Little White Schoolhouse

This past semester we had the opportunity to work with the community of Valley, WA to propose design ideas for the adaptive reuse of their original schoolhouse to a local museum. We began the process with an all day workshop, meeting with about twenty community members to discuss the needs and desires of the space. While there were many opinions, this made for a great learning experience. Our design needed to please many people, rather than one or two clientele. For our design our focus was to phase out the project. There were so many great ideas that would be hard to implement immediately due to time or budget. The first phase addresses a quick installation and minimal budget. The second phase focuses more on ideas that can be installed individually as the budget allows. This phase also address the need for a community gathering space. Through our design we allow the opportunity for the Little White Schoolhouse to expand and grow as the community needs change.

Context Poster

To get started on our next project for our Studio, the class was split into different groups and assigned a topic relating to either early 1900 design, or design for an art studio. My topic was prominent US architects of the 1930s, and I chose to research William Gray Purcell. I had no idea who he was, but his named kept popping up when I was searching. I learned a lot about Prairie Style design, a very common design type of the early 1900s. It was developed by Louis Sullivan, who taught Purcell, and was carried out by many architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, and Purcell himself. This style is reflected in the depot we are rehabilitating, so learning its origins and other ways it was applied was very helpful.