A Story of Light and Air

Behold my child's Philadelphia elementary school, sealed like King Tut's tomb on a blistering hot May morning. This historic building was "green" for its day, with large windows for daylighting and air circulation. If fully functioning, operable windows were restored to the building, fresh air would  naturally cycle through the interior and daylight would illuminate the classrooms once more. Of course safety measures would be designed into large, operable windows, but the technology to do this is out there. And internal solar shades would need to be installed to manage the sun glare and solar gain.

When one considers how much better children learn in classrooms with daylighting, one would think the School District would make these renovations a priority. For example, it would have been a better use of Federal stimulus funds that were instead used to create new programs and hire new personnel to run the programs. With the funding gone, these iniatives cannot now be sustained. Imagine how many windows could have been replaced with the millions of dollars the District received? And the years of tangible benefits these renovations would provide?

According to the linked Executive Summary of the Daylighting Report by the Heschong Mahone Group, there is a 21% overall improvement in children's learning rates in schools with the most daylight versus those with the least. Take a look at the photo above--at least 50% of the daylight is blocked from these windows with permanent metal panels!

In my child's classroom, the windows are only partially operable in the lower section, and there is no air-conditioning. The children have been taking refuge in the air-conditioned library down the hall during the day, so they can cool down and focus on their lessons. The heated air cannot escape from their classroom, either through the upper window sash or through the large transom above the door, that was used to vent air into the high-ceiling hallways before it was sealed off.

The Executive Summary on Daylighting in Schools goes on to state: "These findings suggest the importance school planners should give to the architectural design of schools. The statistical models repeatedly demonstrate that physical condition of classrooms and schools are just as likely to affect student learning as many other factors commonly given much more public policy attention. Variables describing the physical conditions of classrooms, most notably the window characteristics, were as significant and of equal or greater magnitude as teacher characteristics, number of computers, or attendance rates in predicting student performance."

That is one heck of a recommendation. Is anyone listening at the District?

New Philadelphia school buildings,in particular the one at 1901 Front Street in Kensington are designed to take advantage of light and air. This is a Leed Certified Green Building.

I just don’t think they realize how much can be done along these lines with the older, historical buildings they own and operate.

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6/01/2011 Update: The District called an early closing today due to the excessive heat. This could have been avoided if the schools were renovated in the manner described above. Of course, this is a long term solution and cannot be undertaken without proper planning and a long-term vision for the schools.

Light Returns to a KensingtonTextile Mill

Arizona Street Arts Building

Progress! Our East Kensington Textile Mill renovation takes a giant step forward toward its debut as The Arizona Street Arts Building (working name, not official). Five years ago, we restored the window openings by first removing cracked glass block and reinforced concrete sills from a 1980's renovation, and then installed Indiana Limestone sills (well, all limestone stocked at the local mason's supply yard is from Indiana, but we like how it sounds). We then installed two windows on each floor to test how the unprotected glass would be received on a street where all commercial buildings had their windows removed and blocked up decades ago, and the drug and prostitution trades flourished. Eventually, one window out of the six was smashed by a vandal. Then, with minimal resources at our disposal, we boarded up the windows and waited until we could afford to complete the project. Last winter, watching helplessly in the crowd as a tragic fire destroyed a much larger historic textile mill complex around the corner, we learned some things that pushed us to move faster on our window installation project. For one, firefighters can't get water where it will be most effective if there are blocked-up window openings (although in all fairness to our safety measures, our building does have a working fire sprinkler system, which the other mill did not).

So today, we are celebrating an important milestone with the installation of beautiful seven foot windows on the second floor fronting Arizona Street. Nine windows now flood the interior space with light for the first time in over 30 years. While the original wood arch top12/12 sash would have been the correct historical choice for replacements, they are so costly we never considered them for the project. But we stepped up the design a notch with the new heavy aluminum replacements by adding center muntins to the top and bottom sash to create a more pleasing 2/2 format. And instead of the standard black, brown or white finish color, we specified a dark green, close to the color of the original exterior wood trim. The limestone sills are also much more functional and attractive than the 19th century originals, which were wood.

We are planning artist work space on the second floor, which features 12 ft. ceilings and maple floors. Already completed is a 1200sf live/work/exhibit space on the ground floor.  In the works for September is an Art Gallery in the former loading dock. We held two successful back-to-back Painting Exhibits in January and February in a temporary gallery space here, and look forward to making this a permanent feature of the Arts Building.

Crew from Emerald Windows hard at work.