Fauquier High School

Fauquier High School Fauquier County Public Schools

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

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New Entrance

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Media Center

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The Commons

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Performing Arts Wing Reno.

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Falcon Room

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Central Stairs

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Landscape Improvements

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Breakout Hub

Addition

Major Renovation

Existing

Minor Renovation

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Campus Commons Courtyard

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Arts + Athletics Courtyard

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Academic Courtyard

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Civic School Front + Entry Demolished Wing

Project Overview The strategy for the addition and renovation of Fauquier High School unites disparate school wings into a coherent and harmonious campus.

By removing an underperforming 1960s classroom wing, a new central campus lawn is created around which all school activities gracefully congregate. The transformed campus landscape is organized around 3 courtyards: an expanded central campus commons, a renewed arts and athletics courtyard, and a new academics courtyard. The spaces provide students, teachers, and visitors alike with a vital sense of orientation and school character.

A new four-story “headpiece” provides a range of flexible 21st-century learning spaces connected by a central campus stair. The design of this four-story addition draws inspiration from a set of active design guidelines (first implemented by New York City in 2010) that encourages movement and active utilization of the built environment to bolster the health of students, staff, and faculty.

Drawing inspiration from the school’s context, the design complements both the regional landscape and existing school features through the incorporation of local brick and stone details. While the school’s culture is carefully reflected in the design work, its enhanced atmosphere for learning and activity is also emphasized – meshing tradition with innovation.

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Renovation Strategy Efficient as it is elegant, the addition provides a net increase in useable classroom and building area within a smaller campus footprint.

The strategy of removing an underperforming school wing and incorporating a new four-story “front” to the school provides a simple organizing solution for the comprehensive renovation of Fauquier High School. Efficient as it is elegant, the addition provides a net increase in useable

School Entry Before

classroom and building area within a smaller campus footprint.

Social engagement and flexible learning are prominently displayed in the addition’s four-story vertical learning environment, foregrounding a new civic presence and showcasing Fauquier

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New Addition

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Removal of Win

County’s commitment to educational excellence. A new entrance plaza prioritizes pedestrian circulation, clarifies bus and vehicular traffic, and improves the school’s image from the street.

New School Entry

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

New School Front + Entry

New Campus Commons Courtyard

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

A Welcoming Entrance Featuring local and regional materials, the new addition skillfully complements the existing buildings.

As a new school entrance, the building addition invites students, teachers, and citizens into its welcoming learning environment.

Local stone seat walls and a gracious front porch draw their inspiration from the city of Warrenton and the surrounding county landscape. Clad in local brick and a high performance terracotta rain screen system that recalls terracotta silos throughout the county, new construction skillfully complements the existing buildings.

Passersby and visitors now recognize and celebrate the school’s special atmosphere for learning.

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Taking Learning to the Stairs The stair is staged to support opportunities for sitting, chatting, group work, impromptu assemblies, school displays, and other chances to extend learning beyond the classroom.

Fauquier High School’s entrance level is composed of shared school and community spaces.

An administrative suite, a versatile student commons, the media center, and the Falcon Room forum surround a ground-level academic courtyard. The four-story stairway spills into the student commons and links it to three additional floors of classroom academies.

The central stair provides much more than passage from one floor to another: it’s the life force of the school. Situated next to a four-story glass curtain wall, the stair is bathed in natural daylight and capitalizes on views of the surrounding county. Likewise, from the outside, the stairway is a prominent feature, showcasing various instances of learning and engagement occurring in the school.

Students and teachers are drawn here for gathering, learning, and sharing. Each floor off of the stair balances dedicated classroom space with flexible break-out areas, which include study spaces, teacher resource rooms, and conference rooms that may be used by teachers and students alike.

To facilitate the school’s professional learning community as well as opportunities for collaboration, teacher resource rooms are grouped with classrooms. Flexible gathering areas are found alongside natural circulation pathways to facilitate interaction and chance encounters.

Comfortable furnishings and flexible arrangements give stairway break-out areas maximum utility.

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Breakout Learning Nook

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Flexible, Technology-Rich Learning The Falcon Room features a brick wall, operable unit skylights, and an interior window that showcases dialogue occurring within and without the space.

Whereas the monumental stair is the jumping off point for informal learning opportunities, the Falcon Room is the school’s forum for more formal gathering and collaborating. It is positioned at the base of the stair, near the school entrance, and is easily accessible from the Commons and Media Center.

The Falcon Room features a brick wall (the original school exterior), operable unit skylights, and an interior window that showcases dialogue occurring within and without the space. The room is designed to provide a comfortable, healthy learning environment while also facilitating easy supervision via transparency.

Connectivity and instructional technology is embedded in the school’s design. The use of laptops and other technology platforms is encouraged through convenient charging points and integrated wireless capability. Similar to all public spaces in the school, the Falcon Room features carefully tuned acoustics, temperature control, and indoor air quality control, helping optimize the space for learning.

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Inspiring Health + Movement Each floor in the school features a different branded color identity as well as interactive graphics that inspire health + movement.

The addition and renovation of Fauquier High School integrates architecture, landscape, and healthy design strategies to support 21st century learning and bring about healthier lifestyles in the community.

The design team drew inspiration from New York City’s Active Design Guidelines, which encourage movement and active utilization of the built environment to bolster health and fitness. The monumental stair does just that, prompting stair use (and behavior change) by featuring interactive graphics about the health benefits of using stairs and data about how high-up students and staff are at any given time.

Each floor in the school features a different branded color identity for wayfinding purposes along with engaging statistics related to a specific movement-based floor theme – including Healthy, Active, and Strong

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

Energy Efficiency + Daylighting The addition is elongated along an east-west axis to optimize energy performance and to introduce useable natural light into each learning space.

Increased energy efficiency was a major goal of the project. The design team equipped Fauquier County Public Schools staff with monitoring capabilities of the school’s energy consumption in real time. In addition to installing a ground source heat pump system (the first in the school district) and incorporating an energy-efficient building envelope, the design team worked with the school district to carefully program systems to drop energy consumption during non-occupied periods to nearly zero.

All classrooms feature large windows that face true solar north or south in order to flood the rooms with controllable daylight. Solatube™ skylights, dome skylights, and sawtooth roofs with clerestory windows also supplement daylighting in public spaces.

Since opening in May 2013, Fauquier High School has shown a significant reduction in energy use per square foot. First year energy consumption data reported a 50% decrease – dropping from 68,300 BTU per square foot per year (pre-renovation) to 31,000 BTU per square foot per year (post-renovation).

Rendering sustainable features visible to students and staff was important for Fauquier High School. Custom signage and graphics engage students in understanding the school’s sustainable design, describing, for instance, how the ground source heat pump system works and where recycled and local materials have been incorporated in the building. With careful planning, all work was constructed while the school was in use. Effective budgeting has sponsored significant renovations to the remainder of the school.

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Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

View of Courtyard + Stair

Fauquier County Public Schools Fauquier High School

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VMDO Architects vmdo.com | 434.296.5684 200 E Market St Charlottesville, VA 22902 1200 18th Street NW Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036

For more information on K-12 Education work please contact: Bob Moje, FAIA, LEED AP moje@vmdo.com Wyck Knox, AIA, LEED AP knox@vmdo.com