Herget Middle School

Narratives

School Within A School

Educational Program Features:

Metaphor of the American Heartland guided the design, not a literal imitation, but a recreation of the 4 different scales of experience that make up this American legacy: private, shared, community, and frontier. The design creates learning at each scale of experience.

Sitting like a heroic, modern farmhouse, this school is organized around a bent axis; opening arms taking in nature. Six classroom clusters are arranged around a giant Central Hall. This community-scaled Central Hall is communal learning: library, technology center, life skills, process lab, science preparation room, and spontaneous gathering spaces. The six classroom clusters are themed around six educational programs: art, library, science, technology, Aurora University, and student services. Each cluster consists of a science lab and 4 classrooms configured around a resource area.

Collaborative outreach opportunities help build the community: School District #129 partnered with Aurora University College of Education to provide additional classroom and office space which allows college students studying for a degree in education to spend part of their time in a hands-on environment at the middle school, and joint use fitness facilities with the YMCA.

Site Considerations:

The design of the campus responds to the existing flood plain and adjacent farming, and provides a connection to the adjacent nature preserve. The existing farmhouses and barns on the site will be transformed into learning environments and a community resource. The protection of the adjacent open space and farming structures will help the school maintain its connection to its agrarian past long after the surrounding country side is covered with residential subdivisions.

The site design is fully sustainable and ecologically sensitive, as it teaches respect of natural resources through the choices in landscaping and building placement on the site, use of daylight in the buildings, and the collection and dispursment of rainwater run off.

Technical Project Information:

The theme of the heartland is also explored through the use of industrial and agricultural materials, like field stone, corrugated metal, standing seam metal, and brick. Building shapes and forms recall farmhouses and barns. Note the interpretive large barn roof folding over the Central Hall. The shape is a design response to capture north light and views for a large internal space that could end up dark and cave like otherwise. The shared resource area for each cluster of classrooms also has its roof pushed up above the surrounding classrooms in order to capture daylight for the inside edge of the classrooms and to provide an uplifting gathering area for each cluster.

School and Community in the American Heartland

As one of the city’s first projects on the far western frontier, the school chool sets the standard for future development. The school district was fortunate to have the support and involvement of the city as well as community members in a collaborative design effort which has resulted in a valuable community resource.

Opened in the fall of 2005, this project expands the partnership between the school district and Aurora University, containing a university classroom to be used by the University for preparation of future teachers and for professional development of veteran teachers.

Casual passers-by may not believe what they see is actually a school. The school sits like a modern farmhouse on its rural site. The metaphor of the American Heartland was used in the design of the district’s newest school. The building’s shape and rooflines recall the farmhouses and barns that were once on the site. Field stone, brick, corrugated and standing seam metal and various other industrial and agricultural materials also emphasize the theme. It’s exciting to see something that started as a sketch on a piece of paper turn into reality!

As remarkable as the design of the outside of the school is, the inside of the 112,000 square foot school is even more impressive. Six classroom clusters are arranged around the school’s main hallway. Integrated throughout the academic clusters are the library, a technology center with a process lab and life skills lab, and classrooms for exploratory classes. Located at the other end of the main hallway are the performing arts classrooms, cafetorium, and gymnasium. The school was designed to provide a learning environment capable of delivering the best of what middle school education has to offer — curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory. Every learning space in this school supports multiple learning and teaching approaches enabling our school to respond to the diverse learning needs of the students.