The Facility Vision Timeline

October 2019: The first image of "Blu Sky Observatory " was shared by James Hanis, Architect, with Mary Jo Dyre, Educator. ( I will share this image in a later blog.)

November 2019 - January 2021: James Hanis immersed himself in the design process, producing the booklet captured in this photo.

Key remarks shared from Blu Sky Observatory Facility Replacement Project:

Landmark Siting

As a facility replacement project, the proposed “Blu Sky Observatory” is a visionary Rural Charter School Model situated within the Appalachian Mountains on the western edge of Historic Downtown Murphy between a non-active rail line and a water flowing stream that defines the north-south property lines. Designed for minimum impact to ‘The Learning Center’ site, the new building project will continue to accommodate some existing year-round schooling and facility operations during an accelerated construction timeline. Some of the modular classrooms will be removed prior to the start of construction as more enrollment is moved temporarily to Campus 2 at 78 Terrace Avenue, Murphy, NC. Once the replacement project is completed, all modules will be removed. The campus area restored as a green sustainable environment, creates a new research laboratory setting to anchor the “Blu Sky Observatory” building.

Formation of an Idea

This ambitious undertaking, ‘The Learning Center Facility Replacement Project’ provides an extraordinary opportunity in reshaping the 21st century Rural Charter School Model with a new dynamic architecture paradigm as a cutting-edge technological platform that facilitates a new era of academic research, study, dedication, and contribution for the pursuit of knowledge.

The project’s slender and elegant six-story building form, “Blu Sky Observatory” is borne of a desire to create an iconic and timeless state of the art Rural Charter School as a landmark destination in the town of Murphy, North Carolina. Located at the north end of an important north-south axis on Conaheeta Street, this new architecture mediates between the commercial north district and nearby residential community as a centerpiece in creating a quality of place that revitalizes the pedestrian streetscape.

Facility Dream + E-STEAM

Over the course of 2017-2019 the facility dream, designed by Architect James Hanis and driven by The Learning Center approach to education, sought to make itself known. By September 2019, my email history trail shows the first use of BLU SKY in a subject line, inclusive of an Attachment: BLU SKY NARRATIVE. True to his artistic nature, James Hanis had claimed the "blu sky" language to best capture the visionary, always "reaching higher" approach education.

In these early years of dreaming and planning, the project language was still forming. Somewhat informally, I found myself containing all my thoughts and research under the heading PROJECT BLU SKY. The term capital campaign also demanded my understanding and attention. I knew there were volumes of knowledge needed to move this project forward.

My strength for the task ahead came from these thoughts:

WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE: Facility will come in the future.

For the NOW: Stay on a true north course as a school unfolding education for a diverse population of learners. Continue to go a mile deep into a rich E-STEAM approach to education. Insist that Entrepreneurship, the Arts, and Agriculture be given equal weight to the popular buzz word of STEM education.

Every school day is our NOW. Make each day count for all of our students. Facility will come.

The time is NOW to Right the Future FOR Education.

PROJECT BLU SKY: EARLY PLANNING

The immersion planning stage of PROJECT BLU SKY officially began in spring 2017. Correspondence with James Hanis, Architect, continued sporadically as he worked the Imagineering Project at Disneyland Paris. On several occasions the time between our correspondences stretched out to what felt like "way too long." Would this be when busy lives got in the way and the correspondence ceased? I had not yet learned the art of filling my mind with possibility versus what all could go wrong when pursuing a dream.

The architect's correspondence always came. Detailed planning pages filled my inbox. It was the task of a dedicated team of staff members to fill in the blanks, to begin to flesh out the details of how The Learning Center approach to education would drive facility design.

Yes, there were numbers of bathrooms to be determined. More importantly there was space in the blanks and between the lines to capture some priority specifics sacred to the best in educational facility design:

• Avoid architectural boxes. Instead, gravitate to open designs, to interactive technology walls, to spaces that shift and change depending on the learning unfolding within the environment.

• Insist on project space where student work can remain setup through the "mile deep" work and discovery process.

• Create storage areas for supplies and materials that encourage student discovery and use.

• Design learning spaces that support collaboration and rich E-STEAM across-the- curriculum offerings.

• Provide presentation areas coupled with walls that welcome and celebrate student work.

• Offer space that prioritizes health, wellness, the arts and electives as core subjects.

• Extend learning space to the great outdoors.

• Set the highest environmental and sustainability standards.

The early Spring 2017 planning engaged a team daring to dream of a new facility. Over the course of the next three years, as the genius of the James Hanis' design concept captured our powerful approach to education, PROJECT BLU SKY emerged as a daring and bold educational undertaking. Only now, in the fall of 2021, have I begun to grasp the "paradigm leap in the making" that will "capture the imagination to think of ideas that do not exist and to create a new world in changing reality through Education."