2022 — Friona Primary School

Friona ISD—Friona Primary School
Architect: Parkhill

Project includes a new 36,000 sf Primary School. Each of the 3 learning neighborhoods consists of six flexible and adaptable classrooms in the Pre-K and Kindergarten and four in 1st grade. All 3 neighborhoods are self-contained and provide collaborative hubs and restrooms in each. Two pairs of classrooms in each neighborhood share a folding partition, allowing educators to quickly adjust the learning settings for co-teaching, direct instruction or large group instruction.

Design

N/A

Value

With the district being small, the A/E and CM worked closely together and adopted a mentality to solve problems, identify opportunities, and develop cost-effective strategies. One example was, by attaching the primary to the existing elementary and avoiding a new cafeteria expansion, this saved the district $2 million and allowed the construction of a new library, more classrooms and renovations at all campuses. Also, with the teamwork of all, the school was complete on time and under budget.

Innovation

N/A

Community

With the district being small, the A/E and CM worked closely together and adopted a mentality to solve problems, identify opportunities, and develop cost-effective strategies. One example was, by attaching the primary to the existing elementary and avoiding a new cafeteria expansion, this saved the district $2 million and allowed the construction of a new library, more classrooms and renovations at all campuses. Also, with the teamwork of all, the school was complete on time and under budget.

Planning

One of main challenges we faced was getting the primary kids on the same side of the street as elementary school. With this, it proposed another issue with the site drainage. With only 2 feet of fall from one block to the other, we did not have an opportunity to direct it around the building, so we had to go through our building. Our engineers, city planner and city engineers worked together to close the street and allowed the primary and elementary campuses to be connected.

School Transformation

N/A

Stars of Distinction Star of Distinction Category Winner