Goode Van Slyke/Corgan
Designing Kiser Middle School
For Chris Goode, a managing partner principal in charge and HUB Director with Goode Van Slyke, designing the new Kiser Middle School is like coming home. Back in the day, Goode was a student at GCS’s Smith High School. “I liked to draw,” he says. “For all 4 years of high school, every time I entered a drafting or architectural drawing contest, I always won first, second and third place.” Goode says at that point, “I started to think, maybe I am good at this.” After graduating from Smith High School, the young artist moved on to NC State and UC-Berkley to pursue his dreams of designing buildings that would change communities.
DLR Group
Designing New Visual Performing Arts School and Southwest K-8.
When Jason Lembke was a kid, he liked to take things apart and put them back together. What might have driven his parents crazy at time turned into great practice for a career in designing schools. Lembke is now the senior K-12 education leader for DLR Group, the architects who are designing not one but two GCS schools! “I couldn’t have predicted that I’d end up focusing my career on education and schools,” Lembke says, “but I am grateful every day for the opportunity to make difference for the teachers and students in their work.” Lembke works out of DLR Group’s Charlotte office.
SHP
Designed Peck Expeditionary Learning Academy
For David Powell, building a school isn’t just about building walls, it’s about creating spaces that help students and teachers create a supportive community. “It’s not just about how their head learns, it’s about how their heart learns,” says Powell. That makes him the perfect choice to design the new Peck Expeditionary Learning Academy which will house K-8 students in a building made of 5 learning communities that bring together similar grade levels encouraging students to connect and collaborate with each other.