Our Special Shaver Learning Commons

Every day I walk through the Shaver Learning Commons and see learning come to life. I love the moments when I see our middle school students sprawled on the lawn talking and working in groups on a project, and our younger students reading with their buddies on the swings. I can even hear the band practicing their instruments on the stage from my office (and they have made so much progress!). 

I wanted to share some exciting news about the recognition the Shaver Learning Commons is receiving outside of our community, but the most important thing about this space is the impact it has had on our students and faculty. That is why we built it—for our community. This space has enabled us to do wonderful things with our teaching and learning and it will continue to, as we grow in creativity, use, and purpose. 

As you can probably gather, I think the Shaver Learning Commons is pretty special and an excellent addition to the All Saints’ experience. It was a dream to work collaboratively with our faculty, staff, and community to plan a space that created the ideal learning environment for our students and see it come to life. Thank you to the Shaver Family and our entire community for making it possible.

On March 23, I was honored to attend the Arizona Forward Environmental Excellence Gala as the guest of Dig Studio, the landscape architecture firm we partnered with to develop the space. The annual event is Arizona’s most prominent environmental awards program, recognizing exemplary projects throughout the state. The Shaver Learning Commons was selected as a finalist in the Environmental Education and Communication category. Criteria for this category include projects that foster a deeper appreciation of sustainability and educate in ways that are meaningful, informative, effective, and creative.

We were also ecstatic to learn that All Saints’ was one of four projects to receive an Honor Award for the General Design category from the Arizona Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (Arizona ASLA). The Arizona ASLA Awards program recognizes outstanding works of landscape architecture that promote an enhanced quality of life in Arizona and beyond. Projects were evaluated on several criteria, including quality of design and execution, and environmental sensitivity and sustainability.

Every time I walk through the Shaver Learning Commons I am filled with excitement and appreciation for our School. I thought you might enjoy taking a closer look at some of the features that Dig Studio highlighted for these award nominations. Please click through the slides below to learn more.