In Warrensville Heights, Ohio, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, a $31.7 million project has completed a newly constructed middle school and high school accommodating over 1,000 students in grades 6-12.
In 2016, the Warrensville Heights School District engaged Moody Nolan to assist in master planning and to design the combined middle and high school buildings, while incorporating input gathered from the community and teachers. Construction lasted from late 2019 to mid-2023.
The high school and middle school have been designed with flexible learning environments that include open collaboration areas, small group rooms, and maker spaces intended to foster diverse teaching and learning approaches. The project also renovated the high school’s existing science wing.
Offerings include culinary arts, restaurant, firefighting training, auditorium, and an expanded high school gym.
Adjacent to the auditorium lie the academic zones, with general education classrooms, specialized rooms, and versatile spaces on each floor. Each academic zone also has a central learning commons to extend the classroom environment.
The media center, which is centrally located in the academic area for everyone to use, features porcelain tile learning stairs with flexible seating, promoting both collaboration and quiet study. Surrounding the media center are the TV studio, career area, and visual design studio.
At the school’s request, the project also includes an e-sports center for the school’s e-sports team and gaming club. The center features both individual and group gaming stations for the virtual competitions and overlooks the learning stair in the media center for spectators.
A corridor connects the schools to the adjacent community center. A butterfly canopy at the high school and community entrances impacts the interior design, reflecting light through its angled walls.
Durable, low-maintenance interior finishes, such as LVT flooring with acoustical backing, reduce noise transmission from floor to floor and eliminate the need for waxing, saving the school district time and money each summer.
Outside, the complex features a football stadium with an eight-lane running track, an athletics plaza, baseball and softball fields, and a bus maintenance garage.
On the Building Team:
Owner: Warrensville Heights City School District Board of Education
Design architect and architect of record: Moody Nolan
MEP and structural engineer: Osborn Engineering
General contractor: Infinity Construction Company
Related Stories
K-12 Schools | May 17, 2019
Tall schools, tight spaces: Giving students access to the outdoors requires considerable creativity
Verticality has some plusses, according to AEC firms that have engaged such projects recently.
K-12 Schools | Apr 25, 2019
How outdoor environments provide value to K-12 learning, health, and safety
Outdoor spaces at school offer students key opportunities to learn, problem solve, and mentally refresh.
K-12 Schools | Jan 21, 2019
Safer K-12 design: School should feel – and look – like school
In an age during which stories of bullying, school shootings, and mental health concerns are all too common, designers have a critical role to play in crafting K-12 schools that simultaneously promote engaged learning and student safety.
K-12 Schools | Nov 5, 2018
Modernizing schools is paying off in creating better learning and teaching environments
A new paper reports on a recent study of nine schools in Washington DC that gauged occupants’ perceptions.
K-12 Schools | Jul 26, 2018
K-12 market trends 2018: Common areas enable hands-on learning
Modern designs emphasize social and collaboration spaces outside the classroom.
| May 30, 2018
Accelerate Live! talk: From micro schools to tiny houses: What’s driving the downsizing economy?
In this 15-minute talk at BD+C’s Accelerate Live! conference (May 10, 2018, Chicago), micro-buildings design expert Aeron Hodges, AIA, explores the key drivers of the micro-buildings movement, and how the trend is spreading into a wide variety of building typologies.
| May 24, 2018
Accelerate Live! talk: Security and the built environment: Insights from an embassy designer
In this 15-minute talk at BD+C’s Accelerate Live! conference (May 10, 2018, Chicago), embassy designer Tom Jacobs explores ways that provide the needed protection while keeping intact the representational and inspirational qualities of a design.
K-12 Schools | Jan 25, 2018
Cost estimating for K-12 school projects: An invaluable tool for budget management
Clients want to be able to track costs at every stage of a project, and cost estimates (current and life cycle) are valuable planning and design tools, writes LS3P's Ginny Magrath, AIA.
K-12 Schools | Jan 24, 2018
Hawaii’s first net-zero public school
G70 is the architect, planner, and civil engineer of record for the project.
K-12 Schools | Jan 22, 2018
Innovative learning environments and our ‘Heschong Mahone moment’
An education market think tank proposes a radical research concept for evaluating learning environments.
