Design and Construction
The design and construction of the school was at the time considered to be very advanced. With a concrete superstructure and wood roof and supporting beams, the school resembles a ski lodge. The groups of beams put together on the front side of the school, resembling trees some say, help with stability and support during an earthquake. Also the lights in the many of the classrooms are hung from thin cables to allow sway, again in the event of an earthquake.Technology was a key area of expenditure, with BC Tel (now Telus) and SD45 investing in hundreds of kilometres of fibreoptic cable and extensive audio-visual networking equipment provided by Dynacom. The result was the most technologically advanced school in the province – televisions in each classroom were networked with a tape room and broadcast centre which provided a morning news slide show (as well as VHS and DVD presentations in classrooms), fibreoptic cable reached each classroom, and geothermal heating and cooling regulated the building’s temperature. Today, much of the fiber optic equipment is unused, due in part to the declining application of fiber in a LAN environment in the late 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Rockridge Secondary School
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or construction:
“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”
—Marilyn French (20th century)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)