architecture
| northeast
by Rachel Goldberg
1
designing better communities through collaboration
The people at The Design Collaborative are architects, but they’re also planners, community activists, and teachers. The firm’s unique philosophy of providing a full range of services custom-tailored to each project keeps them successful— and very busy, says president Lou DeLosso. DeLosso is the first person to meet with each client. With his partners, he creates a conceptual design along and sees each project through to completion. And because the firm provides a number of other services to schools, particularly long-range planning, much of his work also involves dealing with the government and procuring funding sources. When The Design Collaborative was chosen to build a new middle school in Burlington Township, N.J., their inhouse educational planners were there to evaluate the current enrollment and predict future population needs. The result was a complete overhaul of the existing facilities and grade structures. The outdated and overcrowded building that housed school administration and primary grade levels had outlived its useful life, so TDC decided to pull out the 1,450 sixth- through eighth-graders into a new state-of- the-art middle school. The students went from a building with inefficient mechanical systems and poor accessibility to a structure with fully equipped classrooms, gymnasiums, art and media centers. The Design Collaborative provided the plan, plus complete engineering services and interior design. “Programming is paramount in school construction,” DeLosso said. “We can embellish the project and make the spaces aesthetically pleasing, but it’s all to support the educational programs that are required and in place for each of the school districts, including the population and the enrollment 1. One of five engine bays at the Middle Township Fire District #1, NJ. The project consisted of converting an existing warehouse to a new 20,970 sq. ft. fire station. Photo courtesy of The Design Collaborative. Summer 2010 21