“Keene Middle School…sets the standard to which all future school construction projects should strive to attain.”

– Virginia Barry, Ph.D., Commissioner of Education

After our firm conducted an extremely thorough, 4-month long examination of the existing Keene Middle School structure, the Keene Board of Education decided to pursue a new school at a school district-owned site that would not only provide a state-of-the-art building, but also extensive playing fields and parking which is so lacking at the existing site.

The school design is built around the concept of team teaching, which subdivides the eventual 1,000 student population into groups of 125 students, providing teams with a distinct area within the school, and a small group of teachers that will get to know each student well. This was already a strong part of the curriculum in the old school, despite the fact that the layout of the building made implementing the approach very difficult.

In addition to the 6 team pods, there are two future pods that will be used for other functions, such as health, language, or special ed spaces until they are needed for teams. The community-use spaces, such as the gymnasium, auditorium, cafeteria, and library are at the front of the school, and can be isolated from the classroom areas for after-school use of the facility.

The school incorporates a wide range of “green” and high performance features, which will qualify it for an additional 3% state building aid under the “High Performance Schools” initiative. These features include a wood chip heating plant, low-flow plumbing fixtures, a high level of thermal insulation, a reflective roof surface, extensive daylighting, high-efficiency heat recovery mechanical units, energy efficient indirect lighting and an energy management system. A comprehensive waste recycling program was implemented during construction.

The site design includes a perimeter driveway around the building with separate dedicated drop-off areas for cars and busses. The design provides 300 new parking spaces, a track, two soccer fields and a softball field. There is also a separate storage building for maintenance equipment, athletic equipment, a concession area, and public toilets for after-hours sporting events.

A new 10,000 s.f. home for SAU #29 is part of the project, and will be located on the Middle School site. Building the SAU concurrent with the middle school results in an integrated site design and significant savings in construction costs. Adjacent to the SAU building is a new wood chip heating plant which will serve not only the new school and the SAU, but also the existing Daniels Elementary School, resulting in substantial energy cost savings over the years.

“I…can testify directly to the cooperation and support that I felt Marinace Architects provided the district throughout the project.”

– Tim Mayes, Superintendent of Schools

The Bedford Middle-High School project began as a design competition in which the proposals of the five competitors were evaluated against a wide range of criteria without the evaluators’ knowledge of which plan belonged to which team. Our design was determined to be far and away the best and most responsive to the program, while at the same time representing the least expensive option. We were consequently awarded the project, which was approved overwhelmingly by the voters in March of 2005.

The building houses grades 7-12 in two separate wings, which isolate the student groups from each other, but still allow common access to core spaces such as the cafeterias, gymnasiums, and the auditorium. Careful planning allows many core areas to be opened to the public after school hours, including the two gymnasiums, which have a common folding wall which can be retracted to create a 20,000 square foot room capable of seating over 3,000 people. By folding the classroom wings around two central courtyards, the building footprint is kept compact, which results in less exterior wall and therefore a more economical building to construct, maintain, and heat.

The key goals of the Epping Middle High School addition and renovation project were to provide the middle school students with their own, distinct space within the building, to add a full size high school gymnasium, and to improve traffic and parking problems on the site.

Because it was critical to the school district to keep the middle school and high school students separate, but to still share core spaces such as the guidance offices, nurse, music, and cafeteria, we designed a two story middle school addition separated from the rest of the building by a courtyard. Each school has its own entry, lobby, and general office. Building a new middle school space also allowed the classroom layout to be optimized for team teaching, something that was not possible in the existing building.

The high school gym addition provides a gym large enough for two full sized practice basketball courts, and bleacher seating for 725 people. There are also two new large locker rooms, public toilets, a concession stand, a new boiler room, and storage. The addition also includes a new music suite, and upgrades to the existing stage.

The courtyard was conceived as a means to provide a physical separation between the middle school and high school. As the project progressed, the school district and volunteer groups in the community took possession of this space and worked hard to create a beautifully landscaped space that serves as a focal point for the school.

As with most renovation / addition projects, construction took place while the school was fully occupied with minimal disturbance to daily school functions.

Although the school district wished to house its 1,250 middle school students in one building, it was concerned that such a large school would necessitate an impersonal learning environment. While providing such big-school amenities as a 600 seat auditorium, double-court gym, and five athletic fields, every aspect of the design seeks to minimize the apparent size of the student body.

The 50 classrooms are broken down into five-room teams housing 125 students each. There is an entry for every four teams, eliminating the mass entry/exit through a main lobby common in large schools. Classroom teams consist of a science room with peninsula counters for supervision, English and social studies rooms divided by a folding wall to allow full-team meetings in one space, a math room, a language/reading room, and a team room for teacher meetings and small group use. Lockers for team members are located in the team areas, each with it’s own color scheme to promote team unity and identity.

The wooded site selected for the new building offered the opportunity to incorporate many 24″-40″ beech and oak trees into the school grounds. Through much adjusting of the site plan, we were able to save more than 60 trees, including a 40″ beech in the central courtyard, which has since become the symbol of the school.

In a school this large, circulation becomes a major design issue, leading us to a courtyard layout which minimizes bottlenecks and allows common use classrooms located around the interior perimeter of the court to be easily accessible from all teams.

The cafeteria is divided into two dining rooms seating 160 students each, with a common kitchen and serving space. The result is a calmer, more personal dining experience.

The West Running Brook Middle School was one of the first middle schools in the state to be configured specifically for the team teaching model. This school was so different from everything else at the time that both Manchester and the Exeter Cooperative School District approached us soon after its completion to design new schools for them with similar configurations, and nearly every middle school built in the state since has adopted aspects of this concept.

The classroom wing houses six teams of five classrooms, each with its own team room, central student area with recessed seating and lockers, and a set of student toilets. Carpeting throughout the building, acoustic panels above the lockers, wide corridors, and a separate student entrance create a spacious and quiet atmosphere that served the school well as its population swelled to over 900 students.