Hinsdale Central High School Case Study

For the past five years or so, Hinsdale Central High School has been investigating the options it has to improve and modernize. Hinsdale Central built in 1964 has a long history of renovations and additions. According to Perkins and Will master plan in 2010, there have been over twelve major additions to the original building over the past sixty years. This left the building with a patchwork of different building styles. Clif Greim states that “schools built in the 1960s and ’70s generally lack architectural character, are not energy-efficient and are constructed of cheaper materials”(Greim). With decades of unplanned building history, parts of the school are jumbled and disorganized. This makes the school very dysfunctional and makes the list of circulation problems alone very long. From traffic build ups outside at every school entrance available to major congestion …show more content…
With many other precautions and code requirements than a normal house, it takes a lot of planning and time to figure things out. According to Jay P. Greene, who did a study on cost of schools in the United States, “Some of the higher cost can be attributed to gold-plating in the school building codes. In Florida, for example, the increase in school building code requirements following Hurricane Andrew added $500,000 to the cost of each elementary school and $2 million for each high school over a decade ago. Every school was expected to withstand 150 mph winds rather than 121 mph and to double the thickness of the concrete roof to 4 inches.” Although some of these codes and requirements are not necessary, “Requiring that every school meet the highest standard for any building is a way to exploit our concern for kids’ safety to drive school construction costs up”(Greene). It’s hard to believe Hinsdale Central meets these codes when you’re walking down the hallway and thirty lockers next to you rattle with every