Pleasant Ridge Montessori Design Charette
One of my favorite things about being an Architect at SHP Leading Design is the opportunity to work on projects in communities I have personal connections with to improve the environments for learning and living in the area. Yesterday morning I had the chance to help facilitate a design charette hosted at SHP's Cincinnati Office for a group of stakeholders (staff, students, parents and volunteers) at Pleasant Ridge Montessori (PRM) to identify challenges and opportunities associated with the school's increasing enrollment outgrowing the population the building was originally designed for. The charette proved beneficial for all those involved and provided the design team with valuable insights to start moving forward with some initial concepts.
One of the unique things I learned about PRM during the process of preparing for the design charette was that unlike other montessori schools in the Cincinnati Public School District, is that PRM is a neighborhood school (as opposed to a magnet school) that is open for all children in the Pleasant Ridge community to attend. As a result, the neighborhood pride and support for the school is exceptional. The positive reputation of the school also provides a nice bump in real estate values and rental demand for the immediate area, which you can see the Starter Home 2.0 project falls within.
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