The delicate balance of designing a school after trauma | By Julia McFadden, AIA

In September 2013, my colleagues and I were thrust into the forefront of the discourse on school safety when our firm was selected to design the new Sandy Hook Elementary School—site of the mass shooting of 20 first-grade children and six adults the previous December. At the time, the nation was still stunned by the implications of this tragedy, debating primarily the issues of gun control and mental health. Amid the difficulties of developing a national consensus around these ideologically charged topics, attention turned to the design of schools and the lack of standards for any level of threat, let alone an armed gunman.

As details of the shooting surfaced, severe counterterrorist tactics were espoused in coffee shops and PTAs across America. First was attention to the borders of the school grounds and the front entry: high, impenetrable fencing and heavy-duty, ballistic-level metal doors and locks, with no glass that would be vulnerable to being shot out—a prisonlike sally port entrance. Next came the realization that the front doors would not be the only way for a heavily armed gunman to gain entry into the school, so there were also calls to limit windows and to place them only up high. For child-development advocates and many educators and parents, these were frightening propositions that suddenly illuminated the inherent dichotomy between designing a facility that is secure from armed threat and creating a place of learning that promotes and nurtures children’s cognitive and social development.

Read full article here in ArchitectureBoston's Winter 2018: Safe issue.