New Saline High School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

Sited on the crest of a hill overlooking a wetland preserve, this new High School is a 480,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility that features a comprehensive Career Technology Education Program. A major design challenge was to make a very large building feel warm and comfortable for students, staff and visitors. The design integrates curriculum opportunities, creates smaller learning environments and provides an intimate, house-like feeling. Economy and energy efficiency were achieved with a multi-story structure and careful orientation of windows and courtyards.The academic wing is a three-story, U-shaped structure that contains two smaller learning environments or “houses” on each level. Each “house” features nine standard classrooms, rest rooms, student breakout rooms, teacher planning rooms, special education facilities and storage areas. Science labs and art rooms serve as bridges that connect the houses.The house concept allows students to be grouped by grade level or career path. Ideally, a student will have his or her core classes in the same “house”. In keeping with the District’s strong tradition of providing quality performing arts programs, the new high school features the Ellen Ewing Center for the Performing Arts. The center, named after the district’s former superintendent, features a 1,100 seat auditorium equipped with full fly tower, drama lab, scene shop, dressing rooms, and practice rooms for students participating in orchestra, band and choral programs. The two-story athletic wing is comprised of six major components: an eight-lane “stretch” pool, 2,200-seat gymnasium, an auxiliary gymnasium, gymnastics room, two weight training areas and a wrestling room. Two unique features of the competition pool are its movable floor in the shallow end and a movable bulkhead. The floor can be raised to deck level for handicap accessibility or lowered to a seven-foot depth for competition swimming.Exterior elements of the school consist of brown, iron-spotted brick, aluminum panels, blue-tinted windows and aluminum solar shades.The Career Technology Education program emphasizes training students in the vocational arts offering both life skills and technology curricula. The facilities are designed to emulate actual work environments holding true to the District’s philosophy of “career preparation”.

Educator Narrative

The key learning ideas were to design a school that could accommodate a rapidly growing student population in a rural environment and to create an environment for students to excel in academics, career and technical education, the arts and athletics. The goals for the environment included creating small learning communities within the school to encourage more individualized instruction for students and to provide state-of-the-art programs to prepare students for the future.

The district was able to meet its goals by working in conjunction with the architecture firm during the design process. Collaborative meetings helped the architects, community members, students, teachers and school administrators get on the same page. Each group provided input that helped shape the design of the school to achieve the district’s vision.

By creating six flexible learning environments within the school, we were able to achieve our goal of making this large school feel smaller and comfortable, with a more human scale. Students are not lost in the shuffle and get much more personalized attention from teachers and administrators. The smaller learning communities also allow for a more focused environment that encourages scholarly pursuits. Additionally, students have access to state-of-the-art educational, performing arts, athletic and vocational offerings even though they spend the majority of their time in the smaller learning communities. The students have the best of both worlds right at their fingertips.

We also designed a school that can accommodate 2,000 students, which provides us with a facility that can comfortably handle future enrollment growth.