Hastings Architecture has recently completed two new K-12 projects in Nashville; the Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center and the Montgomery Bell Academy H. Frank Burkholder Wellness Center. While the projects have vastly different programs, they’re both critical components on their respective campuses.
The 45,000-sf Fine Arts Center was designed to establish a new front door to Christ Presbyterian Academy’s campus. The project is part of a larger master plan and is sited to enclose and define a new central quad. This new central quad helps transform the 58-acre campus from being automotive-centered to one that embraces the human scale.
Brick massing wraps the building base and references existing campus scale and materiality. An undulating corrugated metal panel, meant to evoke a stage curtain, sheaths the theater house and fly tower. The brick mass opens up at the main entry to reveal a transparent lobby capped with a wooden canopy. The lobby’s glazing pattern introduces a contemporary vocabulary unique to the campus.
The lobby blurs the line between indoors and outdoors with natural materials and abundant natural light to invite curiosity and wonder through both the grand scale of the space and its sculptural gestures. An expansive light monitor diffuses light throughout the lobby and furthers the connection between indoors and out. At night, light from within transforms the building into a glowing lantern, placing the venue’s activity on display.
In total, the building comprises a 550-seat theatre, a black box theatre, makeup and dressing rooms, a costume shop, a scene shop, a green room, administrative offices, and art department offices.
The build team also included Ragan Smith (civil engineer), Civil Site Design Group (landscape architect), EMC Structural Engineers (structural engineer), C. Thomasson Associates (MEP engineer), and Solomon (general contractor).
Montgomery Bell Academy H. Frank Burkholder Wellness Center
The second Nashville project recently completed by Hastings is the 200,000-sf H. Frank Burkholder Wellness Center on the Montgomery Bell Academy campus. The project was designed to support both mental and physical health
The new center strategically cloaks the mass and scale of interior spaces while still carrying forward the campus’ architectural and formal language. It includes space to gather, host, meet, study, perform, meditate, learn, play, practice, and compete. The project’s interiors do not have the aesthetics of traditional athletics programs, but instead attempt to create a more cerebral discussion about holistic wellness.
Included in the new Wellness Center is a 1,200-seat event center; a three-court fieldhouse; a double-height indoor practice field; a golf center; a squash center; a dedicated wrestling gym; a fitness center; locker rooms; training facilities; offices for coaches and administrators; and yoga, meditation, screening, meeting, and instructional classrooms.
The Center has efficient building systems to save an estimated 20% on annual energy costs. High efficiency and low-flow plumbing fixtures reduce potable water consumption by an estimated 35% annually. The project is pursuing LEED Gold certification.
The build team also included Barge Cauthen & Associates (civil engineer), HDLA (landscape architect), EMC Structural Engineers (structural engineer), Smith Seckman Reid (MEP engineer), and Brasfield & Gorrie (general contractor).
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.
