MFEM School #203
Happy 2014 – Holidays!
Maree Farring Elementary Middle School,
Brooklyn, south Baltimore City.
We are working on an interior upgrade to the school to enhance the learning of the young people at MGFEMS. This will be a collaboration with MICA Design School, UMBC and Maree Farring art students. We might also have a number of Benjamin Franklin High School students work with us as well. Maree Farring is a feeder school to BFHS. We have a deadline of February 1st to hand over a color scheme to the contract painters. Then we will begin the next stage of the project, which will be to look at integrating “banner” systems to signify what that area of the school is designated as, i.e., kindergarden, the different grade levels, library, cafeteria, gym, main office and so on. Students will paint onto prepped banners with grommets so that every few months the students can update the subject matter and or messages they would like to present publicly.
Facing the office: Have we as a society rethought the design of our k-12 school spaces? Check out these photographs of BFHS not far from Maree Farring.
Food pantry- temporary use of space. This is where the teacher’s lounge will be located.
Cafeteria.
The majority of the walls are painted baby blue.
What is played on these monitors that are mounted in the cafeteria? 
The stairwells- my first time to walk through these particular spaces, the German Expressionist film still came to mind from the Sunrise (1928).
Baby blue hallways.
Second floor.
This is outside of the school in a small courtyard – is it a left over garden, or they ran out of asphalt?
This is probably left over from some kind of sports court? The courtyard presents an interesting opportunity to incorporate an outdoor classroom that might include different forms of play, music chalk based games. These look like paintings by the Spanish artist, Antoni Tapies.