In 2021 a landslide near Carson Elementary in Quesnel prompted a safety assessment, and the assessment found that the site did not meet British Columbia's guidelines for slide safety. The school could not stay where it was.
The replacement opens this month on Graham Avenue with 390 seats, 195 more than the school it replaces, an expanded gym, and a neighbourhood learning centre that will host services including child care. It is built to an equivalency of LEED Gold or better.
Furnishing for two audiences at once
A neighbourhood learning centre changes what the grounds have to do. The site is a school on weekday mornings and a community facility on evenings and weekends, and the furniture has to work for a six-year-old and their grandparent without anyone swapping it over in between.
That shows up directly in what was specified. A child-sized picnic table, at a height a small child can actually use, sits in the same package as a full-size six-foot table and an eight-foot wheelchair-accessible one. Three table heights, three sets of users, one grounds package.
The most Quesnel detail in the whole specification is the bin. Carson took a rodent-resistant waste receptacle. In a town where the surrounding country brings wildlife to the edge of a schoolyard, a bin that opens easily for a caretaker and not at all for anything else is a base requirement rather than an upgrade. Self-watering planters finish a package built for a small grounds crew and a two-month summer closure.
What went in
- Rutherford Child-Sized Picnic Table: Built at a child's height, not a scaled-down name
- Bayview Wheelchair Accessible Picnic Table 8ft: Full length, with clearance designed in
- Bayview Picnic Table 6ft: The standard table for everyone else
- Freedom 32 Rodent Resistant Waste: Wildlife country, so this is the baseline in the Cariboo
- Parker Bench with Armrests 6ft: Supervision seating with sightlines across the grounds
- Parker 2 Space Bike Rack: Matched to the bench family rather than bought separately
- Urban Form and Beselt Self-Watering Planters: Planting that survives the summer break
This project
What went in
On site, and the same products elsewhere
Rutherford Child-Sized Picnic Table
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Keep looking
The rest of the Parker family
Sources: Province of British Columbia, School District 28.
