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Hi All from a (unfortunately VERY early) wintery Calgary, Alberta, Canada!
This is my first post, so please excuse any repetition of subject. I am currently working on construction of buildings for a modern era Canadian Prairie layout. My semi-ficticious town of "Spring Coulee, Alberta" will include buildings from the early 1900's to present day.
I am doing a Jr/Sr Highschool using the Walthers "Ford Headquarters" building, and converting it to a 2 storey, with a gymnasium addition.
I am also interested specifically in modelling a typical mid-century to present day brick elementary school, one storey with gymnasium. Does anyone know of a manufacturer that may have something of this type?
Both structures will sit on a scaled down school yard.
Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!
Rik in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
(ps. it will be back up to the low 60's by this weekend....)
Just about any 1 or 2 story building would work for a school. There's hospital buildings & office buildings that would make a good structure for a school by adding a small warehouse or shop on the back for a gym. Look thru all of the on-line catalogs. Walthers, LifeLike, Bachmann, Faller, Vollmer & many others. It's amazing what is out there w/a little kitbashing or adding on.
Go on Toy Train Heaven web site & look at these buildings. Walthers 933-2951 or 933-3097 & then faller #272-130939 & the best building for a school is a Heljan #322-1000 & then on the back of the Heljan bldg. you can add a quonset hut for a gym or the faller building.
3 weeks ago, we were setting high temperature records (32 degree Celsius = 89.6 degree Fahrenheit)... Last night we hit a new low for the date (-16 degree Celsius = 3.2 degree Fahrenheit). It was Canada's Thanksgiving weekend.
But I digress...
I thought I would post a link (the type of generic building) to give you a better idea of what I was thinking:
Looks like a potentially interesting scratchbuilding project. Walthers makes brick sheets that you can assemble into any shape, and you could make the windows by tracing or printing the frames on clear celluloid and adding a few styrene strips.
That type of low, almost all-glass, 60's style building isn't offered by any company I know of. There are a few European modern style office building that could be kitbashed into something similar but, if you're able to add a story to an existing structure, you have the skills to scratchbuild this type of building. Charles is right, you can use some Walthers or Plastistruct brick sheets with some clear platic used for overhead projectors. A white paint pen and straight edge will take care of the horizontal window mullions and some strip styrene can be used for the vertical frames. This would be an excellent prototype for your first scratchbuilt structure.
You could indeed use one of those modern European stations as a start but you're going to put a lot of money into a kit that you could build from scratch for about 1/4 of the cost. Up to you, of course, but learning how to scratchbuild will save you some money and allow you duplicate buildings that aren't made in kit form.
I wasn't even thinking about the Walthers Modular kits. if you get the right ones they have the large windows & double entrance doors. You could use a scratchbuilt flat roof instead of the raised roof.
A lot of schools around here and probably most around the country, are just simply brick buildings with common shapes. However, I graduated from a high school that had a 3 story circle attached also.
