2011 Exhibition of School
Planning and Architecture
Abu Dhabi Education Council
Future Schools Program
100 new Kindergartens, Cycle I, Cycle II & Cycle III
school building in the next 10 years
Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE
Project of Distinction: New construction
Future Schools Program
The Abu Dhabi Education Council has developed an ambitious program to build 100
new schools in the next 10 years. The process initiated in early 2009, follows a very
systematic approach that starts from understanding educational needs and
community expectations, goes through a review of the highest international
standards, and produces new school designs that are not only safe, appropriate
for learning, sustainable, well built and easy to maintain, but also attractive school
facilities, that stimulates students and teachers, and welcomes parents and
community participation in every aspect of school life and after hours. The first 15
of Cycle I, II & III schools and 5 Kindergarten schools are scheduled to open in
September 2011.
The United Arab Emirates
UAE Population
8,200,000
UAE Nationals
1,000,000
Area in km2
Urban
73,300
85%
Future Schools Program
Phase I
18 CI, CII
& III
Deliver 2011
Phase II
6 KGs
Deliver 2011
Phase III
15 CI, CII
& CIII
In tender
Deliver 2012
Phase IV
13 CI, CII
& CIII
In design
Deliver 2013
Future Schools Program
Yearly
updates
Planning
Step One:
Educational
transformation
Consultation
process
Step two:
Step Three:
Transformation
of the learning
environment
Design Manual
Standards and
Criteria
Yearly
adjustments
Step Five:
Step Four:
Design Models
Operations
and
maintenance
Site adaptation
and
Sustainability
Construction
PROCESS, STEP ONE:
Education Transformation
The recently approved Abu Dhabi Education Council’s
Strategic Plan for P-12 Education, is a bold blueprint to
transform the current education system in Abu Dhabi into one
of the best in the world. This comprehensive and long-term
strategic plan includes essential aspirations for all students
such as: student performance to be at international levels;
provision of universal access and choice for students;
preparation of students to enter higher education immediately
after graduation from secondary schools; and strengthening
cultural engagement and active citizenry for all.
As part of the effort to achieve such results, educational
facilities are to be designed to support modern pedagogy, to
provide a flexible, safe and supportive learning environment
for a highly effective and improved teaching and learning
process. These schools will have to offer a framework to
support child-centered, technologically and resource rich
learning across all curricular areas and, by the very nature of
the physical space, will become a teaching and learning
resource themselves.
PROCESS, STEP ONE:
Consultation process
What? Where? How? Modern or traditional?
Large or small? Single or mixed gender? and a
thousand more questions were asked and
answered during a comprehensive consultation
process that included the whole educational
community, school administrators, community
stakeholders and students of different levels.
Major decisions were made during that process
that included a strong desire for educational
effectiveness, sound construction practices
and a school building that is physically and
aesthetically incorporated into the
communities that they serve, and at the same
time, a clear representation of ADEC’s forward
looking vision which is also in sync with the
Abu Dhabi 2030 policy framework.
As part of the consultation process, a student
design competition was also carried out to get
their view of a school of the future and a video
was produced to present the new school
designs to the community.
PROCESS, STEP TWO:
The Transformation of the Learning
Environment
As a result of all new initiatives taken by ADEC in curriculum
improvement, teacher training, and school management,
an urgent need was felt to come up with new educational
facility designs that reflected all these new learning and
teaching.
The Infrastructure and Facilities Division had a vision of
radically break away from the old designs that had long and
dark corridors, misused spaces, poor light and ventilation,
energy inefficiency, and a scheme that had students
passively receiving instruction form a teacher in front of the
classroom, with no adequate facilities for art, music,
information and communication technology, no room for
students with special needs and all of this in a unattractive
building behind high walls.
To support the design of the transformed learning
environment, a Design Manual had to be produced.
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual
This Design Manual is intended to guide the
professionals who are ultimately
commissioned to create the architectural
designs for a new generation of schools in Abu
Dhabi. It touches on issues ranging from
planning for the location of new schools,
recommending the type of schools to build, to
a very detailed description of ADEC’s
functional, construction, operational and
aesthetical expectations. The language used
herein is highly prescriptive and represents
values that have to be met or exceeded within
a pre‐determined budget.
The standards and criteria presented in this
Manual serve also as a “yard stick” against
which the adequacy of existing school buildings
can be assessed on how they materially
support and compliment the ADEC mission.
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual: An Introduction
After we explain the content and the process of the
Design Manual we define our concept of Learning
Communities for 100 to 125 students each, as a space
where:
• Every student is well known by one or more teachers
and their learning needs are treated individually.
• The core disciplines are combined into an integrated
learning program.
• Students and teachers spend most of each day
working within their learning community and go into
the larger school for specialized studies such as
physical education, the library and food services.
• Teachers draw on their individual expertise/skills
while collaborating across disciplines.
• The teachers in each community collectively define
how classroom space and time are to be used.
Instructional methods, including technology, the sizes
and nature of ever-changing student groups, and how
the disciplines within the community are to be
integrated.
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual: B School sites
We provide recommendations on
site selection, building setting,
student safety, landscape, parking
etc
We establish site dimensions in m2
per Cycle and typical number of
students, which includes options
for the school building to be
developed on ground plus one or
two floors. Parking and sport
facilities and on the ground, except
for high density urban areas.
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual: C School design
Functional analysis and sample solutions
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual: D Performance standards
The performance standards we wrote are
meant to provide school designers targets
to meet or exceed in providing the
materials and systems for school design
projects, within the project budget. Design
decisions will be made by taking into
consideration the information in this Design
Manual and, when necessary, through
computer simulation models, as well as a
life-cycle cost analysis for each project and
site specific conditions. In addition to these
requirements, all school building designs
will have to meet or exceed the latest
version of:
• The sustainability requirements for
achieving 3 Pearls in the Estidama grading
system, and specific ADEC’s sustainability
requirements
• The International Building Code and
specific Municipal and local regulations.
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual: E Design Strategies and Processes
We provide design strategies and we
establish ADEC’s goals in:
 Sustainability
 Accessibility
 Construction and durability
 Aesthetic design quality
 Integrated design approach
 Building information modeling
 Process description and deliverables
by design phase.
PROCESS, STEP THREE:
Design Manual: F FF&E Design Guidelines and
Specifications
Guidelines for furniture, fittings and
equipment that are congruent with our kind
of teaching-learning process were prepared
for our newly designed buildings. We
established the specific performance that
we anticipate, dimensions that we need,
materials and construction requirements
that we expect.
Room data sheets describe the need per
each space in the school building and
product data sheets specify some products
available in the market today that meet our
requirements.
PROCESS, STEP FOUR:
Design models
In order to capture fresh ideas and the
most advanced design concepts, we
conducted a design competition to
which we invited architectural design
firms from Europe, Asia and the USA.
As a result we have different design
models that cover all the ranges from
cycle one, two and three and
kindergarten with custom solutions for
different sites and number of students.
Kindergarten
Cycle II and III
Cycle I with
Kindergarten
PROCESS, STEP FIVE:
Site adaptation and sustainability
Site selection starts with the analysis of
several possible options that are to be
graded in consideration of safety,
suitability and convenience. The cost of
land is not be a consideration for site
selection. If no suitable sites are found
in a given community that needs a
school, a change of land use and/or the
demolition of existing structures in an
appropriate location is addressed with
the pertinent authorities.
The Abu Dhabi land and cityscape is
transforming rapidly from rural
configurations and low profiles, to
vibrant cities where the school
becomes the center of the community
and in many cases the most prevalent
civic building.
PROCESS, STEP FIVE:
Site adaptation and sustainability
Once through the planning process the
sites are identified and the type and size
of school is determined, the site
adaptation process starts. Parking, pickup and drop-off are developed in a
manner that allows convenient access
without the need for pedestrians to
cross major flows of traffic, or to travel
significant distances from the parking lot
to the school entrance without a shade.
Our design models are meant to be
viable form the orientation point of view,
with different site conditions requiring
only minimal adaptations.
Particular emphasis is given to the design
of shaded outdoor learning spaces so to
increase social, recreational and
educational opportunities to teach about
the environment, natural science, as well
as to provide a safe place in which to do
research, and conduct experiments.
PROCESS, STEP FIVE:
Site adaptation and sustainability
Estidama, which means ‘sustainability’
in Arabic, is the credits based system
created by the Urban Planning Council,
that ADEC has adopted to measure the
level of sustainability achieved by its
school buildings. On a scale of one to
five pearls we decided to design our
building to reach the three pearl rating
In addition to that we have set specific
targets with greater emphasis on
energy and water conservation,
healthy indoor environments, outdoor
comfort and material and waste
reduction.
The sustainability goals for ADEC
buildings are achieved through an
Integrated Design Process and
disseminated to the students and the
community through Sustainability
Communication.
PROCESS, STEP FIVE:
Site adaptation and sustainability, goals and process to which all
ADEC schools have been designed to meet.
Renewable
Technologies
-PV and Solar
Thermal
Daylight
Harvesting and
Controls
And Views
Low-energy
systems &
appliances
Healthy
Ventilation,
Thermal and
Lighting
Comfort
Reduction of
Indoor
Noise –
Acoustics
Passive
Design
Construction
Waste
Management
Low Water
Use Fixtures,
Fittings &
Appliances
Treated
Sewage
Effluent
(TSE) for
Landscaping
Operational
And Organic
Waste
Management
Water
Monitoring &
Leak
Detection
Native/Adaptive
Drought
Tolerant
Species for
Landscaping
Shade
Canopies and
Self
Shading
Recycled
Materials
Use
Outcomes and Details
The result of ADEC’s Future Schools Program is a yearly program of school planning, design
and construction that is consistently based on the goals and strategies set out by the Design
Manual and continuous improvement process through various phases.
In order to illustrate the outcomes of our Program to the CEFPI Awards Committee, we have
included three of the projects as Kindergartens, Cycle I Schools and Cycle II & III Schools under
separate packages. The Awards Committee, at its discretion, may consider the comprehensive
Future Schools Program for an overall award, or might wish to consider the four different
project packages with our design models for individual awards.
Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture
2010 Project Data
Submitting Firm :
Project Role
Project Contact
Title
Address
City, State or Province, Country
Phone
Abu Dhabi Education Council
Owner
Alberto Treves
Section Manager, Design Section
PO Box 36005
Abu Dhabi, UAE
971-2-6150266
Design Manual Consultants
Project Role
Project Contact
Title
Address
City, State or Province, Country
Phone
FNI and SHW Consultants
Educational Facility Planners
Prakash Nair and Frank Kelly
Other Firm:
Project Role
Project Contact
Title
Address
City, State or Province, Country
Phone
N/A
Construction Firm:
Project Role
Project Contact
Title
Address
City, State or Province, Country
Phone
New York and Dallas
c/o Owner
Exhibition of School Planning and Architecture
2010 Project Details
Project Name
Future Schools Program
City
Various cities and rural areas
State
Emirate of Abu Dhabi - UAE
District Name
Abu Dhabi Education Council
Supt/President
Dr. Mugheer Al Khamis Khalili
Occupancy Date
Varies by Phases
Grades Housed
KG through 12
Capacity(Students)
Site Size (acres)
Gross Area (sq. ft.)
Per Occupant(pupil)
gross/net please indicate
Design and Build?
If yes, Total Cost:
Includes:
If no,
Site Development:
Building Construction:
Fixed Equipment:
Other:
Total: