How do you incorporate the specific needs of homeless children into the design of a school? That’s the question the Oklahoma City-based nonprofit organization Positive Tomorrows asked itself when it was daydreaming about a new building that could meet the many needs of its students. Positive Tomorrows has been educating homeless kids and providing social services to families since 1989.

“There is no model for this type of school,” said Gary Armbruster, principal architect and partner at MA+ Architecture, which came on the scene in 2013 to help kickstart the design process for the new school.

Working with staff and students of Positive Tomorrows, his team came up with a design that would address the challenges homeless students face every day while finding ways to replicate the experiences of children who don’t suffer from homelessness. The new building, which will eventually serve children from infants to eighth-grade students, is set to open in September 2019. With a target of 210 students at full capacity, it will almost triple the capacity of the current facility, which can only serve about 74 children. Through its new structure, Positive Tomorrows hopes to provide a standard on how to build a school for homeless children.

[For more on this story by REBECCA BELLAN, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...ve-tomorrows/581152/]