Hommocks Middle School
Hommocks Middle School
Entry to the new arts center
Auditorium: view toward the stage
Project Information
Hommocks Middle School
Mamaroneck Union Free Schools
Mamaroneck, NY
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Campus Planning
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Renovation
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Transformation
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New Construction
The Hommocks Middle School sits on a tight seven-acre site, surrounded by single and multi-family houses. Designed prototypically by Perkins and Will, it was built in the 1960s as a junior high school with separate houses for the seventh and eighth grades. To make space in the district's elementary schools, the 6th grade needed to be moved to Hommocks.
In order to accomplish this, the school was reconfigured to create three houses from the original two. Art and music spaces inside the building were relocated to a new 30,000 sf Arts Center wing. The vacated art and music spaces were repurposed to create the third academic house. These changes allowed the school's enrollment to increase from 900 to 1250 students.
The new Arts Center is a place of constant activity. It features a double height lobby and ceremonial stair with a glass wall which floods the entry with natural light. The lobby serves as an art gallery and as a gathering space for school and community events. The Center contains a 650 seat theatre as well as spaces for music rehearsal, visual and digital art.
Hommocks Middle School Arts Center
Auditorium with raked seating for optimal sight lines
Entry
The Hommocks Middle School was built in the 1960s with separate houses for the 7th and 8th grades. To add a 6th grade house, a new separate Arts Center wing was constructed to reclaim needed space within the school.
The new 30,000 sf Arts Center gathers spaces for visual and performing arts in one central location. A double height lobby floods the entry to the Center with natural light. A wide ceremonial stair connects the upper and lower levels of the Center and its 650 seat proscenium-style theatre. The theatre has steeply raked seating to optimize sightlines, catwalks for enhanced theatrical lighting, and movable shutters and curtains to manually adjust acoustics at the side walls.
Additional spaces for the arts include music rehearsal rooms and visual and digital art studios. The Center serves the school and the community as a light-filled gathering space and an art gallery.