[voisin]

> Our drive and desire for "nicer" things (or at least things that dress up well), when we can barely fund the necessities, seems to be a hard dichotomy to deal with. How do we accomplish both?

Check out the book and concept “Pretty Good House”. You can have nice design without breaking the bank by making the right trade offs in the design process. I think this can be adapted to institutions. Probably ICF walls for high insulation values and lower operating costs, slanted roofs for lower maintenance, heat pumps, larger windows on certain facades for light and interior enjoyment without bringing in intense summer heat (also, overhangs on southern windows), modest entries, etc etc.

Another idea: I don’t understand why every school is designed by a different architect starting at a blank page (even within the same school board let alone the same state/province). Why don’t they have standard sets of optimized designs for different size institutions and figure out all the mechanical and electrical and structural once at the beginning and use the same design for 10-20 years with only small refinements as technology progresses? Lots of money is being wasted on consultants.