Needing a new home to serve their “Next Gen High School” model, the public school system initially planned to adapt an alternative school, then thought they might construct a new satellite high school, but settled on integration of the Next Gen programs – engineering, biomedical, sports medicine, nursing, and others – with the pre-existing computer science, culinary arts, auto repair, and other vocational programs in their Area Technology Center. The expansion more than doubled the size of the existing school.

Because the new programs had a public outreach and project presentation component, additions were made at both ends of the renovated facility, accommodating new labs in a two-floor addition at the back and introducing a new lobby, administration, and a flexible reception / conference hall at the front. This conference hall doubles as a room for community meetings and workshops and has become the site for the district’s school board meetings.

A new exterior materials palette was developed to tie the two additions together and both complement and re-contextualize the utilitarian brown brick of the ’70s-era vocational school.

The long length of the resulting building meant that the front and back additions were situated in different contextual conditions. The front was approached from three sides, so the building elements were configured to address the patterns of approach and the scale of openings and materials was responsive to the distances – far highway vs walk-up approach – from which the building would be seen.

The back, made up of large labs and shops, opened to exterior work spaces along its long sides and faced an open field to the rear. Overhead doors from shops open to the work yard nestled up close to the building while, from the upstairs labs, large openings frame views of the more bucolic undeveloped area beyond.