![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program, thus beginning a $74.2 million renovation of the 222,000-sf high school. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School, dubbed “Old Main,” to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program. The Building Team was given only 13 months to get the school ready to participate in the project. Community members, administrators, students, teachers, and parents worked with architects from the Seattle office of DLR Group to reconfigure the high school for new academy-based educational delivery methods. The architects led them through extensive scenario planning, overlaying each educational program component over the building plans.
The DLR plan divided the school into six zones (two zones in each wing, one on each floor) that would house six academies, each of which would function independently within the larger school building. Shared spaces were to include an auditorium, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, a library, and science labs. Funding for the $74.2 million renovation came from a bond issue and a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As work got under way in fall 2006, the existing 222,000-sf, L-shaped school received a number of structural upgrades and nips and tucks. To address seismic concerns, 13 shear walls (using double-sided plywood) were installed, running from grade all the way up to the attic floors. An existing 1980s addition was demolished; in its place arose a two-story structure that expands the school to 264,000 sf and houses the new library and science labs. The addition also acts as a buttress to the existing school structure, providing added seismic support. The school received all new plumbing and electrical systems, as well as new HVAC equipment that was installed in the attic. The Building Team specified aluminum equipment to diminish the weight load on the existing wood-frame structure. Insulation was beefed up to dampen equipment noise. Despite all that’s new with the school, much of its historic character remains intact. The Collegiate Gothic-style school’s original details were restored or replicated; some were relocated and reused in the addition to connect old and new. Also left intact were the school’s 75- to 80-year-old, three-by-seven-foot operable windows, some with original stained glass windows of Tacoma milk glass, so called because of its milky white color. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Project Summary Lincoln High School Tacoma, Wash. Building Team Submitting firm: DLR Group (architect, structural engineer) Owner: Tacoma School District Architectural consultant: TCF Architecture General contractor: Lease Crutcher Lewis Electrical engineer: Coffman Engineers Mechanical engineer: Hargis Engineers General Information Area: 264,000 sf Construction cost: $74.2 million Construction time: August 2006 to September 2007 |
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
High School in a Hurry
One of the more compelling arguments for charter schools is their theoretical ability to streamline decision making. Eliminate all those layers of bureaucratic fat that clog the arteries of most public school systems, the argument goes, and decisions can be made to flow much more smoothly, even when it comes to designing and building a major school project.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Garfield High School, Seattle, Wash.
Renovations to Seattle's historic Garfield High School focused mainly on restoring the 85-year-old building's faded beauty and creating a more usable and modern interior. The 243,000-sf school (whose alumni include the impresario Quincy Jones) was so functionally inadequate that officials briefly considered razing it.
| Aug 11, 2010
Managing the K-12 Portfolio
In 1995, the city of New Haven, Conn., launched a program to build five new schools and renovate and upgrade seven others. At the time, city officials could not have envisioned their program morphing into a 17-year, 44-school, $1.5 billion project to completely overhaul its entire portfolio of K-12 facilities for nearly 23,000 students.
| Aug 11, 2010
Financial Wizardry Builds a Community
At 69 square miles, Vineland is New Jersey's largest city, at least in geographic area, and it has a rich history. It was established in 1861 as a planned community (well before there were such things) by the utopian Charles Landis. It was in Vineland that Dr. Thomas Welch found a way to preserve grape juice without fermenting it, creating a wine substitute for church use (the town was dry).
| Aug 11, 2010
School Project Offers Lessons in Construction Realities
Imagine this scenario: You're planning a $32.9 million project involving 112,000 sf of new construction and renovation work, and your job site is an active 32-acre junior-K-to-12 school campus bordered by well-heeled neighbors who are extremely concerned about construction noise and traffic. Add to that the fact that within 30 days of groundbreaking, the general contractor gets canned.
| Aug 11, 2010
High Tech High International used to be a military facility
High Tech High International, reconstructed inside a 1952 Navy metal foundry training facility, incorporates the very latest in teaching technology with a centerpiece classroom known as the UN Theater, which is modeled after the UN chambers in New York. The interior space, which looks more like a hip advertising studio than a public high school, provides informal, flexible seating areas, abunda...
| Aug 11, 2010
High-Performance Modular Classrooms Hit the Market
Over a five-day stretch last December, students at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass., witnessed the installation of a modular classroom building like no other. The new 950-sf structure, which will serve as the school's tutoring offices for the next few years, is loaded with sustainable features like sun-tunnel skylights, doubled-insulated low-e glazing, a cool roof, light shelves, bamboo tri...
| Aug 11, 2010
Special Recognition: Pioneering Efforts Continue Trade School Legacy
Worcester, Mass., is the birthplace of vocational education, beginning with the pioneering efforts of Milton P. Higgins, who opened the Worcester Trade School in 1908. The school's original facility served this central Massachusetts community for nearly 100 years until its state-of-the-art replacement opened in 2006 as the 1,500-student Worchester Technical High School.
| Aug 11, 2010
BIM school, green school: California's newest high-performance school
Nestled deep in the Napa Valley, the city of American Canyon is one of a number of new communities in Northern California that have experienced tremendous growth in the last five years. Located 42 miles northeast of San Francisco, American Canyon had a population of just over 9,000 in 2000; by 2008, that figure stood at 15,276, with 28% of the population under age 18.
| Aug 11, 2010
8 Tips for Converting Remnant Buildings Into Schools
Faced with overcrowded schools and ever-shrinking capital budgets, more and more school districts are turning to the existing building stock for their next school expansion project. Retail malls, big-box stores, warehouses, and even dingy old garages are being transformed into high-performance learning spaces, and at a fraction of the cost and time required to build classrooms from the ground up.