Miss Hall's Renovating, Expanding Pittsfield Campus
 Miss Hall's is looking to renovate and expand the campus. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Miss Hall's School is investing up to $10 million to modernize and expand its campus.
The 115-year-old college preparatory girls' school needs to accommodate a growing enrollment and and contemporary science and technology curriculum.
"We will be looking at a combination of renovation and new build," said interim Head of School Mary Grant on Thursday. "We need to be able to use new technology and with hands-on material."
The award-winning Flansburgh Architects of Boston will develop new classroom spaces and expand the facility. The school identified the deficiencies in a 2012 strategic plan and a building committee has spent nearly a year identifying the precise needs.
"We were impressed with Flansburgh’s portfolio and its approach, particularly with regard to new thinking around learning spaces," said Grant in the statement announcing the architect selection.
Upgrading the science labs are a particular focus for the school to improve the facility for "21st century learning."
Grant said the current labs are "too rigid" to allow for either collaborative learning or independent study. Simply adding movable furniture is one example of how the labs will be improved.
"Certainly hands-on learning is better and we are adding technology," Grant said. "We are very serious about educating girls for leadership in the middle of the 21st century."
The end goal, she said, is that graduates will have the educational background they need to not just be successful but to be leaders in their fields.
Grant added that the humanities studies also will be improved with new technology, which will allow students to do much more with presentations. The preliminary plans calls for an immediate $8 million to $10 million in upgrades. The construction is expected to begin in 2015 with completion in time for the opening of the 2016 school year.
Additionally, the private boarding school has seen an increase in attendance with 190 students last year and more than 200 enrolled this year. The renovations and additions will allow an increase in enrollment to about 250, a number school officials feel is a maximum at this point. The school educates girls in Grades 9 through 12.
"We don't want to be a big school," Grant said. "There is a genuine community that would be lost if grow to too large of a size."
The building committee, consisting of faculty, trustees and administrators, has been touring schools and researching needs.
Miss Hall's is one of the city's oldest schools, dating back to 1898, and one of the first all-girls boarding schools. In 1909, the school moved to its current 80 acres of land on Holmes Road, a the former Col. Walter Cutting estate.
A important consideration with the project will be to maintain the historic nature of the school's landscape and architecture, which includes an arts center, athletic center, classrooms, offices and living quarters for both students and staff.
Flansburgh will refine the plans through an information-gathering process with the school's community, call for renovating and/or creating new academic spaces, including science and technology facilities, and improving campus housing for both students and adults. Joseph Crouse, of Program Management Group in Middletown, Conn., will manage the project.
Tags: private school, school building, school project,
