACILITIES
Interest in school facilities has increased dramatically in the past decade as the rate of school construction and renovation has increased. There are many current themes in the literature, but the hot topics coalesce around effective educational environments, health and safety of building occupants, and operating costs, and environmental issues such as sustainable design and climate change. There have been significant advances in each of these areas during this period:

• reliable research linking educational environment to learning outcomes (Schneider has an excellent summary)
• comprehensive approaches to health and safety (LEED, CEPTED) that may change with better research into statistical risk
• giant strides in design of high-performance sustainable buildings that use very little energy (CHPS) (LEED) (Core Performance) while maximizing learning.

Lurking just out of sight are some emerging issues: classroom acoustics, building envelope design (rainscreen), rapid construction cost escalation (more than 35% from 2003 to 007), disaster planning and mitigation (in the Pacific Northwest, earthquakes in particular). Other issues may or may not emerge, such as school size, building longevity, classroom flexibility, universal design, and changing demographics.

It is easy to disappear under the waves of technical information that roll over this field. However, my preference, and my recommendation to you, is to focus your thinking on core issues for students, faculty, and administrators, and communities:

• What enhances learning?
• What protects operating budgets so that academics get maximum financial support?
• What is the responsible long-term decision as a steward of the public trust?
• What provides a reasonable level of health and safety?

Keeping your core values in mind (which may be different from mine) as you learn this material is essential to separating the important from the trivial, separating the signal from the noise.

ARTICLES

General Articles

Annotated Bibliography
Educator's Dictionary of Building Terms [coming soon!]
Sustainable Design/Environmentally Friendly Buildings

Building Operation and Management: An Introduction

1. Sustainability in operations
2. Custodial staff management
3. Contracting out
4. Elementary school transportation dilemma
5. Safety in operations (also listed below under Planning and Design)
6. Preventive/predictive maintenance systems
7. Evaluation of existing buildings
8. Space management introduction
   - Managing Space at Small Colleges, Facilities Manager Sept/Oct /99 (relevant to school districts)
9. The Strategic Assessment Model (SAM), an assessment tool for facilities management organizations, Association of Physical Plant Administrators
10. Accessibility: The ADA, 504, and accessible programs, activities and services
11. Landscape and site maintenance
    • turf
    • trees
    • shrubs
    • chemicals

Building Systems: An Introduction

1. Green Buidlng Systems
2. Intro to Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning
   
• Energy conservation
  - Advanced energy conservation
• A (Perhaps) Apocryphal Tale of Two Buildings
• Natural and Electric Lighting add why it matters, UPO case study, etc. etc.
  - Heschong Mahone Group studies of daylighting and human performance
  - CEFPI: Electric Lighting and Day Lighting in Schools
  - Emerald Public Utility office building: advanced energy case study
• Indoor air quality
  - Indoor Environmental Quality in California Schools: Critical Needs (also discusses issues of indoor air quality problems in portable classrooms)
  
3. Finishes: a guide for non-professionals
4. A roofing primer add patterns: inspection, quality materials and installers, competitive bidding (non-proprietary) ESD case study?
5. Computers and networks
   
   • Wireless Local Area Networks (within rooms and buildings)
   • Wireless Wide Area Networks (connecting buildings)
   • Computers, Power Needs, Energy Conservation, and Cooling
   • Putting technology into old buildings (text-only draft)
   • Computer networks, speculation on the future
     
6. Acoustics: introduction ADD patterns, review mark-up (and get re-crit)
   Classroom Acoustics: my favorite classroom acoustics article (from the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse web site)
   NCEF and other articles on acoustics:
   • The best classroom acoustics source at .nonoise.org/library/classroom/
   • ASHRAE panel: Rethinking Classroom Acoustics: Overcoming Barriers to Learning
   • Lubman, David, America's Need for Standards and Guidelines to Ensure Satisfactory Classroom Acoustics (fix link)
   • The Access Board, Classroom Acoustics Fact Sheet
   • John Erdreich, Classroom Acoustics, CEFPI (.pdf format)
7. Fire engineering, fire detection, and fire suppression
8. Lab Safety, Planning, Design, and Management
9. Instructional technology and presentation media
10. Structural systems
    Incremental Seismic Rehabilitation of School Buildings (Dec 2002)
    Earthquakes & seismic risk: FEMA fact sheet
    Seismic Retrofitting of Non-Structural Elements: Lighting in the Los Angeles Unified School District (Oct 2004)

School Planning and Design: An Introduction

1. Green Building Design
2. Educational Specifications and Architectural Programs
3. Getting Started: Master Planning and Strategic Facilities Planning
   NCEF article by Day
4. Sustainable/High Performance schools
   Greening America's Schools ( G. Kats, October 2006)
   CHPS Best Practices Manual, esp. vols. 1-4
5. Community , Staff and User Involvment Techniques
6. Advanced User Involvement Techniques
7. Facility Audit: Evaluation of Existing Building (also listed above)
   - NCEF links: Facilities Assessment:
9. School Site Selection and Community Planning and Development
   - basic concepts: compact growth, growth of facilities on site, athletics & land, outdoor ed (various sorts)
   - site size
   - sustainability: transportation, orientation, stormwater, solar access, etc.
   - proximities
   - ties to local goals, planning
   - personal safety
   - landscape design (& maint. costs)
   
10. School Size
    - NCEF links: School Size
    School Size, School Climate, and Student PerformanceNW Regional Educational Laboratory meta-study by Kathleen Cotton is the best all-around article on small vs. large schools.
    CEFPI article on school size: Gross Square Feet per Student
11. Design for safety and security (also listed above under Building Maintenance and Operation) add patterns
    - Safer Schools Through Environmental Design (Schneider via ERIC)
12. Spaces for Education: School Space Standards
    Classroom design, building block of a school
    Corridor size: Design Share discussion on non-programmed space, add example from bethel
    Child development and the design of school environments
    Outdoor environments: classrooms, recreation, athletics
13. Build or Renovate? articles at NCEF site
14. Project Cost and Budget Management, intro
    
    • Project Budgets
    • Life Cycle Costs
    • Value Analysis and Value Engineering
      
15. The Americans with Disabilities Act, Accessibility, and Universal Design
    
    • The Annotated ADA Accessibility Guidelines (warning: this is a long download via modem)
    • Universal Design and Educational Facilties (warning: this is a long article!)
    • Creating Accessible Schools, Ansley, from the NCEF website: a PDF format document that emphasizes the history of laws affecting school accessibility and their effect on programs as well as on the built environment.
      
16. Contracts, contracts, and more contracts
17. NCEF: Hiring Design Professionals links
    - "Seeing the Light", B. LePatner, Architecture Magazine, article on architect contracts
18. General design guides
    • North Carolina Educational Facilities Design Guide An 80 page PDF document, very useful numbers for space planning and basic parts and relationships.
    • Frugal Construction Standards is not as good as it's title, but is a useful 30 page PDF document developed by the State of Florida for school design. Some of the recommendations don't apply to the Pacific Northwest. Others I simply disagree with.
    • Schools as Centers of Community is an excellent 59 page PDF from the US Dept. of Education. It's an excellent guide to siting and design of schools with respect to developing strong communities. The first ten pages describe six basic principles that should be required reading for all who are designing schools.

other interesting links still being incorporated above:

• http://www.designshare.com/
• http://www.edfacilities.org/ir/irlinks.html#periodicals
• http://www.edfacilities.org/ir/irpubs.html (a few in PDF format)
• NCEF articles: hot topics
   - Schneider: Do School Facilities Affect Academic Outcomes?  .

update 12/05

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