Reply to DC Auditor Report on Duke Ellington

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree with 10:29 and 11:05.

The city got it into its collective heads that these very expensive Cadillac projects would 'change culture.' They WANTED over the top projects, as if that would affect student performance.

See this excerpt from Washington Business Journal article from 2014. http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/print-edition/2014/05/02/forget-facelifts-architects-are-giving-d-cpublic.html

"As this ambitious campaign proceeds, some noteworthy architecture is emerging to accommodate the newest approaches to K-12 education. These new schools reflect a more fluid, dynamic and campus-style approach to learning than the rigid “cells and bells” approach of the past.

[b]Overseeing the building improvements is architect Brian Hanlon, who was appointed director of the District Department of General Services in 2011. He is trying to raise the level of public school design and construction in much the same way that the D.C. public libraries have recast their buildings.

But Hanlon is more interested in certified business enterprises than starchitects. He is relying on design-build partnerships to speed construction and guarantee costs and has awarded multiple school projects to the same firms, throwing into question his pursuit of innovation.[/b]

Nevertheless, Hanlon insists, “We are pushing the envelope of design to change the culture.” That effort is clearly being made at some of the newer D.C. school projects, as evident from my recent tours of Ballou High School, now being constructed in Southeast’s Congress Heights neighborhood, and Dunbar High School, opened last year in the Truxton Circle section of Northwest.

The gutsy design for Ballou, created by D.C.-based Bowie-Gridley Architects and Perkins and Will, is rising on a hillside next to the dilapidated 1950s school where classes are now held. Once the complex opens in 2015, the old school will be torn down to make way for new athletic fields and a stadium."

[/quote]

This guy left DGS when Grey left office, now at a think tank. He is probably high on the list of people who are to blame for this mess.  Clearly his plans didn't 'speed construction, guarantee costs' and at least in 2014 as bragging about how DGS awareded multiple projects to the same firms.[/quote]

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