Jim and Pam Wells Elementary School (Educational Village) Cypress-Fairbanks ISD | Cypress, TX

Jim and Pam Wells Elementary School (Educational Village) is part of a multi-school site and was designed in conjunction with  Bridgeland High School and Middle School No. 20 as part of the District’s educational village concept.

The site is arranged so that all three buildings have a unique entry and include separate vehicular access for the parent, bus and student traffic. The design of the elementary school was based on programmed spaces from previous District prototype designs but was significantly altered in its space organization to allow it to be part of a master planned educational village.

Flexibility for instructional delivery, natural daylight in the classrooms and reducing energy consumption were incorporated into the design of this Collaboration for High-Performance Schools (TX-CHPS) elementary. The two-story academic wings are designed with a central library as the focus. Science labs are located on each floor to provide flexibility for instructional delivery. Although the elementary school was not able to share building components with the high school, it was able to share a central plant and cafeteria with the middle school. The cafeteria was designed to be directly adjacent to the future middle school’s cafeteria so the spaces could be left divided or could be opened up into one large space for special events.

Site challenges and restrictions including existing easements and site access required creative modifications to the original design. A key design element was created by turning the pipeline easement into a pedestrian pathway to connect newly developed residential communities. It also created a shared space that is utilized as an outdoor learning environment with the high school.

+ Master planning was completed by IBI Group for this district.

“The site has an easement that bisects from west to east with an additional east to west easement through the entire Bridgeland development. Initially, when the District involved IBI Group early in the site negotiations, we began exploring options for a three facility campus to house PreK-12 and serve approximately 5,900 students. Through various planning exercises we were able to provide a master plan that reduced the needed acreage by over 13 acres saving the District over $1.4MM in site acquisition costs.”

—Mark French, Director | US Deputy Education Lead | Senior Principal
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