Chapters:
[00:00:00] Introduction & Welcome
[00:01:00] Personal Journey & Background
[00:05:00] Catholic Formation Track
[00:07:56] Vision for Growth & Campus Expansion
[00:10:14] Trades & Faith Formation
[00:14:00] Virtuous Education
[00:17:43] Living the Faith on Campus
[00:27:00] Financial Accessibility
[00:31:00] Campus Culture & Community
[00:36:00] Founding Vision & Legacy
[00:39:30] Challenges in Secular Education
[00:45:00] Integration of Faith & Learning
[00:52:00] Student Transformations
[01:02:00] Conclusion
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https://www.sjp2academy.com/
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What does it take to design and build a brand-new Catholic high school from the ground up? In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vliet sits down with architect Mark Blackwood of Ekistics to discuss the incredible journey of bringing St. John Paul II Academy to life. From early feasibility studies to overcoming budget challenges and designing a space that fosters faith, community, and learning, this conversation dives deep into the thought, effort, and passion behind the project. Tune in to hear about the innovative architectural choices, the importance of maintaining school culture, and the vision for the future of Catholic education in Surrey.
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Troy Van Vliet: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let’s begin.
[00:00:17] Good day, everybody. Welcome to Catholic Education Matters. Um, happy to be here today with Mark Blackwood.
[00:00:26] Mark Blackwood: Thanks Troy
[00:00:26] Troy Van Vliet: Uh, Mark is the architect, or one of the, uh, principals at Ekistics Architecture.
[00:00:31] Mark Blackwood: That’s right.
[00:00:31] Troy Van Vliet: And, um, Mark is the lead designer, lead architect for our project, St. John Paul II Academy, which is almost finished. Uh, it’s under construction now.
[00:00:40] Mark Blackwood: We’re getting there.
[00:00:41] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Uh, this September, uh, we’ll be. Ready for action. And, um, so Mark, we’ve been actually working together on this project while we were working for, we met through, um, uh, another channel. We were, uh, working on the same project for, uh, a home, a luxury home that we were building on the west side of Vancouver.
[00:01:02] Mark Blackwood: That’s right. Yeah.
[00:01:03] Troy Van Vliet: That’s how we were really, uh, originally introduced. And started doing some design on some of the other development work and then, um, thought, hey, this is a great partnership. And we introduced you to, uh, St. John Paul II Academy as a project, as a potential project back then.
[00:01:18] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. Thanks for that.
[00:01:19] Troy Van Vliet: And, uh, yeah. Um, well, it’s worked out really well. And, um, so we started dabbling in, uh, the fees. It was even just kind of in the feasibility state, didn’t even know where we were going to be building the school.
[00:01:32] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. I think we; we looked at a couple of sites at that time. Um, not even the site that we’re kind of building on today.
[00:01:38] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:01:38] Mark Blackwood: So, um, interesting to sort of see how it’s kind of evolved over the past eight to 10 years.
[00:01:47] Troy Van Vliet: It’s been more than 10 years for myself and some of the other people on some of the other parents on the team that kind of championed the project. And, but you were there early on.
[00:01:58] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:01:58] Troy Van Vliet: So, um, you’ve seen me age over the years, the stress of a project like this, but, um, it’s been great. Uh, it’s been a great partnership. So, congratulations on the success that you’ve had with the project.
[00:02:11] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. And I think over that time, we’ve had the benefit of seeing our own kid’s kind of go up to high school.
[00:02:16] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly.
[00:02:16] Mark Blackwood: So, I guess there’s a benefit there.
[00:02:17] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. So, uh, and my oldest, or pardon me, my oldest is already graduated from the school. But, um, uh, cause we’re in a temporary campus. My youngest will be the first one to graduate from the new campus. Her first class will be, and she was really kind of my motivation, my initially out of the gate.
[00:02:36] Um, but we started planning this campus early on for, as a smaller school. Originally we were thinking, you know, maybe 600 students max. Um, and then we, you know, sort of did some studies around the area to find out, um, you know, what was the growth and, you know, what was the need going to be. And then we were like, oh wow, we’re thinking way too small. So, the current school.
[00:03:00] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, you look at Surrey as a city and there, there’s a real desperate need for schools. And uh, especially with the rate of development that’s happening.
[00:03:08] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:03:08] Mark Blackwood: So, to kind of expand the scope, I think, made a lot of sense to really address what the need is, not only today, but, you know, in, you know, three years to the future.
[00:03:18] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. The, um, just to put it in perspective for some of the people that are, uh, watching. Um, we have, uh, in the city of Vancouver proper, there’s about 50,000 kids in K to 12. And um, the archdiocese, we have, we’ve, there’s four Catholic high schools in the city of Vancouver proper, um, to service those 50,000 students.
[00:03:43] And in, uh, Surrey, we have 85,000 kids in K to 12, and it’s growing, um, at the time we started the project, we only had one Catholic high school, that was Holy Cross. A big Catholic school of over 800 students, um, 8 -12. And, uh, and now there’s us. So, we’re the small school now, but we’re building the new campus for how many students?
[00:04:07] Mark Blackwood: Well, we’re looking at about 900.
[00:04:08] Troy Van Vliet: 900.
[00:04:10] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, and I think it’ll be interesting for, you know, folks who maybe don’t know where the school is along 24th Avenue. You drive by there today and it’s kind of in the middle of, it feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere to some degree.
[00:04:23] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. Green Space
[00:04:23] Mark Blackwood: and, uh, but if you look at the neighborhood plan, uh, for Surrey, for that area, um, it won’t be too, too long in the future where you’re going to see a lot of residential development, uh, townhomes, apartments, everything kind of popping up around where the school is.
[00:04:40] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:04:40] Mark Blackwood: So, um, you know, that’s just going to reinforce that need for kind of more, uh, more spaces in schools, so this is going to be a good contributor to that.
[00:04:52] Troy Van Vliet: There’s a public school that just opened up just down the road from us.
[00:04:55] Mark Blackwood: Hm-mm.
[00:04:56] Troy Van Vliet: And it opened up I think three years ago, three, four years ago. And to put it in perspective, it opened up for 1,600 students right away. And it was full the day it opened.
[00:05:05] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. Eight to twelve.
[00:05:06] Troy Van Vliet: And now I think there’s over 1,700 students, there’s over, they already have, I think, nine portables on the site.
[00:05:13] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:05:13] Troy Van Vliet: They’re running a split shift in classes so that some students start at 8 or 8. 30 or something like that and stay till 2 and, uh, the next group comes in at 9 and they stay till 4, um, just to try and accommodate, uh, all the, so schools in general in the area are really needed.
[00:05:31] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:05:32] Troy Van Vliet: Um, so, uh, let alone Catholic schools. And, um, yeah, so we were way far behind in that. And then, so this is something interesting to talk about. We have, um, we started out with just over nine acres of land. And, um, that in itself is tough to fit a school, you know, a big, um, high school with all the amenities, uh, and including a sports field.
[00:05:57] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:05:57] Troy Van Vliet: Um, it’s tough now. We also had to put road dedication setbacks. First of all, along 24th Avenue. And then we had to add a road on the other three sides.
[00:06:07] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:06:08] Troy Van Vliet: So, the road dedications that we had to give a lot back.
[00:06:11] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, you start off with what you think is your piece of property and that’s that pie kind of gets sliced away for kind of what’s needed for the city infrastructure. Like you said, kind of roads on all, you know, additional three roads on the other three, uh, three sides of the site, um, and then, you know, sport fields, right, are huge.
[00:06:33] Um, and then there’s the parking demand for a school as well. So, um, you know, I think part of our job as architects is to sort of take that program from the site, you know, what is the, what does the site or the school need to be? What needs to go into it? Um, how do we fit that on the land? There’s topography to the site. It’s not, um, sites sometimes look flat, but, uh, you know, when you’re spreading that across nine acres, there’s actually, you know, a pretty good, uh, big grade difference from, uh, north to south through the site.
[00:07:05] Troy Van Vliet: That’s right.
[00:07:06] Mark Blackwood: On the one hand, these are interesting challenges. And, uh, in this case, it actually provided us the opportunity to, uh, put our parking below grade.
[00:07:14] Troy Van Vliet: That’s right.
[00:07:15] Mark Blackwood: Um, so the nice thing about the, you know, I like to refer to it as a campus.
[00:07:20] Troy Van Vliet: Yup.
[00:07:21] Mark Blackwood: Um, you know, because I think it evokes a bit more of a student-centered kind of place.
[00:07:27] Troy Van Vliet: Yep.
[00:07:27] Mark Blackwood: Um, you know, quite often you’ll. Approach schools and what’s the first thing you see is a big parking lot, right? Whereas I think in this case the challenge then becomes an opportunity to sort of bury the parking have the ground plane really take a be taken over by landscaping and sports fields and outdoor spaces for students so and I think You know, I think the parents will enjoy this. Now they have the opportunity to go underground, pick up and drop off their students in a covered environment. So
[00:08:01] Troy Van Vliet: yeah.
[00:08:01] Mark Blackwood: In the thick of winter, you’re not, uh, you’re not, uh, darting in from the rain. And, uh, so you’re sort of a nice, uh, a nice comfortable area to sort of drop off and pick up, uh, pick up your kids. So, you know, I think that was, uh, you know, a challenge and an opportunity. And, uh, you know, I think as we kind of see on the drawing here, um, you know, the school is really centered around kind of this courtyard experience. So that was sort of a main sort of designed, uh, early design decision in the process to sort of make sure that, um, we’re not just designing a building where we’re designing connections to outdoor spaces as well.
[00:08:42] Troy Van Vliet: That’s right. Swing back to the underground parking before we move on to, uh, more exciting parts of the school.
[00:08:49] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:08:49] Troy Van Vliet: Um, cause the underground parking that came up as a challenge when we said, okay, actually we need more space because we need to build a bigger school.
[00:08:57] Mark Blackwood: Ya.
[00:08:57] Troy Van Vliet: And that was, you know, we came across that fairly early on and, um, so parking became an issue right away. It’s like, well, if we’re going to have surface parking, um, that’s going to take up area that we could be building, you know, um, classrooms, what have you. So, um, um, now fortunately our property sloped.
[00:09:17] Mark Blackwood: Hm.
[00:09:18] Troy Van Vliet: So how do, because underground parking is not cheap.
[00:09:21] Mark Blackwood: No.
[00:09:21] Troy Van Vliet: If you’ve got to go straight down and you’re dealing with all kinds of ramps and things like that, it costs a lot of money. So, what did we do on our site to try and mitigate that somewhat so that we could relatively reduce some of the underground parking?
[00:09:35] Mark Blackwood: Well, I think, uh, when you look at the sloping site, the benefit is you’re not having to excavate down the full depth. Right. Kind of one story.
[00:09:45] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:09:46] Mark Blackwood: And a half of the parking is buried into the slope.
[00:09:49] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:09:49] Mark Blackwood: The other half to the north, in our case, um, is essentially above ground.
[00:09:55] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:09:56] Mark Blackwood: So that kind of introduces another challenge of, well, you don’t really want your elevation along 24th Avenue to be a view of parking, right? So, um, that’s where we decided that the school really needs to kind of, wrap over top and then down in front of the parking. So, um, the lower, uh, floor of the school as it kind of fronts on the 24th Avenue is classrooms and sort of program space for the school and not parking.
[00:10:26] Troy Van Vliet: And we got all windows there.
[00:10:27] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think, uh, as people sort of drive around the school, I think the parking kind of disappears.
[00:10:34] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:10:34] Mark Blackwood: And it’s really about the more, more exciting, uh, kind of classroom and kind of, uh, you know, places for students, not places for cars.
[00:10:45] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. So, when we’re designing that, it’s different for a school, especially a high school, rather than, uh, let’s say an office building parking, people come, they park, they stay.
[00:10:57] Mark Blackwood: Mm-hm.
[00:10:58] Troy Van Vliet: And, you know, they have their working day and then they go back, and they leave.
[00:11:02] Mark Blackwood: Ya.
[00:11:02] Troy Van Vliet: Whereas with school, you have staff that does that. But a huge part is drop off.
[00:11:08] Mark Blackwood: It’s a busy time.
[00:11:09] Troy Van Vliet: And it happens all at once. So, it has to be designed for traffic flow.
[00:11:14] Mark Blackwood: Yes.
[00:11:14] Troy Van Vliet: And, uh, I think you spent a lot of time on that, make getting it right.
[00:11:18] Mark Blackwood: We did. We, uh, we had to work with, um, you know, the city of Surrey had certain requirements of how they wanted, uh, traffic to sort of move through the site and how it connects to the public streets.
[00:11:30] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:11:31] Mark Blackwood: Which is kind of really their main concern. Um, and then also worked with traffic engineers to sort of work out sort of an optimum flow, uh, to ensure there’s sort of a safe and kind of organized way to sort of drop off and pick up students. So, um, Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s a relatively big parkade.
[00:11:52] And, uh, so there’s lots of room, especially at the drop off area. We specifically made, uh, the drop off lane’s kind of extra wide. So, there’s safe zones kind of adjacent to cars to allow students to get out and then make their way into the, uh, the entrances at the parkade level.
[00:12:12] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:12:12] Mark Blackwood: Um, but, uh, yeah, a lot of, uh, a lot of studies kind of went into trying to make sure that. That flow was safe and efficient because, uh, you know, I think as a parent and, you know, parent with two kids in schools and whatnot, we can appreciate that kind of pick up and drop off time.
[00:12:31] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:12:31] Mark Blackwood: It can be a bit chaotic.
[00:12:33] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Mark Blackwood: So, uh, we need to kind of really think that through.
[00:12:35] Troy Van Vliet: So, it’s great to be out of the weather. Number one.
[00:12:38] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:12:38] Troy Van Vliet: That’s an added bonus. Uh, and the other thing is for it to flow during that stressful time when you’re trying to get kids dropped off there. So, we also have transit right in front of the school. So public transit.
[00:12:48] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. Right on 24. Right there.
[00:12:50] Troy Van Vliet: So, and we’ve got an entrance into the school just right from the transit as well.
[00:12:54] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:12:55] Troy Van Vliet: We’ve got a few different entrances. We’ve got entrances from the underground. Um, they’ll most likely be the busiest ones. Um, and then we’ve kind of got the fancy entrance right at the front of the school, which probably couriers get to use more than anybody. You know, um, it’s not going to be the highest traffic, um, entrance, but it is quite a grand entrance that was designed in the, uh, in the front of the school.
[00:13:17] So, um, and then we also. Um, so we had to build the roads to, uh, equip, uh, handling the traffic around the school. And we also have put a traffic light in.
[00:13:29] Mark Blackwood: Mm-hm.
[00:13:29] Troy Van Vliet: On 24th Avenue. So, at our costs, so we’ve got probably 10 million worth of offsite civil costs to that, basically, we give back to the city.
[00:13:39] Mark Blackwood: Mm-hm.
[00:13:40] Troy Van Vliet: Um, you know, quite often people believe that the city or, you know, our cities and municipalities build the roads. It’s actually, you know, the new roads, actually, the developers and the developments that come in that actually pay for that.
[00:13:51] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. And we also have the unique situation where, um, as I was saying, like the school is a little bit, you know, there’s not much around it right now. So, the, the city infrastructure hasn’t really caught up with that area, um, of Surrey.
[00:14:07] So the capacity of the sewer system, um, you know, wasn’t at a point where it could really handle the volumes that a sort of a high school would, uh, would put into it. So, you know, like you say, you talk about the off, uh, the offsite work. Um, the school had to figure out a way to really put in their own system to sort of make sure and tie that in with the city system, uh, to ensure there’s adequate capacity.
[00:14:33] So, yeah, it’s not the, um, You know, it’s not the, you know, the pretty stuff to talk about, but it’s a lot of the, you know, these issues that go on behind the scenes that really go into realizing a project like this.
[00:14:48] Troy Van Vliet: And that took several years for us to get that all put together, you know, in planning before we can actually start building anything. Um, and the sewer, we had to connect, uh, what is that over twenty, almost two kilometers. We have to go down, Uh, 24th Avenue with a temporary sewer line.
[00:15:07] Mark Blackwood: Ya, ya.
[00:15:07] Troy Van Vliet: To hook into the sewer over there because we don’t know how long it’s going to take before the city sewer actually ends up coming to the front of our site. So, we had to do a million-and-a-half-dollar temporary city hookup. Um, but it was either that or wait and wait and wait and wait. And it could be indefinite, you know, as to how long the sewer would come there. So once again, not the pretty things to talk about, but [00:15:30] that’s reality and they’re costs. So, all those costs add up and add up. And these are things that you have to spend money on that nobody sees. And, you know, you just assume that when the toilet flushes, everything works. Right. So,
[00:15:43] Mark Blackwood: yeah. And I think, yeah, it just touches on kind of just a couple of the really sort of complex things that go into sort of realizing a school or really any kind of development. You know, even, you know, some environmental issues on site, uh, to sort of work through, which take, uh, which take a long time to get city approvals, governmental, you know, both provincial and federal approvals. Um, so, yeah, it’s, uh. It’s a process. It’s a big process.
[00:16:14] Troy Van Vliet: You know, one of the, uh, early on meetings that we’re having is things were getting going. We had a meeting at your office, and we got all the consultants together. This would have been before COVID because now we seem to do all of those meetings on Zoom.
[00:16:24] Mark Blackwood: That’s right.
[00:16:25] Troy Van Vliet: Rarely can we all get together.
[00:16:26] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Troy Van Vliet: But, um, we had 14 different consultants. In the room at the time, you know, that, uh, so all with a different profession, you know, mechanical engineer, um, electrical engineer, um, the acoustical engineers, what are some of the other ones that we have on, uh, for engineers?
[00:16:46] Mark Blackwood: Oh, like you said, there’s a list, you know, you’ve got, uh, structural engineers, mechanical, electrical, uh, code consultants, uh, traffic engineers, um, environmental arborists. Um, yeah, the list of the list goes on.
[00:17:01] So there’s a lot of, uh, a lot of disciplines at the table, each with their own particular kind of interests and specialty that, uh, we kind of need to pull together and sort of then it’s only after we kind of get the input from all of those parties that we sort of move forward. Okay, understand the full scope.
[00:17:21] And, uh, then the process begins of, okay, how do we begin to mesh all of this together into sort of a final design solution that satisfies all of those, uh, all of those disciplines?
[00:17:35] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:17:35] Mark Blackwood: So, it’s, uh, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s a technically difficult process to sort of, uh, orchestrate all of that. And then kind of, uh, layer that on to, uh, you know, a design that’s, uh, you know, responsive of all of those individual disciplines. But also, something that looks great and, uh, you know, something that’s really going to, uh, kind of stand out and, uh, stand the test of time.
[00:18:01] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. It’s got to function well; it’s got to look good. And then it has to, to all of those, like if one of those, um, things is done wrong, it shows up. Right?
[00:18:12] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:18:12] Troy Van Vliet: It comes to, it comes up, uh, quite often later, even with the acoustical side of things. You know, you’ve got a gym. It’s like, okay, how are we soundproofing that from the classrooms that are, you know, close by?
[00:18:22] Actually, our gym is right next door to our chapel.
[00:18:24] Mark Blackwood: That’s right.
[00:18:25] Troy Van Vliet: Or they share a wall. It’s like, okay, well, how are we going to make sure that when there’s a class going on that people are listening to people screaming while they’re, you know, trying to worship in the chapel.
[00:18:34] Mark Blackwood: Yes.
[00:18:34] Troy Van Vliet: Time.
[00:18:35] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:18:35] Troy Van Vliet: Things like that, that show up big time if it’s not well thought out and handled early on. So yeah, that’s great.
[00:18:42] Let’s flip over to design, which is obviously good stuff.
[00:18:45] Mark Blackwood: Ya, ya.
[00:18:46] Troy Van Vliet: That’s where your expertise is. Um, we had some inspirations. You know, I have a building background. I build a lot of fancy stuff. Um, you know, expensive homes, we see luxury things all the time. So, I might not have been the greatest person to lead the project in terms of trying to do things cheaply, but we had budgets that we had to try and stay within.
[00:19:10] Um, uh, I love things that look great. And early on, we wanted to say, okay, let’s build something that’s somewhat timeless. We have to plan for, um, the next, not just, you know, while our kids are in school or the next generation. But let’s look past the next hundred years or let’s look out to the next hundred years.
[00:19:28] Let’s build something that’s really functional, that looks great, that’s going to, you know, have a sense of time, uh, timelessness that, um, and that’s a challenge. So, we started out by, I mean, we sent you some inspiration photos of what we’d like to see. Yeah. But then we also toured a bunch of other schools.
[00:19:45] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Troy Van Vliet: Can you walk us down that?
[00:19:47] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:19:47] Troy Van Vliet: Path a little bit?
[00:19:48] Mark Blackwood: I do remember, uh, I do remember one of our kind of first sit downs and, uh, you know, I think it was, uh, it was a good dynamic because I think you came to the table with sort of a, you know, [00:20:00] kind of quite a clear directive of, you know, we want sort of, uh, you know, a cost effective, but, you know, inspiring place, right?
[00:20:11] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:20:11] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, you know, those two things can exist together.
[00:20:15] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:20:15] Mark Blackwood: Um, and, uh, so the school itself started to sort of, right from day one, kind of take a relatively rational approach to its form, right? Uh, not kind of doing too many things that were curves and angles and, you know, keeping the form of the
[00:20:32] Troy Van Vliet: defying gravity,
[00:20:33] Mark Blackwood: quiet, uh, quite rectilinear, quite rational.
[00:20:37] Um, but I think, um, you know, even with those types of kind of architectural forms or massing, as we like to call it, um, you know, there’s real opportunity for a sense of architectural clarity.
[00:20:49] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:20:49] Mark Blackwood: Um, so yeah, so that was sort of a good, uh, um, a good starting off point for us. And then, like you say, we sort of began our sort of design and exploration process. And at the time, and even today, the school was quite small. Yeah, so we had to look kind of outside of what the school was as a kind of an existing facility because you’re kind of operating in kind of a temporary space right now.
[00:21:17] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:21:17] Mark Blackwood: Um, and so we toured both, uh, Catholic schools and public schools, um, kind of around the lower mainland. And, um, it was,
[00:21:29] Troy Van Vliet: I think it was mostly new ones or newer ones.
[00:21:31] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, newer ones. And I think, you know, I consciously doing that to sort of, Understand, okay, what are educational space is kind of looking like these days, right?
[00:21:42] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:21:42] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, you know, I think the schools we went to go visit. Uh, had many different ways of approaching educational space, more your traditional often called kind of cells and bells approach where you’ve just got hallways and individual classrooms. And that may be more of the traditional approach that may be schools that kind of we went to.
[00:22:03] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:22:03] Mark Blackwood: Um, but, uh, there’s a lot of innovation that’s kind of happened in education. And, you know, I think the, uh, you know, uh, the teachers will have a lot of input on that. But, uh, the schools we went to go see had every, um, lots of different approaches to classroom spaces, some that were more open to, you know, lounges and ones that were creating kind of individual.
[00:22:28] What they like to call sort of neighborhoods within the school, and I think it was really shedding light on the importance of kids learn differently. Uh, not everyone learns the same way. Um, there’s way more emphasis on sort of Collaboration and kind of the way, uh, not only the way kids learn and kind of the way teachers like to structure their classrooms, but also kind of beyond schools. It’s how we work as a culture a little bit more, I think, and more of that sort of collaborative approach. And, uh, so I want to say we went to probably, you know, six to eight schools over the years and, uh, really kind of. Um, looked at those individually and say, okay, what would define St. John Paul the second.
[00:23:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:23:16] Mark Blackwood: You know, how does that, uh, how do we want this school to feel?
[00:23:20] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:23:20] Mark Blackwood: And at the time, uh, we were working with the principal and staff of, uh, of the existing school to really kind of try and drill down on how was the school meant to sort of feel and operate. Uh, so it was, yeah, it was, uh, it was an interesting process, and I think everyone got a lot of good information out of it.
[00:23:39] Troy Van Vliet: That’s great.
[00:23:39] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, ultimately that sort of began to sort of weave its way into, uh, into our design as well.
[00:23:46] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. We, um During those tours, not only some really great questions that were asked. Um, because we talked about to the chief, we talked about or talked to, I should say, um, an interviewed, um, teachers and administrators that were using the space, not just to find out what they liked about it, this is great. You know, we let them brag and then we said, okay, what’s not working right? What do you wish you had done differently? That’s where we kind of got a lot of really good information. Even I remember being in Archbishop Kearney and they had the new, um, music and band wing, I believe there.
[00:24:23] Mark Blackwood: Mm-hm. Ya.
[00:24:23] Troy Van Vliet: And one of the things that they said, you know, what we wish we had is more storage instruments. You know, that was, and we’re like,
[00:24:28] Mark Blackwood: Oh, those are big.
[00:24:29] Troy Van Vliet: Too big, exactly. Um, soundproofing, all those types of things, which, you know, are somewhat obvious. But, um, it’s like, yeah, right. We need to, we need, so in our, uh, band room, we’ve got some specific designs there for extra storage.
[00:24:45] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:24:46] Troy Van Vliet: And that was a direct impact of some of the tours that we did.
[00:24:49] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, storage and providing adequate space for students to kind of have practice rooms. Uh, so there’s places to go that if you’re, you know, you’re not consuming the entirety of the, uh, of the band room for someone who maybe just wants to practice their individual instruments. So, we have practice rooms in there as well. So yeah, sort of all of these little seeds of ideas that were kind of gleaned from those tours were, uh, really helpful and kind of influential on kind of how we approach the design of yeah of St. John Paul II.
[00:25:22] Troy Van Vliet: That’s right Yeah, that’s right. We’ve got this really unique Courtyard approach where the school is kind of shaped in the like in a u shape with a courtyard in the middle.
[00:25:32] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:25:32] Troy Van Vliet: I’m the center of it. I think some of that inspiration came from my old high school St. Thomas Moore which is that many it’s an old school. But it’s had many renovations over the time and they over time and they had kind of a courtyard approach. And it was like, how do we make it so that, you know, we’ve got a school that has this unique sort of gathering place where you can host events, you can do things like that. Can you tell us a little bit about the, how the courtyard’s been designed?
[00:25:59] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. And I, it probably goes back a little bit to sort of our initial conversation of these kinds of really kind of rational boxes, right? And, uh, you know, if you can kind of see on the image there, the school is really made up of three, three boxes, essentially, uh, one linear, one that kind of runs along 24th Avenue, which is your main kind of classroom wing, if you will.
[00:26:23] Troy Van Vliet: Yup.
[00:26:24] Mark Blackwood: And then at each end, um, you know, to the West, we have, um, the athletics wing, uh, made up of the gymnasium, uh, fitness room, change rooms, all of those types of things. And then on the other side, we have the arts wing. So, uh, that’s where the future theater will be the band room. Um, oral room, uh, all of those types of spaces. So that three-part building allowed us to kind of create this essentially three sides defining the courtyard in the middle.
[00:26:55] Troy Van Vliet: Yep.
[00:26:55] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, the way we positioned it on the site, that courtyard is it taking advantage of South light. So, it’s, you know, not this great idea of a courtyard, but it’s in shadow at the time and no one wants to use it cause it’s dark and dreary. Uh, but it’s south facing, and it also is used as, um, as the space where you can spill from the inside of the school out to the courtyard. Um, so in that east west kind of volume along 24th is where we have the big atrium, the main circulation and student commons at the school. Um, so that will, uh, house the seating for the cafeteria.
[00:27:40] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:27:40] Mark Blackwood: So that cafeteria on nice days can spill out onto the courtyard. Um, from the arts wing, uh, when the future, uh, theater, uh, is built. Um, that’ll allow events to spill out into the courtyard as well.
[00:27:54] Troy Van Vliet: Yep.
[00:27:54] Mark Blackwood: Um, so that courtyard is really a key kind of, you know, heart and center, one of them anyway.
[00:28:01] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:28:01] Mark Blackwood: Um, and, um, kind of a real, really drove the design concept for the, uh, the school itself.
[00:28:09] Troy Van Vliet: That’s right. Um, because there’s always limited costs or limited funding, I should say.
[00:28:15] Mark Blackwood: Ya, ya.
[00:28:16] Troy Van Vliet: Um, we had challenges right out of the gate, of course, with budgeting and trying to figure out, you know, how we’re going to do this. You know, we, I think we’ve got the best use of our property in terms of where we placed the building so that we could have a field. Um, the building kind of retains the field a little bit because remember that it was on a slope.
[00:28:33] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:28:34] Troy Van Vliet: And, um, uh, so that was really well thought out. What might you think are other great value engineering, uh, I hate to put you on the spot with this. I know it’s not one of the questions, but, um, some of the value engineering, because you can, when you’re doing a big project like this, you can value engineer through surgery where you just start cutting things out and say, we can’t do this, can’t do that, you can’t afford this, can’t afford that. Um, do you have an example of what we did to try and make something, uh, a little bit more affordable that still looks good?
[00:29:04] Mark Blackwood: Mm-hm.
[00:29:04] Troy Van Vliet: Um, well, I think as well.
[00:29:07] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, I think, uh, when you talk about the cost of buildings. It can start pretty early on in terms of how you design the form, right? Some forms are more expensive. If there’s a lot of jogs and angles and curves, the detailing gets very complicated. And, uh, um, you know, I think that just blows down into the cost of the building, right? Um, so from day one, we took a kind of a more boxy rational approach. So, I think that helps. Um, and then it’s sort of really deciding where you spend the money, right?
[00:29:40] And I think quite often it’s picking those moments in the building that you really want to showcase and kind of, um, elevate the building a little bit more. I think, in terms of its, uh, in terms of its feel or aesthetic. Um, you know, I’d say in this particular instance that that main [00:30:00] student commons is a little bit the main feature space in the building. And that’s where we decided to, uh, switch the structural system, uh, like the buildings, primarily a steel structure.
[00:30:12] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:30:12] Mark Blackwood: Uh, but in that student commons, we, uh, we began to introduce some heavy timber, uh, so some glue-lam columns and beams and really start to infuse, um, some warmth into the space. And, uh, you know, I think in schools as [00:30:30] well that. You know that connection to nature is important, uh, kind of a building just full of, uh, you know, paint and drywall, um, you know, isn’t overly inspiring sometimes. So, I think finding those areas where you can do some expression with the structure and using wood, I think is a real, uh, is a real suitable and appropriate material.
[00:30:53] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:30:53] Mark Blackwood: For kind of a school environment. I think it just creates a level of comfort, um, in the space [00:31:00] and probably the other one was the chapel as well. Um, really putting emphasis on, uh, which I think we’ll probably get into as well.
[00:31:07] Troy Van Vliet: Yup.
[00:31:07] Mark Blackwood: Um, but, uh, you know, making sure that that was, uh, that was a key feature in the school as well.
[00:31:12] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, the dining hall and the student commons, student lounge area that spills out into the courtyard is spectacular.
[00:31:22] Mark Blackwood: Hmm-m.
[00:31:22] Troy Van Vliet: Like, I think, I cannot wait to have the first open house in our new campus. You know, here we we’re in our current little old building right now.
[00:31:31] Mark Blackwood: Ya.
[00:31:31] Troy Van Vliet: Which is an old, uh, elementary school that we converted. You know, that was built in the 60s, that we converted into a, uh, temporary high school. That’s our temporary campus. So, um, our last open house we had there promoting the new campus, but we’re in this old little building.
[00:31:50] Mark Blackwood: Ya.
[00:31:50] Troy Van Vliet: It’s pretty, it’s pretty challenging to do. Um, but next year, of course, we’re going to be having our open house in the new. I can’t wait to see the look on people’s faces when they come through [00:32:00] there. I mean, right now I’m touring people through the school during construction. You know, key stakeholders, some parents, you know, people that have been involved with the project. Um, and right now, even today, touring them through the camp, they’re just like, I had no idea. This is unbelievable.
[00:32:16] Mark Blackwood: Ya.
[00:32:16] Troy Van Vliet: You know, how spectacular the schools turned out. So yeah.
[00:32:20] Mark Blackwood: You have to be, you have to be careful as well. I remember having a, uh, a conversation with one of the teachers at the school and they were quite, um, you know, they were talking about the existing [00:32:30] school and kind of what a community it has been developed there because it’s smaller, right?
[00:32:35] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:32:35] Mark Blackwood: So, you’re able to kind of have those connections and, uh, um, you know, there’s a quaintness I think to the school.
[00:32:43] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:32:43] Mark Blackwood: And now kind of being put into a larger school, um, you know, I think there’s a valid question of how do you maintain community.
[00:32:49] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:32:49] Mark Blackwood: You know, in the school, uh, at mass, right?
[00:32:53] And, you know, at a larger scale. And so, I think things like the student commons and making sure these spaces are comfortable and not too sterile and kind of have the, um, you know, have spaces in the school that can still kind of foster that togetherness.
[00:33:10] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Mark Blackwood: Both the, you know, students gathering together and kind of staff feeling, feeling connected are all kind of important things when, uh, you’re kind of moving into a larger school building.
[00:33:23] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. It’s a big challenge to try and keep the culture that we have in the school right now, uh, and bring it over. We’re determined to [00:33:30] do that in one form or another. It’s going to look different.
[00:33:32] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:33:32] Troy Van Vliet: But, um, we, we’ve got such an incredible culture in our school today and, uh, to be able to bring that over, it’s going to be an exciting time. We’re going to grow. Well, in some ways, it’s slowly into the building, but in other ways, there’s just, you know, we’ll be more than double in size next year. The following year, you know, we’ll be adding, you know, 100, 150 students every year to the school.
[00:33:55] Mark Blackwood: And now you’ll have incredible amenities.
[00:33:57] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:33:57] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:33:58] Troy Van Vliet: Absolutely. So. Um, one of the things that we had to do, we decided early on, we wanted to build the entire structure, everything. Um, but we needed to phase it financially. So we did it differently than maybe some, uh, projects in the past that have been done even within our archdiocese where, you know, you build one building and then you wait till you have enough money and then you build the next building beside it. Which makes sense.
[00:34:25] It can be a little bit deflating for some. Um, because you’re like, oh, we’re on this never-never plan. We’re never going to see the building. So, we decided to build the entire structure, but not finish it all, um, so that we could grow into it as needed. Um, can you describe that a little bit?
[00:34:41] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. So, we planned out the, we planned out the entire school, all three wings. If, um, if you were, and you know, when the budgeting sort of, uh, you know, when we started getting down to. Okay, what could we realist, realistically execute within kind of the funds available today?
[00:35:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yup.
[00:35:01] Mark Blackwood: Uh, we had to, like you say, kind of take a look at the school and decide, okay, what do we need today? And what can we defer to a later date? And, you know, did that mean not building one of the wings? Or, uh, you know, building the shell, like you said, and kind of defer just the interior of the space.
[00:35:20] And I think through kind of conversations, you know, amongst ourselves and the contractor and kind of looking at costs, Um, you know, generally speaking, better to build the shell, at least of even areas that you kind of can’t complete the interior of right now. Because number one, you’re taking advantage of the momentum on site, and everyone’s mobilized anyway to do that work.
[00:35:45] Um, and as we know in construction, the costs just keep on going up and up. So, uh, the price today is probably better than what the price is going to be, you know, a couple of years from now.
[00:35:55] Troy Van Vliet: Anytime down the road. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:35:57] Mark Blackwood: So, kind of looking at what areas of the interior, okay, so if we finish the, yeah, to back up. So, if we finish the entirety of the school and at least its shell form, what areas can we carve back on the interior to sort of marry back up with the budget that we have today?
[00:36:15] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:36:16] Mark Blackwood: Um, so I think thankfully given the air, you know, the way the school was designed. Uh, you know, the one wing of the building, it was relatively easy to say, okay, let’s not finish that wing. Right? And [00:36:30] that’s a box of space.
[00:36:31] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:31] Mark Blackwood: That we can kind of, uh, um, you know, finish off when the funds are available.
[00:36:37] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:36:37] Mark Blackwood: So, um, yeah, we have a plan where, you know, areas are deferred, ones are finished, but I think when students move in next September. Um, the school will feel finished, right?
[00:36:49] Troy Van Vliet: Yup.
[00:36:49] Mark Blackwood: Um, and, uh, those deferred areas will kind of be finished off, you know, when funds are available. So, um, yeah, the design of the school, I think, accommodated those deferred areas quite well without kind of making it feel too, too ad hoc, I guess.
[00:37:07] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. And we can finish them off, uh, without it being too disruptive. Um, because right now the only unfinished classrooms we have are on the bottom floor.
[00:37:17] Mark Blackwood: Correct. Yeah.
[00:37:17] Troy Van Vliet: So, um, even sound wise, if we had to actually be doing construction while classes were on. We can mitigate sound disruptions because it’s all under the, on the main, all on the, well, the lower floor, it’s below you.
[00:37:31] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:33] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hmm. So that’s, uh, even that we kind of thought out, uh, very well, so that as we’re finishing, you know, we could even, you know, do two or four finish, two or four more classes as needed. Um, and we can be able to do that relatively quickly as well.
[00:37:47] Mark Blackwood: Ya. And I think even looking at the, um, uh, the sports field kind of making sure, um, there’s a field available for students from day one.
[00:37:56] Troy Van Vliet: Yup.
[00:37:56] Mark Blackwood: Um, and then how do we, um, you know, how do we prepare the site to allow for kind of a future, uh, turf field, for example.
[00:38:06] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:06] Mark Blackwood: Um, so, you know, I think, it’s a process. And I think, um, you know, Notre Dame went through a similar process where.
[00:38:13] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:38:14] Mark Blackwood: You know, I think they, you know, they built their school and but maybe didn’t have the funds for the field just then. So that came at a later date and now that field’s complete and, uh, you know, it’s, uh, it’s really, it’s great.
[00:38:26] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a spectacular school as well, Notre Dame [00:38:30] in Vancouver.
[00:38:31] Mark Blackwood: Hm-mm.
[00:38:32] Troy Van Vliet: Um, completely rebuilt. It’s been, it’s rebuilt on a different, uh, financial plan than what we did.
[00:38:37] Mark Blackwood: Yes.
[00:38:37] Troy Van Vliet: Um, cause we’re a little bit more standalone. We’re not, uh, part of the, um, the C-I-S-V-A we’re a C-I-S-V-A affiliate school. That’s the Catholic Independent Schools of Vancouver Archdiocese. Um, that’s a mouthful. Hence the C-I-S-V-A. Um, so, but we’re affiliate schools, so we operate the same way. We’re just, we’re not funded the same way.
[00:38:57] Mark Blackwood: Right.
[00:38:57] Troy Van Vliet: The affiliate schools or the C-I-S-V-A schools, um, they get parish funding. So, the parishes will chip in to build a high school. Um, so we’re different in that aspect. So, we’ve got a lot of debt, unfortunately. Um, uh, our tuition fee schedule is different than the C-I-S-V-A schools. So, it’s safe to say it’s more money. Um, it’s not because we’re greedy or we’re offering more programs. It’s because, um, it’s being funded differently. And um, so it’s either, it was either doing it that way or basically not doing it at all.
[00:39:29] So once again, so we have to be very budget conscious. Um, all the schools are budget conscious, but um, we had lofty. Visions of having a spectacular campus, spectacular school, great culture, um, with financial constraints.
[00:39:45] Mark Blackwood: Mm hmm. Yeah.
[00:39:46] Troy Van Vliet: So, um, and that starts right with architecture, right out of the gate. So, congratulations on a great job.
[00:39:52] Mark Blackwood: I appreciate it.
[00:39:53] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Now, speaking of, um, designs early on, we talked a little bit about the chapel.
[00:39:59] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:39:59] Troy Van Vliet: Proud to say we’ve got the largest chapel, I believe, in all of the Catholic schools in the lower mainland here, which is, uh, we’ve got over a hundred students that can, uh, will be able to fit in the chapel, I believe.
[00:40:12] Mark Blackwood: No, we’re actually, um, um, I think the latest, 150.
[00:40:17] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:40:18] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:40:19] Troy Van Vliet: Oh.
[00:40:19] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:40:20] Troy Van Vliet: That is huge. So, we can get a whole grade level in there.
[00:40:24] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:40:24] Troy Van Vliet: For mass. Oh wow. That is, that’s the best news of the day. I’m gonna take that as a win.
[00:40:30] Mark Blackwood: There we go.
[00:40:32] Troy Van Vliet: Um, okay. So, 150 can fit in there, which is huge. That’s, uh, that’s absolutely great. Um, now we originally had the chapel in a different location. And we had, we were deep into the design stage.
[00:40:48] Mark Blackwood: We were,
[00:40:49] Troy Van Vliet: I think we were. We were, we were kind of like finalizing.
[00:40:51] Mark Blackwood: The ink was dried. Exactly.
[00:40:53] Troy Van Vliet: And then, um, it was, uh, Father Donnelly that we, who is the archbishop’s representative for our school. He sits on the, uh, society board and the school board. And uh, he was like, uh, nope, can’t be there. Do you remember how that conversation went?
[00:41:09] Mark Blackwood: I do. I think my head dropped. And, uh, but, uh, yeah, there was, um, it, you know, jokes aside, I think it was, uh, it was a good discussion and sort of, uh, you know, I think indicative of the design process a little bit where, you know, each iteration just gets a little bit better.
[00:41:30] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:41:30] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, it’s through input of, you know, we can’t do this on our own, right?
[00:41:35] Troy Van Vliet: Hm-mm.
[00:41:36] Mark Blackwood: We, um, our job is to get the inputs from as many people as we can to sort of um, you know, interpret that, get it onto paper and have a plan and a design that kind of meets the needs..
[00:41:51] Troy Van Vliet: Yup, mm-hm.
[00:41:52] Mark Blackwood: And uh, so this was just one step in the design process really, I guess at the end of the day. But, um, yeah, we had some good [00:42:00] discussions and it was really, I think the discussion went, okay, move it from its existing location and try and put it in the center of the school.
[00:42:08] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:42:09] Mark Blackwood: And so, we did some design explorations and, uh, we were like, no, it just doesn’t quite work there. You know, the way the building was laid out and we’re almost feeling it wasn’t even giving enough prominence to the school. Because it was kind of a little bit buried in the center.
[00:42:27] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:42:28] Mark Blackwood: So that’s when we looked at positioning the chapel more on the west end of the school, which is where the main entrance is.
[00:42:35] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:42:35] Mark Blackwood: And we were able to locate it right above the front entry to the school. Um, so as you approach the school, it is the thing you see, um, massive window with a cross defined by colored glazing.
[00:42:53] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:42:53] Mark Blackwood: Uh, so it’s really, you know, some striking iconography on the building. And as you enter the school, you kind of pass below it.
[00:43:02] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:43:02] Mark Blackwood: And then on the other side, you, you kind of enter the, uh, the student commons, which is that main spine that runs east west through the school. So, from the outside, it becomes, you know, the thing that you see as you approach the school.
[00:43:18] But then on the interior, it was also important, uh, to Father Donnelly that the chapel is present.
[00:43:25] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:43:25] Mark Blackwood: Inside as well. So, when you’re standing in the student [00:43:30] commons, which is this double height, Uh, kind of atrium like space defined by these glulam beams, you look back and you see a compliment, uh, a complimentary window, uh, which is kind of the backside of the chapel.
[00:43:44] Troy Van Vliet: That’s right.
[00:43:45] Mark Blackwood: Also, a big window defined, uh, cross defined by, uh, colored glazing. So, whether you’re approaching or, you know, inside the school, the chapel is this kind of ever present. Uh, element in the, uh, in the [00:44:00] design of the structure. So, it’s, uh, at the end of the day, and I think we were chatting before it was, uh, maybe a little frustrating at the time to reshuffle everything.
[00:44:09] But I think, uh, like a lot of things you go through that effort and you’re like, wow, that was. That was worth it.
[00:44:14] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:44:14] Mark Blackwood: That, uh, because, uh, as the school is being constructed now, you look at that chapel and it’s, uh, it’s a really striking feature.
[00:44:21] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, it is. You go, and if, so you can be, it’s on the far West end of the school.
[00:44:27] Mark Blackwood: That’s right.
[00:44:27] Troy Van Vliet: And you can be on the farthest East end of the school, and you can look back and still see the chapel.
[00:44:32] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:44:33] Troy Van Vliet: So, uh, what an accomplishment there in design, you know, to try and bring it right in, which is exactly what Father Donnelly was saying, you know, this can’t be something that’s tucked away. And we had it where it was before. When you drive down 24th, you would have seen it on 24th because we had, you know, a big cross on the outside, which it’s still there.
[00:44:54] Mark Blackwood: Still there.
[00:44:54] Troy Van Vliet: That cross is still there where the chapel used to be. That’s which is an interesting story in itself. Um, but, um, that, uh, that corner would have been prominent on 24th Avenue. So, everybody would have been like, well, yeah, that’s a, you know, you can tell that’s a faith-based school or a Christian school, Catholic school. So, we thought we nailed it where it was.
[00:45:15] Mark Blackwood: Mm-hm, yeah.
[00:45:15] Troy Van Vliet: It’s like, this is perfect. You know, who’s not going to want that? You know, it’s right up there out front. And then it was, uh, nope, wrong spot. And it’s like, it’s tucked away. You know, you have to go to the chapel to know that there’s a chapel there. Like, huh.
[00:45:28] Mark Blackwood: Was lacking in that presence from the interior.
[00:45:32] Troy Van Vliet: It was. Yeah. And it was deflating at the time. It was just like, Oh, really? We got to start this over again. And um, wow. But, you know, kudos to you and your team, um, in putting it where it is today. Um, cause now as you draw, first of all, the cross is still there where it was originally going to go. And when you drive in, um, up, uh, 182nd, the new 182nd, um, you have to drive past it to get into the underground parking [00:46:00] lot. So, no matter what, when you’re coming in the entrance, it is so prominent that everybody sees it. Okay. This is what we’re about right out of the gate. And then when you’re inside the school, you see it too from all the way from the other end. So, uh,
[00:46:13] Mark Blackwood: there is a, uh, an interesting feature inside the school as well, where there’s a, um, a second story interior bridge that.
[00:46:22] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:46:22] Mark Blackwood: Uh, Connects from skywalk.
[00:46:24] Troy Van Vliet: skywalk.
[00:46:25] Mark Blackwood: Yeah, from, uh, um, from kind of the classroom wing over [00:46:30] to the athletics wing.
[00:46:31] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:46:31] Mark Blackwood: So, it connects you to the, um, the fitness center on the, uh, on the second floor. So, as you pass over that bridge. Uh, on the one side, you see the window of the chapel, and then on the other side, you’re looking down the, uh, student commons, the expressive glulam structure. And just kind of that light filled space, because it’s all, uh, you know, south facing with its connection to the courtyard. So, the structure is all there right now, and you can walk it now, so it’s really, uh, It’s, uh, you know, really rewarding to see. Um, but, uh, yeah, once the finishes and everything go up, it’s really going to come to life.
[00:47:09] Troy Van Vliet: So, here’s the question regarding this, the skywalk, if we can call it that. We don’t, you don’t start a design of a project like this and say, okay, we want to design something that’s got a skywalk in it.
[00:47:18] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:47:19] Troy Van Vliet: It kind of came from some necessity, right? It’s like, um, so we’ve got this other wing of the school, the sport, the athletic wing of the school. And, you know, it’s on two floors where the change rooms are below. We’ve got this big, um, uh, workout facility on the top floor. Um, did that come from, did the Skywalk come from, it’s like, well, how do we get from the top floor of the, how did, do you recall that?
[00:47:41] Mark Blackwood: Mm hmm. Well, it’s, uh, you know, I think it’s like a lot of things. Design is a process, you know, and as you kind of make your, you know, you start off with initial conceptual ideas, like the idea of the three boxes essentially, and then you. You know, begin to work out some, you know, interior circulation patterns, um, all of those types of things.
[00:48:03] So, yeah, you start hitting these moments of like, oh, okay, you know, we need a convenient way to connect to these two spaces. How can we do that? Um, we didn’t want to create anything that would kind of take away from the openness of the two-story student commons, right? So, we wanted this kind of lighter element kind of crossing that space.
[00:48:26] So, you know hence the bridge comes across as glass.
[00:48:29] Troy Van Vliet: Hm.
[00:48:30] Mark Blackwood: Glass guardrails on it to try and make it as light as possible.
[00:48:34] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:48:34] Mark Blackwood: Um, and it just becomes a interesting moment where you’re able to kind of cross that two story, uh, atrium space, see the chapel, see, uh, see down into the student commons. And just provide a, uh, a functional way to get from the classroom spaces over to the, uh, over to the fitness wing.
[00:48:54] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:48:54] Mark Blackwood: So, yeah, it, I would say that one was more sort of just an evolution of the design process.
[00:48:59] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. [00:49:00] Um, and it’s going to bring other opportunities too, like the glass railings on both sides, um. To do something artistically on the glass railings, like for instance, in the staircase, the main staircase in the, you know, the grand student commons area that takes you upstairs. It’s got a big landing.
[00:49:18] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:49:19] Troy Van Vliet: And, um, which also has glass railings on it as well. And um, what we’ve chosen to do is use that as, uh, well, I’m going to let you describe it. What are we putting on the screen right there?
[00:49:31] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. Well, just to chat about that stair first, it’s sort of our main feature stair in the school. And, uh, yeah, I think quite often you can do a stair going from level one up to level two and. You know, it’s a stair, that’s all it’s, uh, really meant to be. But in this case, we really wanted to sort of celebrate this stair. So, as you come down, you said there’s a landing and, uh, you know, I’d say it’s not really a landing. It’s a, it’s like a podium.
[00:50:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:50:00] Mark Blackwood: Right. And the idea there is that can even be a space for, and it’s oversized. Right? So that can be a space for, if there’s informal events within the student commons, that can almost be an ad hoc stage. Um, you know, furniture can be put up there. It can be a, um, kind of a lounge area, uh, for students.
[00:50:23] Uh, there’s not only stairs, but kind of seating benches kind of built into it as well. Uh, so it really becomes this. , uh, gathering place, um, in the school, not just, uh, a mechanism to get from A to B, um, and then, you know, you’re talking about sort of the, uh, the glass railings and who sort of saw that because the stair is, uh, you know, a real key element in that space, um, looking at the way we can treat that glass railing by kind of, uh, having the graduating, you know, the initial graduating class from the school. Uh, as names on the, uh, on the glass railing. So, you know, they can be kind of a ever present.
[00:51:05] Troy Van Vliet: Ya.
[00:51:05] Mark Blackwood: You know, inaugural class coming out of the school.
[00:51:09] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:51:09] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, kind of really kind of celebrating them as kind of the, you know, the pioneers, if you will.
[00:51:14] Troy Van Vliet: The pioneers.
[00:51:15] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:51:15] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. So, what we had to, what we did early on is we canvassed the, um, uh, the current school that our kids were in, which was, uh, Star of the Sea Elementary to ask the families. Yeah. If we built a new high school, would they send their kids [00:51:30] to this school? And we had, we got, we got the names of over 400, um, uh, kids represented by, you know, many families that, yeah, we would be interested in sending the, uh, the kids to the school, which was key, you know, cause that was, you know, was the demand there.
[00:51:44] And that was just from one of our feeder schools. And it was those families that were willing to say, yeah, hey, we’ll get on board with this, and we’ll put up a $25,000 enrollment deposit now to help with seed money. Which they’ll get back when their kids graduate from the school.
[00:52:00] And that sort of started the ball rolling to, um, get thee whole momentum of the school in, in process. So those kids that started early were sold this dream of, you know, they’re going to graduate from this great new campus. But as time went on, COVID came and disrupted everything and what have you and there was many delays. So, there ended up being three graduating classes that will, that did not get to graduate.
[00:52:28] One of them will be this year that didn’t get to graduate from the new campus. Um, but we always instilled in these students, we were like, look, you are as part of this new campus.
[00:52:36] Mark Blackwood: You’re part of it.
[00:52:36] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. You’re going to be SJP II graduates, um, forever. And this is our campus, and this is your home for high school.
[00:52:45] Mark Blackwood: They don’t want to do it again.
[00:52:45] Troy Van Vliet: They don’t want to do it again. No, they don’t. Just start over. So, we, um, uh, we chose to recognize all three of those graduating classes. On the, uh, so their names will go on that, uh, on that railing.
[00:52:57] Mark Blackwood: Perfect.
[00:52:57] Troy Van Vliet: It’s prominent right in the center of the school, so, um, and the classes were pretty excited to hear that as well.
[00:53:03] Mark Blackwood: Yeah.
[00:53:04] Troy Van Vliet: Um, they were like, oh, great. Yeah. Cause you know, we got this little old school, which is awesome. But, you know, we didn’t get to experience the big campus and, um, they got an incredible education. Um, and are continuing to right now, but, um, yeah, so that’s something that it’s pretty special, pretty special.
[00:53:20] Mark Blackwood: Well, it’s a great, uh, it’s a great, you know, you can’t get more kind of central and predominant in the school than that location. So that’s good.
[00:53:27] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:53:27] Mark Blackwood: A great, uh, a great home for them.
[00:53:29] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly. And Archbishop Miller that’s championed the school, um, from day one. He was a supporter. We couldn’t have done it without him. He’s also going to be recognized right in the front lobby there too.
[00:53:39] Mark Blackwood: That’s right.
[00:53:40] Troy Van Vliet: So, and speaking of recognition, we’re having, we’ve got name recognitions, um, or naming rights for the school that we’re launching now. Um, so families can, uh, donors can come in and do, can you tell, tell us a little bit about that? Cause we’ve got something going to be going on in the lobby as well, different parts of the school.
[00:53:58] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. So, part of, you know, as you mentioned, the, the funding model for the school is a little bit different.
[00:54:02] Troy Van Vliet: Mm-hm.
[00:54:02] Mark Blackwood: So, uh, you know, donors are sort of a key, uh, you know, a key aspect, uh, to the, you know, to the formula here and, uh, how we kind of recognize and sort of find areas in the building to. Um, sort of, um, you know, pay homage to them. Um, so in the main lobby, there is a large wall, uh, that’s being reserved as sort of a donor wall for the school. So, uh, as soon as you come in the front doors, um, there’s this, you know, it’s going to feel more like an art piece, uh, than, uh, than kind of just a bunch of names on the wall.
[00:54:38] So, uh, that’ll be a real opportunity for, sort of give credit where credit’s due and, uh, you know, really kind of, you know, thank your donors. And, uh, so as we were working through the architectural design, sort of identifying areas that we could kind of use to kind of celebrate, um, you know, celebrate your donors. So, uh, that’s, you know, a key feature in the, in the main lobby of the school.
[00:55:01] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Right now, we have donor for the, um, uh, the chapel. The science wing, um, the, um, theater as well. We’ve got a donor just before, uh, just after, or just before Christmas, actually. Um, the, uh, the diamond family has pledged a million dollars for that.
[00:55:21] Mark Blackwood: Oh, fantastic.
[00:55:22] Troy Van Vliet: Which is, you know, that’s huge. What people don’t realize. Or they don’t, they don’t think about is how these schools get built. Um, it doesn’t just come, money just doesn’t come grant, like this is all a hundred percent. It’s all donor money. There is zero government money, or I should say taxpayer money because the government doesn’t have any money, zero taxpayer dollars that have gone into this.
[00:55:46] And in fact, it’s been this huge community benefit that’s been given. back to the community to benefit from with zero cost to the taxpayer. It’s 100 percent donors. And so, we’ll have a, an incredible. We want to make sure our donors get recognized properly, those that want to. We have a lot of anonymous donors as well.
[00:56:05] And when people say, well, the archdiocese kicked in a bunch, which they did. Where’s the archdiocese get its money from? It’s all donor money. You know, the Catholic church is the, is the largest charity on the planet in history. And, um, it’s all from donors. It’s all from people giving back. And, uh, and that’s a huge, it’s a huge sacrifice that people make.
[00:56:26] Um, it’s probably one of the most, um, uh, rewarding sacrifices. So, um, whether it’s, like I said, whether it’s, um, uh, anonymous or whether people want to have their name actually displayed after a loved one or themselves or or even company. We’re, we’re recognizing corporate donorship as well. So, we hope to have our trades room finished downstairs, uh, the shop, uh, we want to get a commercial aspect into it.
[00:56:52] Um, especially, um, it’s a dying industry. It seems not, it’s, it’s an industry. It’s not dying. It’s dying in terms of us promoting it to our, to our kids and be in the construction industry. Um, and, uh, our infrastructure. We need people. We all need people to build all of the buildings that we’re in. And, um, uh, there’s many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of people that went into building this.
[00:57:22] This, this campus and, um, there’s a massive shortage of people.
[00:57:27] Mark Blackwood: Absolutely.
[00:57:27] Troy Van Vliet: So, you know, we’re having to reach out to other countries to bring people into our country to help build their own country.
[00:57:33] Mark Blackwood: Like you say, I think it’s sort of, um, for lack of a better word, I think the trades kind of went out of fashion for a while.
[00:57:40] And, uh. Now, you know, I think we’re, we’re kind of on the upswing again, whereas I think a lot of, you know, you know, younger generation, you know, coming out of high school now, really, I think they’re seeing the opportunities because there is a, uh, a shortfall, as you mentioned, and, uh, you know, I think, you know, it’s, uh, buildings [00:58:00] are complex and, uh, you know, We need those young minds to kind of step up, get into the trades, but also, you know, you know, not, we don’t just need the project managers, the architects, the engineers, but we also need, uh, you know, the trades people to really kind of put it all together, right?
[00:58:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, yeah.
[00:58:18] Today, uh, you know, a lot of kids, I think, wouldn’t even know how to change a light bulb, you know, when they, after they’ve graduated high school. And it’s like, you know, these are some of the basic things that, you know, we should all at least be exposed to in one way, shape, or form. Like when, when you turn a light switch on, what’s actually happening there?
[00:58:34] What, what is it doing? You know? And, uh, so these are some,
[00:58:37] Mark Blackwood: it’s a rewarding vocation as well. Cause I think when Um, you know, even in my own work, you know, we spend a lot of time drawing lines on paper, you know, creating, creating architectural designs, creating architectural drawings. Um, but it’s not real, right?
[00:58:53] It’s not real at that stage. Um, it’s not until you start seeing. You know, the form work coming out of the ground and the structure going up and we’re not doing that, that’s, that’s the trades doing that, but yeah, that’s the most rewarding part is actually seeing that come out of the ground and, uh, you know, I think that’s where we get reward as sort of designers is, you know, seeing that work come to life, but I think for the trades who are kind of doing that on site, that must be incredibly rewarding as well to sit back and say, Hey, we, we built that.
[00:59:27] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:59:27] Mark Blackwood: And, uh, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we need it all.
[00:59:31] Troy Van Vliet: I’d like to see one of the things that we’ve done differently as a company outside in my real job, um, is, um, quite often we’ll have a, uh, an open house for the trades that worked on the project so that they can see the project finished, finished at the end of the day, you know, like the ones that they can say, like, look at this beautiful project.
[00:59:50] Um, I had my hand in doing this. And it’s really interesting because we see a lot of the trades people that will bring their spouse, um, to say, look, this is what I’ve been working on. This is what I’ve been [01:00:00] telling you about, you know, and, and now you can see the end, the end product. Um, I hope to do that at our school as well at the end to bring back some of the trades to say, you know, thank you. Thank you for being in this industry. Thank you for your hand in, in, in, um, I know it’s your job, but you chose this profession. We need more people in this industry going forward. We need more leadership in this industry and there’s so much opportunity. Now it’s going to be a long time before we have robots building everything for us.
[01:00:27] Um, we, uh, we, we need people, we need innovative thinkers, we need, uh, hard workers, um, and it’s a good paying profession, you know, getting into the industry. There’s a lot of really well-paying jobs um, within construction in general,
[01:00:43] Mark Blackwood: yeah, absolutely
[01:00:44] Troy Van Vliet: from, like you said, from the consultants, engineers, architects. All the way through to the people that are sweeping up. We need all of them, all of them. We need, so I encourage that. Mark, it has been a fantastic chat, you know, and you’ve been a, uh, a pleasure to work with on this project and others. I must say, um, I recommend your company as well and Ekistics Architecture.
[01:01:09] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. Thank you.
[01:01:10] Troy Van Vliet: I’ve referred you to other pro, and we hope to work even within the archdiocese on maybe some other projects as well. Catholic Pacific College, you never know. That’s something that, uh, could be coming up.
[01:01:20] Mark Blackwood: Yeah. So appreciate it and appreciate getting to kind of know, like we said, it’s been a long journey and, uh, I really appreciate getting to know kind of yourself and, uh, you know, the teachers at the school and, uh, and the students, um, you know, we had a workshop with the students early on, right.
[01:01:38] Which we didn’t, uh, get a chance to touch on, but you know, I think those are some of the rewarding things that I’m going to take away from. This project as well, beyond the building itself is just, uh, kind of being, you know, being given the opportunity to be so ingrained in the process. Uh, so that’s been, you know, really rewarding.
[01:01:57] And, you know, uh, thanks for that. I know, um, you know, our team at Ekistics, it’s not just me, it’s, uh, you know, there’s a larger team behind the scenes. And, uh, so, um, yeah, we really appreciate being part of this project. And, uh, yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me on the podcast. All right. It’s been fun.
[01:02:15] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And, um, we encourage you, uh, if you’re watching this on YouTube or Spotify, if, click the like button and, um, you can also subscribe because we’ve got many more of these fantastic, um, episodes coming up all about, uh, Catholic education, which does matter and there’s many matters to discuss. So, uh, and this was just one of them.
[01:02:35] Thanks again for coming, Mark.
[01:02:36] Mark Blackwood: Wonderful.
[01:02:37] Troy Van Vliet: Appreciate it.
[01:02:37] Mark Blackwood: Thanks, Troy.
[01:02:38] Troy Van Vliet: Thank you for listening to Catholic Education Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast on your favorite listening platform, rate it, and also leave a review. Don’t forget to share this episode with your friends and family to help spread the word about the impact of Catholic education. Be sure to listen again.
