Photo By Alfredo Barraza | Col. Patrick Dagon, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District...... read more read more
WIESBADEN, Germany -- When Will Adcock started with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe District in 2015, one of his initial jobs was overseeing the demolition of the old Wiesbaden High School on the Hainerberg Kaserne portion of U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden here. It was the beginning of nearly six years of demolition and construction work that was part of building a full campus of 21st-century schools for the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA.
Since then, a robust campus with three new 21st-century schools featuring more than 300,000 square feet of educational space and equipped with classroom space designed for over 1,750 students from pre-kindergarten through high school has emerged.
“It's a rare opportunity to be able to review over five years of construction work all from one vantage point, however, that is the case with the Hainerberg DoDEA Campus,” said Adcock, who started as a project engineer in 2015 but has since earned the role of resident engineer overseeing construction efforts for all projects managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers throughout U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden. “It’s exciting to see the transformation from all three schools needing significant upgrades to now being the latest 21st-century design which will provide quality education to students of personnel stationed here.”
Prior to the new campus, the existing high school, middle school and elementary school on Hainerberg dated to the 1950s. Their demolition and replacement were part of a larger overhaul of DoDEA facilities from that era throughout Europe, replacing the older facilities with dozens of new schools with DoDEA’s new 21st-century school model concept incorporated into the design. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is managing approximately $1.6 billion of that overhaul effort in Germany and Belgium, including the three completed schools in Hainerberg.
On Hainerbeg Kaserne, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked closely with partners in DoDEA, U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden the local German construction arm known as the Bauamt and contractors to deliver on these three schools that make up the larger campus.
“We have all worked together as a team to deliver this campus, including our partners in DoDEA, the Bauamt, the garrison and the contractors,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Project Manager Sibylle Ballnath, who served as project manager for all three schools. “We’re all very proud of the facilities we’ve delivered and I know the students and teachers will benefit from these projects for years to come.”
The first of the three schools completed and opened was Wiesbaden High School, which was the first DoDEA school to be completed in DoDEA’s new 21st-century model when it opened in 2017. Wiesbaden Middle School followed right nearby, opening in 2018, with Wiesbaden Elementary completing the campus with its opening this fall.
The 21st-century schools are designed with four key themes, making the facilities flexible and adaptable, incorporating outdoor learning into the design, using the facility itself as a teaching tool and incorporating technology into the fabric of the buildings themselves.
These concepts are woven throughout all three of the new schools on Hainerberg Kaserne.
Incorporating flexible and adaptable facilities with learning spaces means the new schools have mobile partition walls so educators are able to seamlessly change classroom sizes depending on the need and curriculum, facilitating group work or research or larger educational presentations of all sizes. While this is key to adjusting class sizes based on curriculum and group needs, it proved especially valuable as Wiesbaden High School, Wiesbaden Middle School and others throughout DoDEA have had to adapt to COVID over the past year.
Outdoor space plays an important role in 21st-century schools, and as a campus, the schools on Hainerberg Kaserne are all connected through green space that doubles as functional outdoor learning areas and gathering places.
“The shared green space is an amazing feature of this 21st-century campus, with specially-designed areas connecting the facilities that can be used for getting fresh air, outdoor learning and more,” Ballnath said. “The design and incorporation of these spaces into the larger campus showed great foresight on behalf of our partners in the garrison and DoDEA and I’m happy we were able to work with them and deliver such a great final product.”
The buildings themselves are also designed to be teaching tools, with building elements intentionally exposed and highlighted throughout so they can used to help students understand the building infrastructure or unique green features. At Wiesbaden Elementary School for example, these educational design features are highlighted by signs with the school’s Dachshund mascot explaining the building features in plain language for the children to understand. These can range from explanations of solar panels to the piping that carries water throughout the building.
Other key 21st-century education concepts incorporated into all three new schools on Hainerberg Kaserne include seamlessly incorporating technology into the building and classrooms and ensuring connectivity throughout the facilities.
As a connected, co-located campus the schools also share features, ranging from utility infrastructure to bus parking, which saves on space within the installation and reduces the amount of bus traffic, not having to make multiple stops drop offs and pickups on the base. Construction phasing for the larger campus also allowed the team to avoid costs for temporary facilities for the middle school and elementary school, reducing overall costs and allowing for reinvestment of savings into the buildings themselves.
Adcock, Ballnath and a handful others, including Project Engineer Ben Peschke, were in an uncommon position to be able to support all three Wiesbaden schools projects from beginning to end, along with many key partners in DoDEA and the Bauamt. This sort of continuity through multiple projects can be unusual and Peschke noted how it played a key role in the success of the larger campus approach.
“Construction-wise, errors and shortcomings on one project were immediately adapted and resolved on designing the next project, so we were able to resolve a lot of issues even before the next project grew from the ground,” Peschke said. “We were able to adapt the changing or not really specified requirements, refining them, and we are very proud that the schools are taken as a reference for other schools.”
One of those references for other schools is the energy dashboard concept that was refined over the course of building all three schools on Hainerberg Kaserne.
“For example, DoDEA now requires the provision of an ‘Energy Dashboard’ showing the building power and utilities consumption,” Peschke said. “During the design phase of the first school, this requirement was somewhat vague. At the high school the first dashboard was provided based on collaborative discussions with DoDEA, on the middle school this was refined, and on the elementary school the further refined approach was applied and is now considered as a standard guideline for other schools.”
With the completion of the third of the three schools in the campus, Peschke noted that it’s a somewhat bittersweet milestone for the team.
“All this would have been impossible without the great teamwork of all the partners involved and as with each project the confidence and effectiveness of the team grew stronger and better,” Peschke said. “On the one side everyone is proud of the achievement, but on the other, we'll miss the people we work closely with.”
| Date Taken: | 11.24.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 11.24.2021 09:16 |
| Story ID: | 409980 |
| Location: | WIESBADEN, HESSEN, DE |
| Web Views: | 250 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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