Rosa Parks Elementary School in San Francisco has transformed its outdoor teaching garden with a striking new chicken coop that serves as both a functional home for the school's five hens and an architectural masterpiece. The 12-foot-tall structure, featuring a dramatic butterfly roof design, was created through a collaborative effort between students and architect David Darling, whose son attended the school. The hens—named Pikachu, Totoro, Sunny, Pyopyo, and Oreo—have become campus celebrities, with students opening the coop each morning to let them roam the garden before herding them back inside at day's end.
The project represents a comprehensive approach to educational design, addressing multiple challenges that plagued the previous structure. The original chicken coop was located over a catch basin and suffered severe flood damage, while also becoming a breeding ground for rats that were feeding on chicken feed. "The coop was actually a breeding ground for the rats, and the rats were nesting under the coop," Darling explained. "It was just like a complete disaster."
Darling's redesigned structure addresses these problems through thoughtful engineering and materials selection. The coop features a cedar frame, which provides natural insect repellent properties and durability, reinforced with steel beams at the corners for structural stability. The innovative butterfly roof not only creates visual impact but also serves a practical function by collecting rainwater and funneling it into a cistern. The foundation consists of a concrete slab with stainless-steel mesh extending 18 inches below grade to effectively deter rodents.
The design philosophy behind the project recognizes the unique nature of structures that must serve both human and animal inhabitants. "Chicken coops are in this weird margin between being a building for people and a building for chickens," Darling noted. The approximately 100-square-foot interior is spacious enough for students to walk inside comfortably, allowing them to easily clean the space and provide food and water to the hens without having to hunch over.
Beyond its practical functions, the chicken coop serves as a powerful educational tool that connects students with food systems and environmental stewardship. "Kids get to understand where their food comes from, they develop empathy with the chickens, and they get to see this microcosm of all these things, which is pretty cool," Darling said. The outdoor classroom provides hands-on learning opportunities about plants, water conservation, and biodiversity, making it one of the school's most active learning spaces.
The project's development involved extensive community collaboration and bureaucratic navigation. Darling worked closely with a group of parent volunteers who raised funds, coordinated material donations, and worked with the San Francisco Unified School District administration to secure all necessary permits. The construction process itself became an educational opportunity, with Darling successfully lobbying the school to create an exception to rules requiring opaque fencing around construction sites. "We wanted the kids to see this thing get built," he explained. "They were part of it."
The architectural design carries deeper symbolic meaning related to the neighborhood's complex history. Rosa Parks Elementary is located one block south of Geary Boulevard, a six-lane expressway that was part of the Western Addition urban renewal project of the 1950s. This road expansion demolished 28 blocks and displaced 30,000 people and over 800 businesses in Japantown and the Fillmore, dividing communities during a period when Black and Japanese families faced severe housing discrimination through exclusionary policies.
With this historical context in mind, Darling oriented the coop's distinctive roof toward Japantown Peace Plaza to the northeast, hoping the structure's visibility might draw curious visitors to explore the schoolyard. "Its a lofty goal," Darling admitted, but the gesture represents an attempt at civic repair through architectural intervention. The dramatic roofline creates visual appeal and neighborhood interest, serving as a beacon that extends the project's impact beyond the school grounds.
The construction process presented numerous obstacles that required creative problem-solving and persistence. To overcome initial skepticism from school administrators, Darling built a demonstration pergola using donated materials over a single weekend, providing a tangible example of what the new coop could achieve. "I wanted them to know that this could be better than it was," he said. The project required years of development and extensive negotiations with school officials, with multiple moments when completion seemed unlikely.
The collaborative design process actively involved students as clients, with Darling and his team gathering input about what they liked and disliked about their outdoor classroom. Students participated in site analysis exercises, learning about water flow patterns and other fundamental design elements. This approach transformed the construction project into a comprehensive architecture and design curriculum that provided real-world learning experiences.
Project funding and execution relied heavily on community generosity and professional donations. Key contributors included Matarozzi Pelsinger Builders as the contractor, Strandberg Engineering for structural engineering services, and Golden State Lumber for building supplies. Additional support came from Partners Contracting Inc. for concrete work, along with contributions from parents and the Rosa Parks Elementary School Green Team.
The completed structure has become a source of tremendous pride for the entire school community and surrounding neighborhood. "When new parents tour the school, this garden is always a big pitch," Darling noted. While other schools may have more extensively funded garden programs, the distinctive chicken coop has emerged as one of Rosa Parks Elementary's primary selling points for prospective families.
Darling's approach to overcoming the project's many challenges centered on what he describes as "determination and a combination of gumption and just doing it ourselves." This persistence paid off in creating a structure that serves multiple functions: providing a safe, clean environment for the school's hens, offering students direct access for maintenance and care, and creating an architecturally significant landmark that honors the neighborhood's history while pointing toward a more connected future.
Although his son has graduated from Rosa Parks Elementary, Darling continues to visit the coop periodically to check on the hens, maintaining his connection to what he describes as "a labor of love all the way around." The project stands as a testament to the power of community collaboration, thoughtful design, and the educational value of hands-on learning experiences that connect students with both their built and natural environments.
