IDEAS, LLC
3210 La Paz Lane
Santa Fe, NM 87507
Santa Fe: 505.629.4227
Albuquerque: 505.890.9649
Toll Free: 866.656.5113
Fax: 866.642.8918

Did you know …

  • The EPA has documented studies showing that “1 in 5 of our nation's 110,000 schools reported unsatisfactory indoor air quality.”
  • In California, students with the most daylighting in their classrooms progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests in one year than those with the least.
  • In North Carolina, test scores of students moved into a portable campus when their school building was destroyed by fire dropped 17 percentage points in one year — and increased 19 percentage points in the year after they were relocated to a new, daylit school.
  • 20% of teachers in schools with poor acoustics reported they had missed work due to voice problems.
  • Studies in workplaces document productivity reductions up to 28% when temperature deviates from the optimal.

“Researchers have repeatedly found a difference of between 5-17 percentile points between achievement of students in poor buildings and those students in standard buildings, when the socioeconomic status of students is controlled.”

   
  1. Assess educational effectiveness of building
  2. Assess building health
  3. Prioritize what needs to be fixed
  4. Identify the most cost-effective way to fix it
  5. Get it done!

  • Education Facilities Effectiveness Instrument (EFEI)™ (in conjunction with Fielding Nair International)
  • Lighting, air quality, acoustics, temperature surveys and remote monitoring
  • Multi-dimensional parametric modeling to clearly display and access assessment results, integrate with existing data, play “what ifs,” prioritize vision-drive goals and build long-term planning tools
  • Cost effectiveness and cost control strategies
    • Cost modeling and outcomes-weighted ROI built into the parametric model
    • Global sourcing for advanced cost containment solutions
  • Multi-level deployment support
    • D-5 Educational Planning Process ™ (in conjunction with Fielding Nair International)
    • Educational commissioning
    • Construction quality management
    • Construction project management
     
The Education Facilities Effectiveness Instrument (EFEI)™ and D-5 Educational Planning Process™ assess building design and conditions in consideration of teaching and learning modalities to maximize designed-in learning opportunities while accommodating cultural and fiscal concerns and meeting budgetary constraints. The processes use pattern language and story-telling to ensure the community’s needs are met.

EFEI™ provides a detailed metric of a school building and campus' effectiveness to support 21st century teaching and learning modalities, measuring the most important elements of a school's design relative to its ability to support education. It provides a reliable and consistent quality assessment that is easy to understand, well researched and documented over many decades, locally customized yet globally relevant. It can be finely tuned to the needs of each individual school and yet still be compared to regional, state, national or even global benchmarks.

The 5 Ds are: Discover, Define, Design, Develop and Deploy. EFEI is one of several tools used during the Discovery step. The Define and Design steps focus on identifying and refining design patterns. Development and Deployment are steps taken in conjunction with local administrators and contractors.

  These screen shots show information accessibility using multi-dimensional parametric modeling.
  1. In response to a query, elementary-age population changes by elementary school district from one census cycle to the next are overlaid on a district topographic map. Pins locate district schools.
  2. Double-click on a pin to zoom in to an individual school. Different users will be able to: fly through the school; see school demographics; map bus routes; get directions; query maintenance and/or construction status; monitor air quality, temperature, energy consumption in real time; see student performance; locate contact info for administrative and teaching staff and the school‘s responsible Board member; …

  3. In response to a query, this cut view of the school’s main floor shows space allocation by use category. Room sizes are calculated and automatically reported in terms of regulatory or policy-driven capacity.

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