Trends in Education: Designers focus on durability and flexibility

By Heather Osteen

Construction and renovation spending in the education market hasn’t increased the way many had hoped it would post-recession. Spending in higher education, where institutions are competing for students’ tuition dollars, has been more active than K-12, where the infrastructure is exhausted even as enrollments are rising, but both markets have been sluggish over the last year. 

Construction starts indicate, however, that both are expected to gain strength moving ahead, activity that will likely begin impacting the flooring industry in 2015. 
 
K-12: INFRASTRUCTURE VS. STUDENT LOAD
It is enlightening t o consider the vast size of the education market. As of the 2010-2011 school year, there were more than 98,000 public schools in the U.S. and over 7,000 universities, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Interestingly, 2011 also marked the point at which the U.S. population had doubled in size since 1950, from 152.3 million people to 308.7 million people, says The Changing Demographic Profile of United States, a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service.

In that time, however, our nation’s public K-12 school facilities have remained relatively unchanged. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics reports that, as of 1998, the average public school building in the U.S. was 42 years old, and 28% were built before 1950. We can still safely conclude, then, that many school buildings are aged facilities, operating under a heavy student load. 

The increasing enrollment won’t be reversed anytime soon. According to the U.S. Department of Education, school enrollments will continue to rise through the year 2021. The department predicts that public elementary enrollment will increase 7% and public secondary enrollment will rise by 5% between 2012 and 2021. “Total public elementary and secondary enrollment is projected to set new records every year from 2012 to 2021,” reads a 2013 report from the National Center for Education Statistics.

There is hope that funding for K-12 education may be increasing once again, but that is not the case according to a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The report titled “Most States Funding Schools Less Than Before the Recession” and dated May 20, 2014 says, “States’ new budgets are providing less per-pupil funding for kindergarten through 12th grade than they did six years ago—often far less.The reduced levels reflect not only the lingering effects of the 2007-09 recession but also continued austerity in many states; indeed, despite some improvements in overall state revenues, schools in around a third of states are entering the new school year with less state funding than they had last year. At a time when states and the nation are trying to produce workers with the skills to master new technologies and adapt to the complexities of a global economy, this decline in state educational investment is cause for concern.”

The report goes on to take a closer look at funding at the state level, finding that at least 35 states are providing less funding per student for the coming school year than they did before the recession, with 14 of those states cutting funding by more than 10% per student. The report also found that, in instances where funding has increased, the increase has not been enough to compensate for cuts in past years, offering the example of New Mexico, which “is increasing school funding by $72 per pupil this year. But that is too small to offset the state’s $946 per-pupil cut over the previous five years.” 

Needless to say, the K-12 education world is having to do more with less, which necessitates that designers create durable and flexible spaces to accommodate the varying needs that schools have in the present and future.

In spite of all the challenges in education funding, the sheer size of the U.S. education market makes it the largest sector of new non-residential construction from a spending perspective, according to the 2014 Dodge report. New construction of K-12 schools is more common in parts of the country where populations are increasing at a higher rate, like Texas and Colorado, according to Market Insights LLC.

FLEXIBILTY IS KEY 
As enrollments continue to increase, designers are tasked with creating facilities that will endure and offer flexibility, spaces that can be converted into multiple types of learning environments to extend the lifecycle of existing construction.

“Flexibility and versatility are some of the biggest drivers in making flooring decisions for the K-12 environment,” says Dina Sorensen, designer with VMDO Architects in Charlottesville, Virginia, an education-focused firm doing most of its work in pre-K through 12th grade public education. Design also has to be sustainable, according to Sorensen, and it must perform for many years and also provide an environment that is healthy for students both physically and intellectually.

Amber Lake, an interior designer with MHTN Architects in Salt Lake City, Utah, adds that the three drivers on every K-12 job are affordability, intent to design and durability. And she points out that value engineering is a key to K-12 work today. 

Wendy Watts, vice president of Chicago’s CannonDesign, says the flexibility of a design is key to creating user-friendly spaces for students: “Raising students’ test scores means offering them specialized spaces that perform. Floor products have to be able to handle what’s being taught in the classroom…dry, clean, wet, messy, the floor products have to handle it all, then convert back to a nice, clean space for next period.”

Watts adds, “A space that is a classroom one day might become a studio or a gallery the next, or even exp and into two rooms and become a science fair.” Education accounts for 29% of the CannonDesign Chicago’s work.

LOOKING FOR LONG-TERM VALUE
According to the 2014 Dodge Report, education facilities are expected to be a booming market for sustainable construction and renovation. Says Sorensen, “We look at both human health and ecological factors at the beginning of every design process. We consider not only the end product and the ingredients over time, but the origins of resources and the total cost of an investment in a product.” 

The designers with whom we spoke minimize the use of VCT in their designs because of concerns about potential health and environmental hazards. In addition, VCT requires waxing, involving harsh chemicals that can exacerbate conditions like asthma and allergies. And though VCT may be inexpensive on the front end, products that require less maintenance are often more cost effective in the long term. 

According to Lake, however, VCT is often specified for K-12 installations because it’s hard for many, considering the current state of funding in education, to swallow a higher initial cost. In addition, VCT offers a wide variety of color choices and can be custom cut, making it a good choice for creating the sort of bright, graphic patterns often found on elementary schools floors.

Stolt says that the decision to choose green materials sometimes comes down to the simple matter of educating clients on the long-term value of an alternative hard surface product like LVT. Stolt says, “It’s durable, it’s easy to maintain, and from a wellness perspective, you’ve cut the whole chemical interaction [from waxing] out of the cycle.” Seventy percent of FGM’s work is in the education market, and the bulk of that is in K-12. “I see LVT displacing VCT [in the education construction market], and LVT manufacturers continue to work on reducing VOCs, so LVT is getting better and better,” says Stolt. 

Stolt uses LVT that has a sustainable story, and she cautions that designers have to approach sustainability from a pragmatic point of view. She adds, “Look at the whole story of the LVT product, and at the overall sustainability goal of the project and how flooring fits into that goal.” 

Rubber is a flooring material that the designers with whom we spoke consider an excellent choice for K-12 environments. “It doesn’t have to be waxed. It has some absorbency. It’s slip-resistant, and it’s a great material to use in a space where carpet isn’t an option,” explains CannonDesign’s Watts. However, she adds, “Rubber is three times more expensive than VCT,” so it’s a difficult material to specify when budgets are tight.

In the ’80s and ’90s, VCT was preferred over carpet because it was considered a smarter maintenance choice, but today, Watts says, there’s a growing comfort level with carpet, primarily because clients can see that maintenance—especially with carpet tile—is easier now than ever before. In addition, a lot of carpet products have a great sustainability story. 

All the designers with whom we spoke prefer carpet tile to broadloom for education specifications. Watts adds, “You can’t beat the cleanability [of carpet tile], or the ability to swap it out should something go wrong.” And carpet tile offers a softness and quietness that’s tough to beat in a school setting—a good choice for both sound absorption and comfort, affording clarity of speech which is especially important for primary schools, ESL students and those with special needs.

Related Topics:U.S. Census Bureau