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Hathaway Brown School Middle School Expansion
A new home for middle school students.
A ceramic fritted glass canopy covers the Great Hall, washing the interiors with filtered light and celebrating activities throughout the day and evening.
Hathaway Brown School
Expanding an historic building to fit a growing student body.
Middle School Expansion
As the Middle and Upper Schools each expanded, their coexistence in an historic Walker and Weeks building began to compromise programmatic offerings. The solution features a distinct new home for the Middle School, organized by an enclosed Great Hall. The Great Hall connects the historic buildings of the campus with a new heart of circulation across multiple levels. A new "L" shaped wing includes a new entry and reorients the entire campus circulation with a new entry drive that focuses the visitor's eye on the main facade of the original building. The entry sequence is streamlined, with parking distributed to the sides of the building and a new drop-off circle to organize the entries of the Upper School, Middle School and gymnasium.
Neighborhoods serve as an intentional home base for students.
Floors two and three are for middle school students and are designed around "neighborhoods". The neighborhood is a central building block of the middle school experience and conceived as an extension of the classroom environment, with ample breakout space, lockers, and tables for collaborative group work. Two distinct neighborhood areas are located on each of the middle school levels, supported by a common room for special curricular projects. Middle School classrooms feature moveable desks and soft furniture to accommodate hands-on learning projects. The splitting of the Middle School on two levels and the pairing of grades on each floor creates an intentional home base and identity for each grade.
Spaces for the entire campus.
This reimagining of the Middle School spaces allowed for expansion of the Upper School in place, as well as the location of three fully equipped science laboratories in the new construction. School-wide student activity spaces are also a key element of the program, including a renovated arts complex and a 300-seat dining facility on the lower level of the addition. The atrium is the school’s public square, and a place where the entire school can meet outside of the classroom. The Great Hall connects all four floors of the Middle School addition and serves as the hub of daily school life, a spectacular setting for special events and school-wide gatherings.
Let's aim for
extraordinary
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