Defense of Schools

​Prior to joining the architecture profession, I observed that the design of schools and prisons were starting to converge. Prisons started getting libraries and schools started getting metal detectors. Long have students looked at schools as prisons keeping them from the play and exploration that they desire. A great fear came upon the administration decades ago. The staging of protests, sit ins and teach ins affected the design of schools for a generation. School designs included fewer and fewer windows and increasingly durable exterior finishes. Campuses that once were open to the neighbors, started having chain link and wrought iron fences.