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NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
Princeton, NJ, United States, 05/29/2009 - After designing renovations and expansions at three Barnegat Township elementary schools concurrently, KSS Architects joined school officials, staff and students and local dignitaries to celebrate the projects' completions.
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New renovations and additions designed by KSS Architects will greet students at three Barnegat Township elementary schools when they return to the classrooms this September. In 2004 the New Jersey Schools Development Authority selected KSS to design concurrent projects at the Lillian M. Dunfee, Robert L. Horbelt and Cecil S. Collins schools. The Horbelt School held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 20, 2009, and the Dunfee School held their ceremony on May 21. School officials, teachers and students attended the ceremonies and celebrated their new spaces. Construction at the Collins School was significantly completed in August 2008.
Merilee Meacock, AIA, a principal at KSS Architects, said the projects were an exciting and rewarding experience.
“The buildings had become a little tired after years of use,” Meacock said. “The schools play an important role in the communities, and we wanted to celebrate their students by giving them better amenities, more space, and a sense of identity.”
Each school had a unique character and story that KSS enhanced through design. Designed in the 1970s, the 38,000-square-feet Dunfee School needed updating and an expansion for its increasing student population. Using glass and translucent building materials, KSS designed a new entrance that celebrates the school and its students and added space for the kindergarten, which was at capacity in its existing rooms. KSS also designed a 20,500-square-feet addition for Dunfee that houses a gymnasium, art room, music room, and classrooms for the fifth graders. The addition has vibrant blue glazed brick, a light well, and spherical pendant light fixtures hung at different heights, giving the space a celestial atmosphere. It has become a place to which younger students aspire as they progress through the grades. The expansion increases capacity from 410 to 515 students in kindergarten to fifth grade.
After doubling in population in just five years, students had outgrown the Horbelt School’s existing space. KSS worked with the school to design new classrooms for pre-kindergarteners and students with special needs. An existing garden between the cafeteria and classrooms provided inspiration for a new music pavilion for the entire school. The pavilion gives students their own music room with extensive glass windows that look out into the garden space. The 15,500-square-feet, two-story addition increases the school’s total square footage to 73,500, and student capacity from 330 to 550.
At the 71,500-square-feet Collins School, KSS renovated and designed new classrooms to accommodate the growing student population and pre-kindergarteners. To make the school a special place for students, KSS designed a new entrance with a steel-frame canopy and vibrant blue glazed brick that complements the existing masonry. By updating the school’s design, KSS has strengthened the identity of the Collins School.
Working closely with SDA, KSS carefully coordinated construction scheduling and phasing for the three projects since some work had to be completed during the school year with minimal disruption to classes.
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