Modular Learning EnvironmentsBeyond the ‘Classroom in a Can’

An MKThink Research Publication27 April 2004

For further information, please contact:Chloe Lauer at 415 288 3394

“A college is not a trailer park. It should not look like one…My fi rst teaching job was in a prison, and the rooms were nicer then these. If you were all excited about going to college, wouldn’t you be disappointed?”

—Butte College President Sandra Acebo

Over 3 million students at colleges, universities, and K-12 schools learn in modular trailers, known for poor air quality, structural inadequacy, and inferior aesthetics. Extensive research on the $2 billion a year temporary classroom market reveals an industry ripe for an infl ux of innovative design and strategic thinking. Inspired by successful academic precedents, pre-fab housing experiments, futuristic thinkers, and temporary environments, MKThink advocates revolutionizing the industry through both inventive design and organization of the fragmented market to capitalize on economies of scale.

© MKThink 2004. Reproduction prohibited without permission.Modular Learning Environments Page 2

Modular Learning EnvironmentsBeyond the ‘Classroom in a Can’

SCHOOLS OR TRAILER PARKS?

Colleges, universities, and K-12 schools are strained by changing priorities, demographics, and economics. They increasingly require temporary space solutions to meet the demands placed on the built environment. Typically these temporary spaces are accommodated with modular trailers. The modular industry, driven by aggressive price competition, is limited in its ability to create breakthrough design solutions. The results are learning environments of mediocre quality that impact as many as 3.15 million students annually.

At the university level, approximately 450,000 full-time equivalent students per year utilize ‘Classrooms in a Can,’ and the demand for temporary space solutions is increasing (Figure 1). Enrollments at postsecondary schools will grow by 12 percent between now and 2012. Because of building development lag, the increasing costs of permanent spaces, and the need for fl exible space to accommodate shifting populations, we project the need for temporary space will increase by 15-20 percent in the same time period (Figure 1).

K-12 educational demand for modular units is also striking. More than two million students attend classes in 80-85,000 modular classroom units in California alone. In 1991, the California Auditor general estimated that 72 percent of all California school sites had portable classrooms. And until 1998, the State required that at least 30 percent of classrooms be portable. Helping to meet that requirement, Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Corona, CA, built in 1997, is made entirely of modular units.

The Industry

This market is currently supplied by a large number of manufacturers–smaller companies employing 50-150 people with revenues under $30 million per year characterize the modular classroom industry. These providers have reached an equilibrium of cost relative to quantity and have little incentive to innovate. Even though there are many manufacturers of temporary classroom environments, there is little differentiation among the standard products.

Students socialize outside trailer classrooms

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Year

FIGURE 1: Growing Demand for Temporary Classrooms

TraditionalClassrooms

TemporaryClassrooms

TemporaryClassrooms

TraditionalClassrooms

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K-12 SchoolsColleges/Universities

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Type of Educational Institution

FIGURE 2: Annual Expenditures for Temporary Classrooms

$350 Million

$1.65 Billion

Modular Learning Environments Page 3© MKThink 2004. Reproduction prohibited without permission.

The Market

Expenditures on modular trailers on college campuses in the U.S. exceed $350 million per year (Figure 2). By way of comparison, this equals 15 percent of all new library book purchases and 15 percent of all spending on additions to existing buildings. An additional $1.65 billion per year is spent on modular units for K-12 schools, for a total annual expenditure of $2 billion (Figure 2).

Life-Cycle Costs

While modular units have a life-cycle that may be considered half that of ‘traditional’ or ‘permanent’ construction, their costs on average are only 25 percent or less of the traditional facilities’ construction costs and 15-20 percent of the total project costs of a permanent facility. It is clear that both K-12 and postsecondary institutions rely on these savings.

Longevity

Modulars aren’t intended to be long-term solutions for temporary space needs. According to our research, however, 76.5 percent of facilities planners who intended to use them for the short term ended up using them longer then expected. Over 79 percent of respondents reported using modular classrooms for longer than 2 years.

Quality

Our original hypothesis was that modular classrooms fail as temporary space solutions. In fact, according to our survey, these units are fi lling the gap for both K-12 and postsecondary educational institutions. But the standard unit provided is of the

lowest common denominator. Typical modular classrooms are structurally inferior, particularly susceptible to earthquakes and hurricanes. Students in modular units often suffer from poor air quality due to improper ventilation and higher levels of exposure to toxins. Finally, temporary units are ugly—priorities of time and cost-savings win out over aesthetics, leading to what Ken Tanner terms ‘slum architecture.’ Thus, signifi cant opportunities to provide anything more than basic enclosure are missed.

Use

Modulars are typically used for people-centered activities, like classrooms and offi ces. Seventy percent of those surveyed used modular units for both classrooms and offi ces. Most units are under 1600 sf, and when confi gured for instructional space, many (35.7 percent) provide 21-35 seats. As such, they are high occupancy spaces in which environmental and aesthetic issues should be of central concern.

Satisfaction Levels

While most university facility planners surveyed were satisfi ed with modulars across a range of features, none were very satisfi ed with any particular feature. Modulars are thus considered adequate, but not excellent, in any particular category. They serve a need, but because no other alternatives exist, planners settle for them as mediocre temporary space solutions.

In addition, a large gap exists between the planners’ and the end users’ perspectives. According to our fi ndings, 75 percent of planners feel modulars serve the educational goals for which they were deployed. In contrast, 60 percent of faculty avoids modular classrooms (when given a choice) for aesthetic, environmental, and functional reasons.

Portable Units Students listen to a lecture in a trailer

Page 4© MKThink 2004. Reproduction prohibited without permission.

1) successful academic precedents, 2) pre-fab housing experiments 3) futurist thinkers, and 4) temporary environments.

Academic Precedents

Though traditional trailers are the dominant form of temporary space solutions on college campuses, a few campuses have raised the bar in their expectations. In general, the successful experiments have been adaptations of modular and prefabricated systems.

A good example exists at Yale University’s Prospect Place. Factory-built as a temporary structure to house graduate students, this 11,700 sf structure was completed in 141 days. It features extensive natural light through abundant windows and skylights and a cantilevered steel frame that eliminates the need for columns or internal structural supports that block lines of sight.

Seattle Pacifi c University offers another positive starting point. To solve their temporary space needs, the university deployed a 3,000 sf modular classroom facility built to completion in 78 days. By utilizing artifi cial brick siding on a modular core, the design meshes with the overall campus environment. In addition, high ceilings and a covered courtyard provide a comfortable interaction space in which students and faculty can enjoy the learning experience.

Pre-Fab Housing

Some of the most dynamic explorations have been in the creative exploration of pre-fab and modular housing. Drawing inspiration from the modernist pre-fab movement of the 1950’s, many contemporary architects are designing bold and innovative living environments. For example, Resolution: 4 Architecture’s winning entry in the Dwell Home Design Invitational offers a compact and effi cient house with both large public spaces and more private areas that capture abundant natural light and views. The reality

WHAT IS POSSIBLE?

Organize the Investment

The key to getting beyond the trailer park solution to temporary educational space requirements is to organize the fragmented market to capitalize on the scale of the opportunity. Such organization would enable integrated research and analysis, design innovation, and production.

Gathering the fragmented market into a unifi ed design and purchasing force offers tremendous economies of scale. For example, the California State University system adds on average 4-6 modular classrooms and labs to each of the 23 campuses each year. Campus by campus, this is not a big expenditure. Taken as a whole, however, the CSU system spends $6 million per year on modular classrooms, and they have a fi ve-year planning window that involves an investment in pre-fabricated modular units of as much as $30 million. Because the procurement is fragmented across institutions, very little of this investment is coordinated, let alone driven by a vision to improve the end product.

The solution to a better environment starts, then, with organizing the purchasing power of the potential market.

DESIGN

The factors for successful learning environments result from the successful design and integration of defi nable key components including: site design, sight lines, height, width, density, lighting, mechanical systems, character, aesthetics, and fl exibility. MKThink’s goal is to translate these criteria into new prototypes for dynamic, confi gurable, and potentially portable architecture.

There are useful precedents to build upon. To explore “out-of-the-trailer” thinking we will draw on four areas of infl uence:

Modular Learning Environments

Yale University Prospect Place (top); Seattle Pacifi c University Resolution: 4 Architecture’s Dwell Home

Modular Learning Environments Page 5© MKThink 2004. Reproduction prohibited without permission.

that a quality space with a dynamic internal environment can be pre-fabricated and is easily portable offers inspiration for temporary educational spaces.

Futurist Thinkers

The potential for pre-fabrication to capture human aspirations in a creative and fl exible environment owes great homage to the futurists of the early and mid-20th century. The visions of Frank Lloyd Wright included built and unbuilt prototypes for mass-produced housing that exuded character, and were highly functional, low cost, modular, and pre-fabricated. Buckminster Fuller, known for inventing the geodesic dome, sought design solutions in “nature’s constructing principles.” His energy-effi cient and low-cost Dymaxion—a “radically strong and light tensegrity structure”—houses received much acclaim, but have never been built. These works, and others, present unique and often elegant syntheses of functionality, fl exibility, and utility, with direct relevance to the study of contemporary modular learning environments.

Potential Contemporary Prototypes: Exhibits, Pavilions, and Mobile Marketing

Today, some of the most dynamic and realized opportunities are found in the world of portable and temporary commercial and

entertainment spaces. So-called “mobile marketing” transforms trailers into dynamic stage sets that are unpacked on site. Unpacking these trailers results in a complete transformation, as fl oors and roof are manipulated to create a self-contained marketing experience. Mobile exhibits have utilized trailers in a similar fashion to enable small scale and/or special events to reach much broader and diverse communities than permanent cultural institutions. Consider the venues created by Cirque-du-Soleil. For weeks at a time these traveling shows that arrive in standard 12’x36’ trailers transform parking lots into vibrant centers of culture and entertainment. Furthermore, what are the World Fairs but the creation of an environment for a temporary activity? While most of the solutions to this ephemeral event are permanent structures, many of the more modest venues use temporary approaches in inventive ways.

REVOLUTIONIZING THE MODULAR CLASSROOM

What is next for the future of these spaces? If we continue to rely on the modular industry’s current product limitations, we contribute to the declining quality of academic environments. Instead, research-based, intellectually grounded design, funded by the economies of scale of the market, has the power to fundamentally transform modular educational environments. By doing so, we serve our schools and campuses by providing students, faculty, and staff with high quality academic and work environments.

Circus TentBuckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House

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REFERENCES

Angel, Devanie. “Crumbling Classrooms,” in Chico News & Review, 6 December 2001; available at http://www.newsreview.com/issues/chico/2001-12-06.asp.

Buchanan, Bruce. “Moving to Modular,” in American School Board Journal Special Report: What Schools Cost, June 2003; available online at http://www.asbj.com/specialreports/0603Special%20Reports/S4.html.

California Portable Classrooms Study Report to Legislature. California Air Resources Board and The California Department of Health Services, November 2004; available at http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/pcs/leg_rpt/leg_rpt.htm.

Roman, Michael. “Stats and Facts: An Industry on the Move.” The Modular Building Institute, September 2002; available at http://www.mbinet.org/web/magazine/pm07_02.html.

Tanner, Ken. “The Cost of Portable Classrooms.” University of Georgia’s College of Education, 17 June 2000; available at http://www.coe.uga.sdpl/tornadoes/costofportableclassrooms.html.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller.

COMPANY PROFILE

MKThink reveals and optimizes the nexus between people and their environments. Led by principals Mark Miller, Steve Kelley and Nate Goore, MKThink creates dynamic strategies that help solve organizational challenges.

The MKThink team, comprised of anthropologists, psychologists and business people, as well as architects and urban planners, strives to fully understand their clients’ identities, needs, goals and culture before ever putting pen to paper. With a strong background in learning, workplace, community and healing environments, MKThink boasts a wealth of capabilities, including strategic, analytic and design services.

RESEARCH INSPIRES PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

In the Fall of 2003, MKThink initiated a research project called “Classroom in a Can” with the intention of understanding the issues and facts concerning the deployment of modular trailers on college campuses around the country. The MKThink team started with extensive secondary research: they reviewed websites, interviewed industry specialists, and analyzed collateral on a variety of modular structures to gain a sense of the market. Next, the team conducted interviews with industrial and school professionals, which led to the creation of a comprehensive online survey targeting college and university planners. The survey elicited key facts about modular deployments and needs. From this research, interesting patterns regarding utilization, function, deployment, and usability were discerned. This information, coupled with the previous secondary research, was analyzed and integrated into a report of key fi ndings.

A follow up ideas exercise led eventually led to the development of Project Frog, a prototype modular instructional space. This project was showcased in Metropolis Magazine’s August/September 2004 issue. A model of Project Frog is slated for a public unveiling at City Hall in San Francisco this November.

In the style of an ideal product development cycle, front end user research was joined to ideation to lead to the creation of a novel, functional, and aesthetically pleasing design more fi tting for the needs of the end user.

Check out Project Frog’s website to see how the company has grown! www.projectfrog.com