Springfield High School, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, dated back to 1953, was well passed its expiration date. To replace that aging building, Springfield’s school board called upon architect Perkins & Will to design a new, 230,000-sf facility that is separated into three zones—academic, physical education, and visual and performing arts—within somewhat smaller footprint.
Construction of this three-story project—which sits on a former baseball field and had been in the works since 2009—began in 2018, at an estimated cost of $130 million, and opened for 1,500 students in 2021. The project’s Building Team included E.R. Stuebner (GC), Boro Construction (ME and EE), and Stan-Roch Plumbing (PE).
The exterior design of the new school is distinguished by an outer shell of curving beige brick and glass. Daylight fills the school’s wood-paneled hallways and ceilings, as well as its open learning commons that are placed strategically throughout the academic zone to allow for informal student interactions.
The school highlights a popular recent design trend by allowing its library to “spill” into its cafeteria, thereby creating another informal learning area. (The cafeteria and auditorium can be used for public events, too.
Common spaces open directly onto the large courtyard, whose inner periphery is made up of glass and metal panels that separate it from the outer space. This flexibility accommodates a range of activities, and connects the facility to the surrounding community.
MULTIFUNCTIONAL SPACES
Because of its smaller footprint, the school’s most heavily used spaces—such as its lobby, cafeteria, and courtyard—are set up for greater efficiency. For example, the cafeteria can serve as “pre-function” space for the gym and for community space during evening hours. The school’s gyms open to each other, and therefore can handle overflow seating during events.
The smaller building is also more energy efficient, and allows for easier sharing of amenities. And by focusing density closer to the town’s urban core, the school’s playfields are positioned as virtual extensions of nearby Whiskey Run Creek and Spring Valley Park.
The new school is within walking distance of the town, and adjacent to public transportation. Indeed, the school is organized to provide access to the public: the auditorium, for example, is located off the main entrance so it can be used by the community for non-school events. Practice fields are open to the public. And in phase two of this redevelopment, the site of the old school will become a green space in the heart of the town’s residential area.
Related Stories
| 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.
| Aug 11, 2010
Special Recognition: Kingswood School Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
Kingswood School is perhaps the best example of Eliel Saarinen's work in North America. Designed in 1930 by the Finnish-born architect, the building was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Style, with wide overhanging hipped roofs, long horizontal bands of windows, decorative leaded glass doors, and asymmetrical massing of elements.
