Jacob E. Manch Elementary School

Facing the list of many challenges, Ken Small and his team were able to design a “Green Building” utilizing 100% naturally lit classrooms and 100% naturally lit 2 of the 3 salvaged buildings. This building was designed under the criteria of a LEED silver building but the client did not fund the LEED qualification process. So this school will run with the electric lights OFF. There are over 500 skylights and many windows that provide the lighting. The school is the only one in the western US built of SIPs (structural insulated panels). This was done for insulation and acoustic purposes. We can’t publish the plan but if we could you would see many plan innovations also. This school has a long list of challenges which the architects designed the building to help with. The building was designed to operate under a normal class schedule under external security "Lock Down" resulting from almost anything happening outside the school. Internal security issues such as avoidance of personal safety concerns for the kids while they are in school also dictated much of the design program. We believe that nothing in school is more important than the personal safety of the kids. We did our best to allow the kids to forget safety concerns and concentrate on learning.

This school was open for the first day of the 2009-2010 school year.

Check out what the Structural Insulated Panel Association had to say about Manch on their web site.