Architecture experts Alan Ford from Ford Architects and Andrea Korber will discuss best practices for the design of learning rooms for children during a lecture and panels, which focuses on Ford's new third book “Creation of the Regenerative School”.
Ford wrote the book together with the employees Kate Mraw and Betsy del Monte. The lecture will take place on Friday, May 2, at Explore Booksellers in Aspen from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The book shows how to design learning environments that are “regenerative” and go beyond sustainability in order to be restorative for the “inmates, environment and community”.
“The idea is that you do better,” said Ford.
His latest publication illuminates the importance of projects such as Burlingame Early Childhood Education Center from Aspen, on which both Ford and Korber were worked.
Megan Monaghan, Co-Manager of Kids First, said that her organization initiated the Burlingame project in 2021 in order to satisfy the need of the community after high-quality early learning programs.
“There are many conversations about how to set up rooms for learning,” said Korber, owner of the country and shelter. “It is a topic that many people talk about these days.”
“The special thing about a case study by the Burlingame project is that it is the only project represented in the book that, in addition to a geothermal system that has some of the other projects in the book, can take all the best practices discussed,” said Ford.
He and Korber also work together on a scaled project for a small Red School house in snow mass. The final building documents are processed and should be completed by 2026.
Ford's former book published in 2007, “Designer The Sustainable School”, was recognized internationally and is still used by architects today.
“I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk to the community about the project that we work with Alan because he is only an incredible researcher and an abundance of knowledge, and it is a pleasure to work with him,” said Korber, an architect of Carbondale.
“We do something new every day. It is a pleasure to share it with everyone else,” she concluded.