Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) Conference April 11, 2008

Ron Almond and I had the pleasure of attending the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) Southeastern Regional Conference, held at the beautiful Grande Dunes Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC from April 6-9.  The conference kicked off with the keynote speaker, Christian Long, who is someone that has been on both sides of the table, when it comes to school design.  Christian worked in the architecture and planning of K12 facilities for several years, before he changed career paths and moved into teaching, where now he teaches high school English in Texas.  So he is someone that now work in the facilities we design, and deal day to day with decisions that we make as school designers.  His presentation however was really about neither, he spoke about the changing trends in technology used in schools.  Christian setup his presentation talking about metaphors, and really used his forum as a metaphor to describe the furiously fast pace that industry is moving.  It is truly rare to find someone that speaks faster than I do, but Mr. Long is certainly one that does.  His presentation moved very quickly, but the main point I took from the session was that while our generation as those in the professional realm now are digital immigrants, our children are natives of the digital age, and don’t know anything outside of the portable electronic, super-cell phone age of information.  Info about Christian can be found at http://thinklab.typepad.com/about.html. 

We spent Monday afternoon on the golf course, shooting a 5 under par round in a captains choice tournament at the Pinehills course at Myrtlewood Golf Club.  Ron and I teamed up with Jimmy Wilhide and Tom Hughes, who consequently carried our team.  Shot of the round belonged to Jimmy, who put us in eagle position on the second par 5 with a magical shot from 215 yards, rolling up within 6 feet of the pin.  We affectionately referred to Jimmy as “215” for the remainder of the conference.

Tuesday was a day of conference sessions, of which I attended two.  First was a presentation entitled Performance over Perception, given by Tom Balke and Shannon Rydell of Little and Associates, a long time client of Optima.  Tom and Shannon talked about the political decisions that go into school planning, and how what’s best for the facility are not always what ends up in the design.  In the MEP realm, we often don’t get involved into a project until long after a lot of these decisions are made, and don’t realize how much time and effort is put into them.  We just see a site that doesn’t perfectly setup for our systems and wonder why, without knowing all that has already happened.  It was good to be reminded of how much work our clients do not just to be awarded these projects, but to get them moving toward construction.

The other seminar I attended Tuesday was a case study on the first LEED school (Third Creek Elementary in Statesville, NC), featuring Moseley Architects and Rob Jackson of Iredell County Schools.  They went thru the features of the school that helped them attain the LEED rating, and the actual energy performance numbers, versus what was projected in the energy modeling.  They found that the actual energy costs of the building were very close to what was projected, actually a little less expensive.  Rob indicated that while they are not pursuing LEED certification of the later buildings, they are currently under design of the third and fourth replication of the Third Creek prototype.  

The conference concluded with an awards dinner and dancing on Tuesday night.  Overall, it was an informative and fun couple of days, set against a lovely early spring beach setting.  It’s always nice to have the chance to spend some personal time with our clients when we can, instead of only dealing with these people professionally.

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