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Irvington Union Free Schools 

Irvington Union Free Schools 

To accommodate increasing enrollment and deferred maintenance, two bonds were passed:

Bond 1:  funded a new 28,000 square foot wing for the Dows Lane Elementary School, along with site and building improvements.

Bond 2:  funded a plan to construct a new High School/Middle School Community Campus on Irvington High School's 30 acre sloping site.  The original 90,000 sf high school was built in 1962.  It was an L-shaped building with no clear entry.  Our master plan called for creating a new high school/middle school community campus with 140,00 sf of new construction:

  • A new middle school divided into two 6-8 grade houses

  • A new cafeteria/music/science building

  • A new arts and athletics building with a 740-seat theater and competition gymnasium

  • A new ceremonial entry

The new plan accommodates 1300 students.  The high school and the middle school have their own dedicated academic classrooms and share common spaces such as the library, gymnasiums, theatre, art rooms, music rooms, and science labs.

The placement of the new buildings forms three interconnected quadrangles surrounded by covered walkways.  Circulation spaces and major common spaces face out to the quadrangles.  The overall arrangement of outdoor space is informal and analogous to an agora or market square.  

Project Information
 

Irvington Union Free Schools
Irvington, NY
  • ​​Campus Planning

  • Renovation

  • Adaptive Reuse

  • Transformation

  • New Construction

  • Multiple Projects

Honors and Awards

 

  • 2006 AIA Westchester/Hudson Valley  Recognition of Architectural Excellence

  • 2005 AIA Honor Citation (jointly with AASA and CEFPI)

  • 1995 AIA Community Design Award

Campus Planning

CampusPlannig

The Irvington Middle School/High School Community campus is located on an elongated 30-acre site in a residential neighborhood. The original building, a 90,000-square-foot structure built in 1962, formed an L — a double-loaded corridor classroom wing perpendicular to a gymnasium and auditorium wing. The building was surrounded by playing fields, a large parking lot, and a passive green open space.

To accommodate increases in student enrollment, the community chose to build a new middle school on the site of the existing high school with distinct identities for each school.  In addition to the new middle school, the plan for the campus included a new cafeteria/music/science building to serve both schools, and a new theater and gym building to serve the schools and the wider community.

The community campus plan was based on the idea of the agora — the market square of ancient Greece.  The campus has been reinvented as a series of informal, outdoor rooms connected by colonnades to shelter students as they move from building to building.  The new buildings are organized in concert with the outdoor rooms.  All major public spaces and circulation paths engage with these outdoor spaces.  On the new campus, separate identities have been created for the high school and the middle school, and enhanced with places for communal learning and interaction.

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Irvington Middle / High School Community Campus 

The visual and performing arts at the new Irvington HS/MS Community Campus are served in a variety of new and renovated spaces.  These include new music rehearsal rooms in the Cafeteria/Science/Music building, renovated art spaces adjacent to the new library (formerly the auditorium), and a new 60,000 sf Arts & Athletics building.

The Arts & Athletics Center features a 740-seat proscenium style theatre which is used for school and community events and performances.  It is divided into three distinct seating areas:  a sloped area close to the stage for smaller audiences, a steeply raked area with excellent sightlines, and seating galleries on each side of the space to enhance the sense of community.  Windows on each side of the theatre can provide natural light to the space, or can be covered with movable curtains to blackout the room and help "tune" the acoustics.  Multiple catwalks enhance theatrical lighting and acoustics as well.  These features allow the space to accommodate assemblies, lectures, movies, plays, dance recitals and concerts.

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