Here, the light shines for all: Our Community Commons Project

Over the last several years, and particularly as we have rediscovered the importance of on-campus, in-person education around the pandemic, Lawrence Academy has identified the Community Commons project as the most important strategic building priority for the school. As such, it will also be the leading fundraising initiative of Lawrence Academy’s next capital campaign, which is in active development.

The Commons integrates a gracious, extraordinary dining experience with a student center on the existing footprint of the dining hall. Beyond a simple renovation and expansion, the full scope of the project reimagines and reengineers both the physical and the social experience of the entire campus — it is an architectural rendering of our purpose and practice, reinforcing and making concrete the core principles of our mission: recognizing, inspiring, supporting, and empowering student experience.

Primary to this experience is leveraging (and building a space to support) Lawrence Academy’s strength as a school that invests equal value in the day and boarding experience. Simultaneously, the Commons will serve as a meeting point between all of the activities of the school: a crossroads bringing together the literal and figurative pathways of arts, athletics, academics, and extracurricular activities. And any wisely constructed building in a school setting naturally brings students and adults together to create and appreciate a supportive (and well-supervised!) environment.

Most important of all, this project aims to house the social and emotional elements so critical to success in schools. As one of our conceptual collaborators, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Hamilton College Dan Chambliss, noted, “You want to bring people physically into the same location … you need to have settings that make everyone feel that they naturally meet people and make friends.” Such connection creates empowerment and great outcomes. Or as one of our students noted when seeing the plans, “You can do everything there!”

The following renderings and notes will provide a glimpse into what we aim to create through the Commons. Read on to see how we are planning to get to the construction starting line by running through the fundraising finish line.

The Community Commons is stunning not only in the architecture of the building — the way it confidently presents the school from its eastern vista — but in the way it will transform the pathways and patterns of campus, connecting people, programs, and places in ways that simply do not happen today. Lawrence Academy’s landscape has always been beautiful — now the architecture built in and by that landscape will bring a grace and flow to our everyday interactions, unusual in the independent school world.

A spacious, gracious dining experience

As we create a two-story area where there is now a basement kitchen under a cramped dining hall, we also open up the best view in the region. The openness of the interior complements the connection to the exterior and reinforces our sense of connectedness: This is where students and faculty, day and boarding, gather (at least) three times a day. Whereas currently this area is only open for dining, we now see it as an interior crossroads — both passage and gathering for the entire community. Come inside and stay awhile. There’s no better place to be.

Yes, we will have delicious food, great delivery, and convenient service in this beautiful new dining hall. This rendering of the servery also communicates the quality of the experience as a whole: sensibly designed for preparation, presentation, and flow and stunningly integrated and connected to the views beyond. Groton already has a number of dining establishments built substantially on the quality of the local topography. Our aim is to provide some of the finest food options — in one of the most beautiful places — in the ISL.

Completely new view on food service