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Hex Pods Education Hub
Hex Pods Education Hub
Hamilton, Canada
Project Featured on Aug 27, 2024
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Other Projects by +VG Architects
Hex Pods Education Hub
Hamilton, Canada
Project Featured on Aug 27, 2024
Firm
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2023
SIZE
1000 sqft - 3000 sqft
BUDGET
$500K - 1M
As kids returned to school in September, McKinnon Park Secondary School in the Hamilton suburb of Caledonia, 90 minutes southwest of Toronto, made history with its prototype installation of the Hex Pod Education Hub, an ideal solution for small-group learning at a safe social distance for schools.
“This is the first innovation in portable classrooms in a quarter-century,” says architect Dan Wojcik, Chief Operating Officer and head of the Ottawa studio at +VG Architects – The Ventin Group Ltd., a full-service Ontario firm with a 50-year focus on education. “Our Hex Pod education hub boasts the most community-based, open, economical and simple systems solution for small-group learning at a safe social distance from congested school campuses,” he says. “And it’s economical enough to be mass-produced at commercial scale.”
On the lawn between the main building and the parking lot at McKinnon Park Secondary School, the vivid blue and green Hex Pods contrast starkly against the nearby existing domino sprawl of 12 aging portable classrooms, those unloved additions at overcrowded schools. The conjoined 954-square-foot Pods open onto a 1,000-square-foot wood-plank deck shaded by a canopy made of galvanized structural steel decking. Weather permitting, the area doubles as an informal outdoor classroom. Construction on the project began in June 2022 and was completed on time for the official opening on the first day of school, Sep. 5, 2023, and on budget: $1,006,134 (US$743,935).
During the COVID-19 crisis, “portables” served as the overflow safety valve. “They were the only practical way to relieve the classroom overcrowding that safe social distancing would otherwise have caused,” Wojcik says. “In short order, there was a demand for more space.”
Portable classrooms, typically 25-by-30-foot fluorescent-lit boxes, have earned a bad rap. What was seen as the go-to quick fix for overcrowded schools in the U.S. and Canada now appears to present unintended long-term costs in dollars and children's health because they tend to become permanent. As their concrete plinths splay and vapour barriers fail, their dark interiors become dank and mouldy, triggering asthma. Inadequate fresh-air exchange can cause students to stew in unacceptably high levels of their own carbon dioxide by the end of the day, leading to fatigue. Studies show that as CO2 levels rise, student performance fails. Then there’s the likely buildup of harmful airborne substances such as dust, allergens and volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde off-gassing from paint, furniture and carpeted floors. No wonder students assigned to portables often feel like second-class citizens, unlucky and ignored.
“Sending teachers back to a room after the pandemic for six hours a day with poor or no ventilation and not enough space for social distancing was really the pitfall of Ontario’s back-to-school plan,” Wojcik says.
To make the cheap vinyl windows of portables vandal-resistant, they may be covered in wire mesh. This gives the portable the ominous appearance of a penal institution, further diminishing users’ morale.
Wojcik pondered the defects of traditional portables while gazing at the honeycomb in the jar of honey in his office’s servery. Suddenly, the Eureka! lightbulb went off in his head: He had a vision of how to build a better mousetrap. He quickly sketched the outline of a prefabricated, rapidly deployable, sustainable portable. Its hexagonal form is the most efficient way to wrap a space with the least material. The system is built around 120-degree, rather than traditional 90-degree, corners so that installations of multiple Pods cluster into honeycombs instead of grids.
The open angle at the core of the Hex Pod’s design creates inviting classrooms that encourage serendipitous communication and collaboration. The Pod’s hexagonal layout and tilted ceiling feel more welcoming, spacious and informal than a portable of comparable floorspace. “When you sit in a box, you are either up against the wall or facing a corner. In a Hex Pod, you sit amid the flowing, organic geometry of ‘open arms,’” he adds.
Pods can be erected individually or in clusters near schools on existing sites. “Our Pod can expand beyond the single-module model of the portable, so that you get a richer physical environment than you would inside a rectilinear portable.” Now that’s a lesson worth learning.
Photography: David Lasker Photography
“This is the first innovation in portable classrooms in a quarter-century,” says architect Dan Wojcik, Chief Operating Officer and head of the Ottawa studio at +VG Architects – The Ventin Group Ltd., a full-service Ontario firm with a 50-year focus on education. “Our Hex Pod education hub boasts the most community-based, open, economical and simple systems solution for small-group learning at a safe social distance from congested school campuses,” he says. “And it’s economical enough to be mass-produced at commercial scale.”
On the lawn between the main building and the parking lot at McKinnon Park Secondary School, the vivid blue and green Hex Pods contrast starkly against the nearby existing domino sprawl of 12 aging portable classrooms, those unloved additions at overcrowded schools. The conjoined 954-square-foot Pods open onto a 1,000-square-foot wood-plank deck shaded by a canopy made of galvanized structural steel decking. Weather permitting, the area doubles as an informal outdoor classroom. Construction on the project began in June 2022 and was completed on time for the official opening on the first day of school, Sep. 5, 2023, and on budget: $1,006,134 (US$743,935).
During the COVID-19 crisis, “portables” served as the overflow safety valve. “They were the only practical way to relieve the classroom overcrowding that safe social distancing would otherwise have caused,” Wojcik says. “In short order, there was a demand for more space.”
Portable classrooms, typically 25-by-30-foot fluorescent-lit boxes, have earned a bad rap. What was seen as the go-to quick fix for overcrowded schools in the U.S. and Canada now appears to present unintended long-term costs in dollars and children's health because they tend to become permanent. As their concrete plinths splay and vapour barriers fail, their dark interiors become dank and mouldy, triggering asthma. Inadequate fresh-air exchange can cause students to stew in unacceptably high levels of their own carbon dioxide by the end of the day, leading to fatigue. Studies show that as CO2 levels rise, student performance fails. Then there’s the likely buildup of harmful airborne substances such as dust, allergens and volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde off-gassing from paint, furniture and carpeted floors. No wonder students assigned to portables often feel like second-class citizens, unlucky and ignored.
“Sending teachers back to a room after the pandemic for six hours a day with poor or no ventilation and not enough space for social distancing was really the pitfall of Ontario’s back-to-school plan,” Wojcik says.
To make the cheap vinyl windows of portables vandal-resistant, they may be covered in wire mesh. This gives the portable the ominous appearance of a penal institution, further diminishing users’ morale.
Wojcik pondered the defects of traditional portables while gazing at the honeycomb in the jar of honey in his office’s servery. Suddenly, the Eureka! lightbulb went off in his head: He had a vision of how to build a better mousetrap. He quickly sketched the outline of a prefabricated, rapidly deployable, sustainable portable. Its hexagonal form is the most efficient way to wrap a space with the least material. The system is built around 120-degree, rather than traditional 90-degree, corners so that installations of multiple Pods cluster into honeycombs instead of grids.
The open angle at the core of the Hex Pod’s design creates inviting classrooms that encourage serendipitous communication and collaboration. The Pod’s hexagonal layout and tilted ceiling feel more welcoming, spacious and informal than a portable of comparable floorspace. “When you sit in a box, you are either up against the wall or facing a corner. In a Hex Pod, you sit amid the flowing, organic geometry of ‘open arms,’” he adds.
Pods can be erected individually or in clusters near schools on existing sites. “Our Pod can expand beyond the single-module model of the portable, so that you get a richer physical environment than you would inside a rectilinear portable.” Now that’s a lesson worth learning.
Photography: David Lasker Photography
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