K-12
We have completed over 500 hundred school additions, renovations, seismic upgrades and new facilities, including both elementary and secondary school projects, enabling us to be fully conversant with current education facility trends and requirements. Below is a brief overview of what Thinkspace offers to our K-12 education clients.
Knowledge: Our educational experience, and focus on continuous learning, enables us to offer unique insight in the design of schools for the 21st Century. The potential of educational space as a seamless transition from large group participation, to classroom learning and one-on-one instruction is a challenge we embrace; flexibility encourages both collaborative learning and collaborative teaching. We focus and commit to support the diverse learning styles and needs of children preparing themselves for a life of leadership and service in our complex, information rich, and socially diverse society. Every K-12 project draws from our more than 55 years of institutional memory to the service of durable, cost effective and efficient design.
Expertise: Thinkspace specializes in K-12 schools and the delivery of 21st Century Learning Environments. We are well versed in the design aspects of K‐12 educational facilities. We are familiar with all Ministry of Education relevant standards and requirements and have completed hundreds of school district projects including new school design & construction, renovations & additions, design build, seismic upgrades, project definition reports (PDR), net zero ready, sustainability, master planning, portable planning, long term facility plans, field houses, mass timber, School District building standards, building envelope design, infection control review, daycare and before & after school care.
Process: Our ‘Proven Process’ approach is inclusive and transparent, bringing faculty, staff, and students together through the course of a project to create a vision and outcome that is shared by all. Our Process recognizes a shared expertise of consultants and the District Advisory Committees made up of made up of staff from the Capital Project Office (CPO), District Facilities (DFC), Corporate Services (CS), Information Management Services (IMS) and the Senior Education team (Assistant Superintendents), faculty, operations, staff, and students. Our ‘Proven Process’ approach works to document the project process from vision to project closeout and to understand your unique educational and facility needs for each project and the unique challenges and opportunities present to ensure the project vision meets the school’s current and future needs.
People: Our specialized in-house Accredited Learning Environment Planners (ALEP), architects, technologists and sustainability experts specializing in K-12 design provide a breadth of experience leveraged in all K-12 projects, including school planning, design, procurement, and construction administration.
Technology: Technology is a powerful tool that we have been using on an ongoing basis, as products become available and sensible. Our philosophy of ‘life long learning’ applies to learning new technologies as well. We use the appropriate technology for the activity at hand including Building Information Modeling (BIM), CAD, State of the Art Realtime Rendering, Virtual Reality (VR) technology and physical 3D models to help communicate the project design to our Clients. And when necessary, we develop our own tools. For example, for functional programming and master planning, we have developed tools that help us to accurately analyze data and functional relationships.
