Scope
New K-12 School Building
Completion
2014
Size
151,000 sf
The Green Local Schools K-12 building is situated in the heart of the agricultural community of Smithville, Ohio. The school building is clad in earth tones of brick and metal to pay tribute to the surrounding landscape and to fit within the context of the rural community.
Even though the school building houses grades K through 12, it was arranged to function as two separate educational buildings with a shared core of services in the center. This consolidated plan allowed the District to save both construction and operating costs by eliminating the duplication of learning spaces and services. It also resulted in more academic learning space to better serve the students and teachers. The District’s tag line, ‘Better Together’, shows their excitement about the opportunities that one K-12 building allows for collaboration between staff and students.
They [SoL Harris/Day] continually provided encouragement and insisted that we maximize community involvement during our Chance of a Lifetime [Bond] Campaign. This proved to be the recipe for success for our levy that passed.
Larry C. Brown, Board Member, Green Local Schools
The K-12 school was designed to provide as much flexibility as possible. Extended learning area ‘pockets’ were included off of the corridors and serve as a shared space between a group of classrooms. These open learning spaces act as an extension of the classroom to support collaboration and different types of educational delivery. Movable walls were included between classrooms to provide additional flexibility and opportunities for team teaching.
Daylighting was an important goal of the District as it has been shown to be directly related to enhanced student performance. The K-12 school building location and orientation was chosen carefully to allow for a full daylight design in the academic learning areas. Large windows bring in natural light and offer wonderful views from the classrooms to the adjacent landscape. Light shelves were used in south facing classrooms to bounce the daylight deeper into the classrooms while a silk screen dot pattern within the glass was designed to reduce glare without obstructing views to the outdoors. Translucent panels bring daylight into gym areas without causing concerns with breakage or glare.
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