Education: Prefab School Days

In Lafayette, Ind., elementary students returned to classes this month in a handsome, fully equipped school erected especially to serve the needs of the city’s rapidly growing Edgelea area (two new homes a day). Through its eight spacious rooms trouped the youngsters, bubbling over with amazement at the rubber-cushioned seats, green blackboards, tinted glass walls. But nothing about Edgelea’s new school was more amazing than the fact that five weeks before it had not existed.

Fast & Cheap. The Edgelea school is a new thing in schools: a prefabricated job built to rival the conventional school building. It was put up as a pilot model by National Homes Corp., the nation’s largest builder of prefabricated homes, in only 21 working days after its foundation was poured. Cost per classroom: $18,500. Conventional school buildings take from twelve to 18 months to construct, cost an average of $37,000 a classroom.

Prefab schools are not a new idea, but heretofore most of them have been cheaply built temporary wooden buildings lacking in conveniences. There are signs that the tide is now turning to well-planned permanent prefabs, sturdily constructed of steel, glass, wood and Fiberglas. School officials are frantically trying to find space for the horde of youngsters crowding the bulging public schools. This fall, says the U.S. Office of Education, there will be a shortage of 250,000 classrooms. Many communities simply cannot afford to build the school buildings they need; others have changing needs and such schools are not satisfactory.

Flexible & Convenient. Hoping to cash in on the demand, several companies have already started building the new prefab schools. In Hamilton, Mass., Stoner Associates of Boston has just completed a two-classroom addition to the Manasseh Cutler School. It is built of aluminum, glass, steel and Fiberglas, is complete with heating, plumbing, TV and furnishings. Cost: $22,500 per classroom. Another Boston firm, Structo Schools Corp., is planning to build modified prefabs, rent them to communities that have reached their bonded-debt limit.

Edgelea’s new school is probably the nearest thing to a prototype of the new generation of prefab models. It is a single-story, brick-wood-steel building, low and rambling, composed of four self-contained, two-classroom units connected by an enclosed corridor of glazed glass (unnecessary in warm areas). Each 2,700-sq. ft. unit has its own twin washrooms, project area, heating plant, storage space and drinking fountains. The units can be used individually or added to as required, can be dismantled and moved to follow shifting populations. With such models, communities will be able to build for their current needs and avoid large-scale, heavily bonded construction programs.