School Description
We all know “Kids love Montessori” and they love to work in the Montessori classroom environments, the library, the gym, the new Learning Landscape, and the music classrooms guided by our talented and dedicated teachers and classroom assistants. Thank you for being part of our Denison community!
The entire Denison staff is dedicated to giving your child an education that focuses on your child’s strengths and potential while at the same time providing an excellent foundation of knowledge and skills to be a successful human being in the 21st century. Committed to Montessori principles and practices, our community cultivates each child’s unique potential and natural love of learning.
As a DPS magnet school, Denison Montessori has been providing quality education to children from throughout the Denver area since August 1996. Denison’s students are ethnically, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse, and standardized test scores are consistently among the highest in DPS. Denison is widely considered to be a national model for public Montessori education.
Learning Landscapes Description
Considering the severe site conditions, the design concept is driven by the need for a varied playground experience where students can independently explore new spaces just as they independently unfold topics of interest in the classroom.
Denison Montessori
Construction Date
Completed August, 2011
Learning Garden
Garden Plans and Photos
Master Plan
Vision
The vision is to create an exciting, vibrant playground for the students, the school, and the community. This includes play options, shading, landscape variations, and equipment for various ages. It should reflect the Montessori teaching style, to inspire independent, active learning outdoors.
Goals
- Provide spaces that connect to the Montessori teaching philosophy, allowing for continuity throughout the experience of the school and playground. These spaces should encourage curiosity, love of learning, and relentless imagination.
- Provide multiple pockets of space that exist as multipurpose spaces. Spaces and program elements should maintain several layers of character and meaning that assist in creating healthy thought processes and imaginative play.
- Create transition zones between elements of the site. This includes but is not limited to the building, program elements, and surrounding community.
Illustrative Drawing
Master Plan
Presentation Boards
Collage
Design Development
Description
Considering the severe site conditions, the design concept is driven by the need for a varied playground experience where students can independently explore new spaces just as they independently unfold topics of interest in the classroom.
Initially the design is based on a primary and secondary datum that stretches north-south and east-west respectively. These datums act primarily as organizing elements that set up connections across the site through a series of varying elements within the site plan. Layered over these two datums is the concept of the Japanese Tea Garden layout. This overlay dovetails into the school’s value system of overall balance (both intellectually and spiritually) in and among students and teachers alike. Originally, it had been proposed to place a Zen garden near the existing global garden in order to enhance the school’s wish for an international theme. This design takes a less obvious approach to the tea garden, by merely applying the design principles, and the not the design itself.
Design principles applied through several iterations were as follows:
- Combinations of 3,5,7 for all elements and spaces
- Connections between spaces achieved by means of visual, textural, structural, and material design
- Overall application of asymmetry and balance. The most common and obvious examples being balance of light and dark, asymmetrical design on the vertical and horizontal plane, use of the Golden Mean for spatial relationships.
Illustrative Drawing
Design Development Drawings
Presentation Boards
Visioning Package
Construction Documentation
Illustrative Plan
Construction Drawings
Play Equipment
Shade Structure