Extreme Recycling: Repurposing Commercial Space as a School

1. Case Study: School Renovations
For charter and pilot schools, finding an appropriate building
is a daunting challenge, so many of these alternative programs
start in storefronts or vacant schools. With a mandate to grow
in order to demonstrate viability, charter schools often need to
outgrow their space within an established window of time. When
they do, the ideal facility may not await, however. Charter and
pilot schools must exercise imagination—sometimes extreme—in
securing a permanent home, since a new building is usually beyond
their financial reach. Concealed within this apparent obstacle is an
opportunity. Two schools, Hill View Montessori Public Charter
School and Greater Egleston Community High School, addressed
this challenge by repurposing existing industrial spaces. With Studio
G Architects, both schools were transformed on tight budgets and
schedules into environments that facilitate the schools’ dynamic
programs and grow with them into the future.
©CharlesMayer
©GreigCranna
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Extreme Recycling
Repurposing Commercial Space as a School

2. Designing a Prepared Environment
Hill View Montessori Charter School
opened in 2004 with 122 students in
grades K-3 in the former Bartlett School in
downtown Haverhill. By 2008, the school
was nearing full enrollment of 300 kids in
grades K-8 but had long since outgrown its
original facility: Its kindergarten and middle
school programs operated in auxiliary sites,
and they had nowhere to put the 8th grade
class in the 2010-2011 academic year.
These conditions launched the search for
a building large enough to put the entire
school under one roof. The building
committee, led by Executive Director Janet
Begin and Operations Director Andrea
Kwiatkowski, was fortunate to identify a
vacant 52,000-sf former manufacturing
facility on seven acres, convenient to major
highways and a few miles from their original
location. Having just received news of their
charter renewal, the discovery of the building
was fortuitous, as it would allow the school
to fully implement their charter in a building
that could accommodate 100% enrollment.
At the same time, it presented significant
challenges to configure the cavernous space
into the intimately-scaled classrooms and
flexible multi-purpose spaces critical for true
Montessori instruction. The school spent
$2.7 million to acquire the facility, leaving
a meager $750,000 ($20/sf) to bring it up
to code and repurpose it for academic use.
The challenge was clear: Exercise restraint in
applying these scarce resources, so that each
decision meets the project’s tight schedule
and enhances the day-to-day function of the
building.
One hallmark of Montessori education is
creative and collaborative problem-solving;
the other is a ‘prepared environment’, one
in which classroom materials encourage
self-directed experiential learning. Led by Studio G
Architects, the school applied Montessori Methods to the
complex task of creating a ‘prepared environment.’
In transforming a manufacturing building into a school,
much of the school’s budget was absorbed in completely
redesigning its fire alarm and sprinkler systems, as
well as upgrading the HVAC, with little left over for
softening the building’s industrial character. Instead,
the school fully embraced the concept of adaptive reuse.
The building’s steel structure and system infrastructure
are exposed to encourage children’s observation of the
building fabric, and existing demountable partitions
carve classrooms from the cavernous space. The design
also plays up its assets, including dramatizing the soaring
Client
Charter Public School
Hill View Montessori
Location
Haverhill, MA
Size
52,000-SF
Cost/SF
$20
Completed
2010
Client
Urban Edge/GECHS
Location
Roxbury, MA
Size
15,000-SF
Cost/SF
$147
Completed
2002
building sustainable communitiesstudio g architects
“The ‘prepared environment’ is central to Montessori,
and part of our responsibility to the kids is to teach
them about respecting the environment by making
use of the resources that are already available,” Janet
Begin said. “We want the kids to come away with a
tangible example of ingenuity and flexibility in the
face of a complex problem.”
©JosephSt.Pierre

3. ©JosephSt.Pierre
staircase in the reception area with new balusters built and installed
by parents, and locating the art room in an upper level classroom that
thrusts into the landscape and inhabits the tree canopy. “It’s the little
things that are so exciting,” said Kwiatkowski. Although cost efficient,
these small moves inject warmth and specificity into the otherwise
utilitarian space.
Beyond these simple gestures, the real transformation of the space is
in the open plan with generous circulation that clusters classrooms
according to Montessori’s philosophy of multi-age learning
communities. Kindergarten occupies the first floor, along an axis
known as “Main Street.” Middle schoolers also inhabit this level in a
loosely contained zone that incorporates a flexible lounge for group
study or lunch with nearby breakout rooms for structured lessons.
Pairs of lower and upper elementary classrooms occupy the upper
level. This organization enables older students to model behavior and
skills for younger learners. For instance, the proximity of the middle
school to the kindergarten classrooms allows the older kids to conduct
math or reading comprehension lessons with the five-year-olds. The
school imagines further improvements of the building, but the highly
functional plan and the master plan developed by Studio G ensure that
Hill View won’t duplicate efforts on future projects.
The Answer Was Right in Front of Us
What happens when you have all of the same
factors driving a move, but no suitable building
is available? This was the situation Greater Egleston
Community High School faced when the success and
popularity of their unique program, which supports
former drop-outs or young parents in completing high
school, demanded expansion. Their existing space
could hardly accommodate their current population and
programming needs, let alone any additional students.
The lack of daylight, inadequate ventilation, and
claustrophobic circulation made the school inhospitable
and denigrated the program.
“Many said it would be impossible for us to
transform this former industrial building into
a school within our tight time and financial
constraints,” noted Janet Begin. “Our short
term mission was to get students and staff into a
comfortable and functional building as quickly as
possible…Mission accomplished!”

4. After searching for alternative sites, the school decided to stay put and
hired Studio G Architects. Renovation of their 10,000-sf space would
not allow them to expand the program or adequately serve existing
students, but an attached car barn provided an unlikely solution.
Vacant for many years, the car barn, with an additional 5,000-sf of area
could fulfill all of the school’s unmet needs for administrative offices,
a dedicated art room, darkroom, demonstration kitchen, an all-school
gathering place, and performance space. GECHS negotiated with
their landlord, community developer Urban Edge, to take over the car
barn and renovate it with the rest of their space.
This was only the beginning of the creative problem-solving required
to transform the rabbit-warren of small rooms and dark corridors
into the bright and airy space the school imagined. Two factors
complicated the distribution of classrooms in the original portion
of the building: It was not handicapped accessible, and its square
footprint meant that some classrooms would be at the building
interior, without direct access to sunlight.
Although an elevator would have been a suitable option for the first
obstacle, installing one gobbled up too much of the budget, and it
meant that the school would share an entrance with the local branch of
the YMCA, rather than a welcoming dedicated entry. Instead, Studio
G Architects proposed inserting an entrance at the car barn, which
abuts a quiet side street rather than the main thoroughfare, and is
therefore more secure. This solution also set up the interior sequence
of spaces and circulation. The halls form a continuous loop from the
entry, through the classroom wing, into the multi-purpose space, and
back to the entry. A lift at the entry negotiates the half-flight of stairs
leading up to the classrooms; at the opposite end of the connection
between the classroom level and the car barn, stadium seating beside
the stairs creates a natural hangout during lunch or after school.
To improve daylight levels in classrooms, and reduce
the need for mechanical lighting, the design borrows
daylight from the perimeter classrooms to light the
hallways, while interior classrooms receive borrowed light
through glass block walls and recycled skylights. Glass
block provides visual and acoustical separation from the
hallway, and conserves resources, as it requires neither
frame nor finish. Other environmentally-friendly and
cost-conscious solutions include a system of interior
partitions clad in homasote that reduce the quantity of
gypsum board required to finish the classrooms, while
also insulating for sound, and reusing the barn’s existing
concrete floor.
building sustainable communities www.studio-g-architects.com
©CharlesMayer
“Sometimes making sustainable choices is as simple
as using materials in an unexpected way, or using
fewer of them,” remarked Gail Sullivan, Principal
of Studio G Architects. “This often yields a cost-
savings, which is music to the ears of the head of a
charter or independent school.”
studio g architects
Renovation Tips
If your school is contemplating repurposing an existing
building as your new schoolhouse, here are some ideas
to consider:
1) Involve an architect early in the process to assist
you in developing a space program and criteria for site
selection, and in testing the feasibility of a building
before you sign a lease or a sales agreement. There are
often hidden costs in retrofits, particularly with building
systems and code compliance. You don’t want to be
surprised with major unforeseen costs like structural
upgrades, new sprinkler systems or new utilities.
2) Learn as much as you can about the nature of
the former building use to inform your decision
about the suitability of the building. Office buildings
or warehouses often present fewer complications to
retrofitting than manufacturing facilities.
3) Stay nimble during construction. More often than
not, renovations and conversions present unforeseen
challenges. Clear and constant communication between
the client, architect and contractor facilitates speedy
responses and effective solution and a speedy completion.