2008 Design Merit Awards • Category: Educational
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Vernon- Verona-Sherrill Central School District addition
King & King Architects
Vernon, New York
The VVS School District's 'Shevron Community Center' is a 11,100 SF addition to their Middle/High School. In this rural community, the school's longstanding athletic success is a source of great pride, and athletic events are community-wide social gatherings. The Center is a showcase of the community's pride in their students, both past and future.
CONCEPT
The building is designed to not only prominently display a large collection of trophies but to display and celebrate the community's strong support of their youth. The school-colored ‘red wall' acts as a backdrop from the microcosm of the individual trophy case to the macrocosm of the building as the trophy case. The individual trophy case is the genesis of the proportions carried through the detailing of the exposed structure, ‘red wall', curtail wall, skylight, and flooring. While at the scale of the building, the zone created by the entire bank of trophy cases is carried into the curtain wall façade with a play between semi-transparent and clear glazing and is reinforced overhead by the extents of the skylight.
As a subplot, the building also reflects life lessons learned through high school athletics. Through the consistency of the three-dimensional grid and simplicity of materials, ideas of dedication, persistence, organization, confidence, and teamwork are conveyed. Finally the design captures the movement, excitement, and atmosphere of athletic events through the use of strong forms and building lines, bold colors, dynamic lighting, and forced perspectives.
FUNCTION
The addition solves circulation issues by linking two of the building's gymnasiums and serves as a main student entrance. The multi-functional Community Center is used during the school day as a student lounge and group-project work area. The space also hosts conferences or acts as an overflow space for events, such as graduation, through the use of the wall-mounted, closed-circuit televisions. The Center also houses the District's progressive ‘project-based learning' store/ concessions/ business lab. This classroom is a fully functional retail space designed to support the business curriculum and agri-market programs. Students gain valuable experience such as accounting practices, merchandising, customer service, and sales psychology.
