Tantasqua Regional High School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

The design challenge was to configure this large, comprehensive high school within the only buildable area on the rural site- an odd-shaped, irregularly sloping piece of land bordered by wetlands, athletic fields and the existing high school that would remain in operation until the new construction was complete. The sprawling complex is organized around a curved circulation spine that negotiates the terrain, including the 25-foot vertical grade change. With close proximity to wetlands, retaining walls were used to maintain the natural vegetation including an on-site pond - used as amenity and part of the storm water management.

The circulation spine organizes all of the major program elements. Each major space in the school is accessed directly from this spine including: pool, field house, auditorium, cafeteria, library and classroom wings. Care was taken to introduce natural light to all portions of this curved path through a variety of techniques - roof monitors, single loaded configuration, clerestories etc. The spine organization also responds to after-hours community use with the field house, auditorium and cafeteria grouped at the east end of the spine adjacent to parking with a dedicated entrance and lobby.

The varied massing materials and roof forms successfully reduce the scale of the massive building into an “educational village” - an assemblage of individual identities informally arranged on the rural hillside. Repetitive volumes, such as gable roofs at entrances and exterior masonry banding tie the complex together. The village concept was developed with common areas in mind for shared learning — strategically placed to encourage interaction. The corridors have window seating for informal gathering. Each area has a high volume of traffic having been connected to main entry points in the building. Teacher offices are dispersed throughout the building for ease of student access.

The facility houses fifty nine classrooms, five science labs, two computer labs, one language lab, a TV studio, school store, student activity center and field house. The technical component includes culinary arts, technology education center, machine shop, photonics, carpentry, electrical, allied health, business and drafting. An additional design consideration was to strategically place the career/technical spaces with the shops and commuter labs adjacent to one another providing multiple learning environments.

The career /technical spaces are directly related to the local employers needs. A key example was the development of the newly introduced Photonics program. This program was developed as a public/private partnering between the school and the local photonics industry. The teaching position salary, for instance, is shared between the photonics industry in the region and the school system. The program, and space design was also a collaborative effort ensuring that the learning environment can best educate and prepare the students interested in this field.

Educator Narrative

The new High School is the culmination of over 10 years of planning, design and construction. The process however was not always linear and included at least one major redirection. Originally, the School District conceived of the project as a renovation- a primarily technical effort focused on modernizing the aging infrastructure, meeting current building codes and adding classroom space to accommodate growing enrollments. There was to be little educational reorganization. However, after the cost estimates came in excessively high, the District realized that for virtually the same cost and for significantly less disruption to education, a new school could be constructed on our existing site. In addition, the opportunity to improve the educational space and upgrade the overall organization of the building was too attractive to pass up; so the commitment was made to build a replacement high school.

The challenge we gave to the new architect therefore was to design a replacement school that would reshape the flow of the school, optimize the community access to the new facilities and effectively integrate the technical and academic divisions of our comprehensive High School. All of this was to be achieved on our limited site plagued with wetlands, slopes and an irregular boundary, in close proximity to the on-going operations of our existing 1200 student High School.

Our architects began with a series of programming meetings with all of our best stakeholders. They studied several alternatives, but the option seemed most promising to all of us was the educational village organized by the curving circulation spine. This organization gave each educational component its own identity while at the same time recognizing that it is part of a larger whole. It also seemed to provide the flexibility to fit the program into the available space on the site, accommodate the changes in topography and fit into the rural context. We also recognized the spines potent ional to provide multiple access points so that this regional facility could effectively serve the community after-hours without opening up the entire school.

Now that we have lived in the school for a couple years, it has, for the most part, proven to work as we all had hoped. For example:

-The academic and career technical students do mix together on Main Street, while at the same time enjoying their own space and identity.

-The technical shops have already proven to be flexible by accommodating a new Photonics program in partnership with a local employer.

-The swimming pool, fieldhouse and auditorium are heavily utilized by the community throughout the year and around the clock. The site planning, entrance and corridor arrangement makes it easy to open and control these areas off-hours. Even the culinary arts dining room, which is staffed by students in the technical division, is easily accessible to the public.

-The curving circulation space is a light-filled, popular space for students(and teachers) to meet and hang-out. It is wide enough comfortably to handle the traffic flow and the built-in benches are popular. However due to our limited passing time between classes, its length is sometimes a drawback.

-The notion of small learning communities which was new to our staff at the beginning of this project has now begun to be implemented. The decentralization of teacher offices and other support spaces, along with the courtyard arrangement of classrooms has reinforced this organization.

Overall our district is proud of our new school and the faculty have told us that they feel privileged to work in this exciting environment.