At the culmination of a master plan for Groton Public Schools and the largest passed-referendum in state history, a new 155,000 SF, 950-student middle school was the first of three school projects for the shipbuilding, coastal district. Two middle schools, located on opposite ends of town, were consolidated to bring together students of varying demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and combine their respective themes, STEAM and Arts & Humanities, under one roof.
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at-a-glanceOur challenge was to transform the site to fit Groton Public Schools’ academic and facility needs for the school. The design had to integrate a safe and healthy environment for learning while providing flexible, educational environments that promote tomorrow’s teaching and collaborative learning activities.
SLAM worked closely with Groton Public Schools to ensure their academic and facility goals were met. The new school provides hands-on and simulated learning spaces to support engaged learning, exterior learning space that ties to the architecture and organization of the building, and improved access to technological tools for faculty and students throughout the building.
Floor level design themes of sea, land, sun and sky are inspired by the building’s shoreline location.
Interior color by floor is implemented as wayfinding with inspirational super-graphics in key locations.
Common spaces integrate all four colors, representing inclusivity of the entire student body.
Sustainability Design Features:
The project exceeds Connecticut’s High Performance Building Standards, achieving LEED Gold equivalent.
The planning for the middle school embraces the sloped site by safely inviting students to a single bus entrance on grade at the second floor, opposite from the first floor, main public entry.
Between these two points, a multi-level organizing concourse guides foot traffic to a crossroads of academics, specialty instruction and community gathering spaces.
As students traverse the concourse, they are surrounded by floor-to-ceiling graphics that inspire, embrace, and unify the culturally-diverse population, framing the view to the heart of the building: the student commons.
The auditorium and cafeteria are in a shared space, fostering a principal project goal providing flexible, educational environments that promote tomorrow’s teaching and collaborative learning activities.
The student commons is flanked by three instructional/performance spaces featuring vertically-retractable walls that allow spaces to flex to smaller choral rooms or expanded black-box theater.
When open to the student commons, several audience sizes and configurations can be implemented using the student dining seats.
The makerspace supports their International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme and was strategically located to take advantage of the student commons open floor area for a robotics court.
The science labs and makerspace are strategically located near the student commons open floor area for the robotics court and art studios that include an outdoor learning patio.
Interior color by floor is implemented as wayfinding with inspirational super-graphics in key locations.
SLAM designed specialty spaces to serve the wider town community including a separate gymnasium wing entrance and building zoning to facilitate after-hours community use.
The placement of the special education classrooms were located in the building to allow for summer and after-hour access.
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