School board to hire architect

The Sisters School Board this week was to interview representatives from the four architectural firms that are the finalists to become the district "Architect of Record."

According to School Superintendent Steve Swisher, a contractual relationship with an architectural firm is necessary for several reasons.

An architect of record will assess and supervise repairs at the three current schools. Moreover, according to Swisher, the selected firm would "in all likelihood" be the designer of a new Sisters high school, should the board decide to once again seek a bond, and should that effort be successful.

The largest of the firms is Portland-based DLR Group Architecture and Planning. According to Senior Associate Architect Scott Rose, DLR was founded in 1964, has 20 national offices, and is the seventh largest architectural firm in the U.S specializing in school design.

"When we work on a school, we have the resources and the ability to pool talent from all those staffs -- and they are responsible for about a half billion dollars worth of schools every year," said Rose.

Rose emphasized that the Portland office has direct experience working in climates similar to that of Sisters.

"We most recently were the architects for the Metolius Elementary School in Madras," he said.

The only firm with an office in Bend, Scott Steele and Associates, is also the smallest and youngest of the candidates.

According to principal architect Scott Steele, the firm was founded in 1998.

Steele said that while the firm has not designed any K-12 schools, the team he assembles would have extensive school design experience.

"We know this community," he said. "We were the lead architects for the $33 million-dollar Deschutes County Fair Grounds."

Steele said that he -- not his firm -- had further experience as a designer of the Deschutes County Justice Complex.

Steele presents a familiar face to the school board. Last year, he and an associate helped the district evaluate weather-related damages to the current high school. At that time, he also presented the board with a site-plan of what his firm envisioned a new high school could look like.

Portland-based candidate Dull, Olson, and Weekes Architects has regional and local school design experience, some of it recent.

According to firm principal and architect Steve Olson, "We designed the Crook County High School, which was completed about four years ago."

Olson said he is familiar with the Sisters area.

"We are now currently working on the new Summit High School in Bend," he said.

Olson said he is proud of his firm's approach to design.

"We believe in involving the community up-front --that's what we've done during the processes of building the 20 new schools we've built in the past 10 years...and, by the way, eight of them have been new high schools."

Northwest Architectural Company, located in Seattle but with a partnering firm in Lake Oswego, is the product of a merger between two firms, each with over 30 years' experience.

Northwest has three offices.

According to Principal Architect Dale Brookie, the firm has considerable experience in school building.

"Sixty to sixty-five percent of all our work is school construction," Brookie said. "Northwest has completed 150 K-12 school projects, in about 60 districts, and some 40 percent of those are new school projects."

According to Brookie, his firm currently has 20 other school projects under construction.

"The last one we finished, in September last year, was the design for the Emerald Ridge High School in Washington state -- and that won a national design award," he said.

The selected firm would, according to Swisher, be involved with the extensive repairs needed at the current high school.

According to Swisher, the engineering firm of Kleinfelder, Inc. has not yet delivered its report on high school damage to the district.

It was originally due by December 18.

Swisher has also said the middle school is in need of significant attention.

At the Tuesday meeting, the four firms were each to be interviewed by the school board for 45 minutes.

The board scheduled a meeting after the interviews but, according to administrative assistant Jan Martin, the board may not make a selection until later.