Architect Seeks Answer to Toxic Classrooms

Cameron Sinclair has visited classrooms in some of the poorest countries in the world, but he’s still shocked by what he sees in American schools. Six million students spend their days in temporary trailers that compromise both their education and their health. According to the award-winning architect, not only are the structures uninspiring places to learn, they leach toxic chemicals like formaldehyde into the air causing everything from headaches and difficulty concentrating to elevated cancer risk.

With Sinclair and others raising the alarm, Barack Obama has promised to address the miserable state of America’s schools and outfit them with “21st century classrooms.” Congress seems poised to provide billions in funding to allow him to begin the process of doing so. Which is all good news. Just one question: What is a 21st century classroom?

Sinclair, founder Architecture for Humanity, a group that seeks to improve people’s lives with smart design, is doing his best to provide an answer. He is sponsoring a competition that will, in coming weeks, generate a smorgasbord of safe and forward-looking classroom prototypes from top architects. The winner will receive $50,000 to make his or her design a reality.

“Classrooms are in bad shape,” agrees Dr. Thomas Stock of the University of Texas School of Public Health. The effects of the toxic air often ignored or lumped under the diagnosis of ‘sick building syndrome.’ “It has been known to cause variety on nonspecific illnesses in the short term,” Stock adds. Sinclair cites a recent Environmental Working Group study that shows that a child’s cancer risk is two to three times higher when he or she is schooled a portable classroom.

Refugees from Hurricane Katrina who were relocated into FEMA trailers offer a case study in the dangers. After suffering a wide range of health problems, more than 7,000 families have been ordered out of the trailers on concerns about formaldehyde exposure. Sinclair writes, “For the most part, these classrooms are constructed in the same way and using the same materials as FEMA trailers.”

Federal construction policies put in place 40 years ago been an impediment to efforts to replace toxic trailers with safer and greener alternatives. “Barack Obama isn’t going to change a single policy unless there’s a solution in place,” says Sinclair. “Nobody’s going to take the risk, so we have to show the solutions. We build prototypes; we test them, then we change the policy.”

In order to bring students teachers and parents into the design process, AFH has created a teaching curriculum to dovetail with the competition, asking students to consider how classroom architecture can help them learn.

The first step? Being sure it isn’t doing them any harm.

Thinkin' about tomorrow