Gould Evans’ work on South Junior High School has won the Lawrence-based architecture firm additional design awards from chapters of the American Institute of Architects.

Interior of South Junior High School, a construction project designed by Gould Evans. The design has won awards from chapters of the American Institute of Architects.

The firm’s efforts on the school project won for excellence in design from both AIA Kansas and AIA Kansas City, plus a special category award for excellence in brick masonry design from AIA Kansas.

AIA Kansas jury members noted that the design stood out because it provided academic spaces allowing for a flexible, open and dynamic education experience.

AIA Kansas City jurors praised the design that relies on a “series of loosely connected boxes, similar to vertebrae,” that results from four wood-clad “slices” on what otherwise would be an “autonomous brick object.”

“The slices act as a diagram for a social and educational community that exists within the school, and provides all circulation, daylight, and a flexible learning laboratory,” the jurors said. “Large garage door-like glass partitions allow for an entire wall of each classroom to connect to this laboratory, enabling a teaching methodology based on collaboration and interdisciplinary learning. The spatial and visual overlap of program creates a unique, safe, and sustainable solution that enhances the existing educational pedagogy.”

Gould Evans’ work on the $21 million school already had won a Merit Award in 2008 from the AIA Central States Chapter.

South will remain a junior high until July 1, when it is set to become a middle school. The school is one of four junior highs that are being considered for new names, and each school has a naming committee working to forward name recommendations to the Lawrence school board sometime around spring break.

Gould Evans also received recognition from both AIA Kansas and AIA Kansas City for the firm’s design of a $37 million project — now under construction — to remodel and expand Manhattan High School.

The building in Manhattan really “gets” what is missing from most contemporary school design, and provides a model for how old schools should be remodeled and new schools should be designed, said Marlon Blackwell, an architect and educator from Fayetteville, Ark., who served on the AIA Kansas City jury.

Gould Evans just happens to be the firm assisting the Lawrence Elementary School Facility Vision Task Force as its members come up with recommendations for the future of the Lawrence school district’s elementary schools, including the potential for a future bond issue to remodel, expand or build schools.

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Students and staff at Cordley School present blankets to Loring Henderson (center, red jacket) and Jon McMillan from the Lawrence Community Shelter.

Students at Cordley School recently presented 14 blankets to the Lawrence Community Shelter, the culmination of a service project designed to provide warmth and comfort for people who are homeless.

PTA parents provided and prepared materials for the blankets, enough so that each of the school’s 14 classes could do their part. Each student had a chance to tie knots on a blanket’s fringe.

The project was one of dozens undertaken by students, staffers, teachers and parents in recognition of the recent Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

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As Kansas Day approaches this Saturday — the 150th anniversary of Kansas statehood — students throughout the Lawrence district are busy learning about the state’s heritage, history and traditions.

Among them: Fourth-graders at Sunflower School plan to display their “Little House Museum” from 1:15 p.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the school, 2521 Inverness Drive. That’s when parents and others will get a chance to check out projects — dubbed “artifacts” — that students created after reading “Little House on the Prairie,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Teacher Martha Wenzel reports that students serve as museum docents, sharing information about their artifacts.

— The First Bell e-mailbox is always open: mfagan@ljworld.com.