Columbia, Missouri
highlights
description
In collaboration with PWArchitects, ACI Boland designed Columbia Public Schools’ first new middle school in over 30 years. The new space incorporates the best of their middle school experiences across those decades. Designed specifically to support cross-disciplinary “teams,” the school provides smaller scale groupings for students who are just emerging from elementary school settings. As the first Columbia middle school designed to foster collaboration, the space provides places with varied scales: small-scale corridor collaboration for peer-to-peer work, larger collaboration spaces that are team-based in size, and a media center that has been re-imagined as a center of innovation and collaboration for the entire building.
Due to the high after-hours usage of their facilities, the District was excited by the development of a compact, yet compartmentalized, design that allows several high-usage spaces to be secured after-hours by extra-curricular programs or the public. This design provides a high level of safety and security within the building, supporting District efforts to provide a safe and welcoming environment for all students. Finally, the design team turned to color to richen up the environment and provide a space that avoids the anonymity of ‘corporate’ designs and is more mature than an elementary school color scheme
Photos by Matt Kocourek Photography
