Purpose
Ball State University Business Fellows students did case-study research on charter schools to develop ways to incorporate issues of curriculum, funding, and facility planning into the overall design of a building. Our society and educational system have changed radically in recent decades. Classroom design must mirror changes in educational styles and enable new ways of learning. Differing educational missions, faculties, and student populations all require significantly different design approaches. This Business Fellows project reviews and presents some of the most relevant trends in educational facilities, in particular ways to incorporate the facility more integrally into the innovative curricula charter schools employ. 

Action
The students analyzed six best practices nationally and profiled nine charter schools in Indiana to identify key design principles, to develop design patterns, and to illustrate design recommendations for the architectural planning of innovative and responsive charter school facilities for the twenty-first century. The Business Fellows worked in teams of four or more, traveling to the selected schools to do case study observation, trace measures, and focused interviews with the students and faculty of the charter schools profiled. The Business Fellows also worked in coordination with fourth year architecture students in the design of a building for both the Charter School of the Dunes in Gary and the Herron Charter School in Indianapolis. Lessons learned from the case studies and design studio projects are incorporated into a pattern-language guidebook.

Results
The Business Fellows team created a guidebook that includes four parts describing our research: a series of charter school case study exemplars; nine case studies of profiled Indiana charter schools; design projects for various charter schools; and a well-illustrated pattern language and graphic vocabulary structured around six overarching design principles. A pattern describes a problem that occurs in an environment and then describes the core of the solution in such a way that it becomes useful to the human communities that the pattern supports. In our research, a number of emerging patterns became apparent, such as the school as community center; classroom clusters; flexible, project-focused classroom spaces; a user-centered, democratic learning society; leveraging technology; and designing the learning environment as a teaching tool.

Faculty Mentor
Pam Harwood, Department of Architecture

Partners
Dr. Larry Gabbert, Director, Office of Charter Schools, BSU; Jason Bryant, Regional Director of IMAGINE Charter Schools, Imagine MASTer Academy; Robert Guillaume, Principal, Anderson Preparatory Academy; Janet McNeal, Principal, Herron High School; John Aytekin, Director, Indiana Math and Science Academy; Kevin Handley, Principal, Galileo Charter School; William Ignatowski, Principal, Charter School of the Dunes; Dr. Gwen Adel, Principal, Thea Bowman Leadership Academy; April Goble, Principal, KIPP LEAD College Preparatory Academy

Students
Jovan Dixon; Kelly Flanigan; Eric Gerding; Matt Goyak; Sarah Hockemeyer; Kim Huang; John Hudson; Brittany Pohl; Brittany Rasdall; Alcario Samudio; Dan Smith; Alex Sulanke; Nick Swinehart; Matt Van Soest; Neil Weber