Boston Herald. Mod Squad Cuts School Costs; Architects Team with Modular Building Firm.

Sunday, July 27, 2008 — Two top local architects have teamed up with a Littleton company that specializes in modular buildings in a bid to find a solution to the Bay State's spiraling school construction costs.

They have come up with what they believe could be the classroom of the future for cash-strapped local schools. The prototype is dubbed CASE 21, or Creative Academic Sustainable Environments for the 21st Century.

The idea comes as state officials grapple with a series of budgetbusting school construction projects, including a $200 million planned high school in Newton.

Katherine Craven, executive director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, said the state needs to look at all options, including modular construction.

"The bottom line for us is that anything that would help achieve economies of scale and build good school buildings is good for us and good for the taxpayers," Craven said.

But for Dunlap, Jordan and Cort, CASE 21 is not just about providing a cheap alternative to the traditional classroom. They say that modular construction provides the design flexibility to create a better classroom experience, while also being cost competitive.

While it has the look of an old-fashioned New England schoolhouse, the CASE 21 model classroom is built of steel, not wood.

And it is designed to accommodate the latest high-tech, Internet, audio and visual teaching aids, as well as to maximize the use of natural light.

Moreover, CASE 21 will be capable of meeting top environmental building standards, from the materials it uses to the way it is constructed, Cort said.

But quality, in this case, won't break the budget, the group insists.

Traditonal school construction can start out with one price, but that often escalates during the design and building process due to overruns and change orders involving a myriad of contractors.

By contrast, the new CASE 21 model will be manufactured at a plant in Pennsylvania at a predetermined cost. Compared to the year or two it can take to put up a new school building, modular classroom buidlings can be built and assembled in three months or less, according to Cort and his partners.

"I think it can potentially save towns and cities millions and millions of dollars," he said.

While there are no deals yet to build the CASE 21, Triumph recently built a modular classroom for the Carroll School in Lincoln that served as a jumping-off point for its new CASE 21 model.

Meanwhile, Dunlap has designed a number of local school buildings. In fact, his design of the Whitman-Hanson high school is now in the running to become a "model school" as state officials seek out prototypes for new and more cost-effective designs.

"I would be disappointed if we did not have a number deployed within a year," Dunlap said.