How do we design a school to support student curiosity and exploration?

Creekside Elementary School at Martin Park, located in south Boulder, is a dynamic neighborhood school hosting an international student population. Our firm created a new build school designed to foster the 4Cs of 21st-century learning: collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking. Creekside is the first school in BVSD to have a Garden to Table Program, which uses the organic school garden as a means of teaching. The new school is situated on this site to integrate seamlessly with the outdoors.

The Heart is the centralized node of the educational environment – a large open space where different learning zones are created for multiple learning modalities throughout the day. It is the main receiving point from the entry to the school. A gathering stair links the second level Learning Community and also serve as an all-school gathering/assembly space.

The Curiosity Center is the creative hub where students explore and connect ideas and concepts. Within the Curiosity Center is a Library and Makerspace. The Library has various zones and breakout spaces for different learning modalities and contain digital and print resources. The Makerspace is a studio where students experiment and execute their ideas into a physical reality.