Wellsboro Area High School

Wellsboro Area School District

Additions & Alterations

The new high school building has a total area of 126,000 SF on three levels. The new building used the LEED™ guidelines for "green" buildings, utilizing energy efficient ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling and incorporating "sustainable green design principals" whenever readily achievable. This includes the use of sustainable wood siding and roof decking over a steel superstructure. In addition, nearly 50% of instruction spaces will take advantage of daylighting.

The multistory configuration minimizes travel distances and provides for energy efficiency. High-sloped roofing systems visually break up the overall building mass into more small-scale elements, an architectural solution that is appropriate to and reinforces the character and local vernacular of the borough.

To facilitate improved site circulation and passive safety, the school has been configured with two faces, a public entry for parents and visitors to the south, and a stu-dent face to the north. Students will enter into a two story commons that provides the central organizational element of the facility. Due to extensive travel times, most students involved in evening practices or activities will be offered extended day food service from 7:00 am until 8:00pm.

Planning Process:

Full educational specifications were prepared by company owner Vern McKissick AIA & LEED AP, and included extensive interviews of staff, administrators and local business leaders over an 8 month period. Following the specifications, two complete architectural preliminary designs were produced for comparison: a renovation of the existing high school and a new, sustainably designed high school. When construction costs proved to be within 7% of each other, it was determined that a new school would better achieve the long-term performance goals for on-going building operations on the basis of a 40-year life cycle cost comparison.

Learning Environment:

The new facility design features an arrangement of classroom areas by "houses", allowing interdisciplinary teaching and flexibility in learning group size and configuration. Wireless networking is integrated throughout the facility. Laptop-equipped student project areas are adjacent to teacher's work areas for supervision and interaction. Additionally, the arrangement of "houses" allows for re-configuration as a combined middle & high school should decreased enrollment warrant such consideration in the future.

With the new school, the board is integrating comprehensive vocational education and technology preparation programs in 12 areas including such as natural resource management, graphic design, data networking, institutional food service & health care occupations. Many of these programs were developed with local business leaders with an eye to skill sets in demand within the local community.

Physical Environment:

The LEED™ guidelines for "green" buildings form the basis of the energy efficient design which includes ground source heat pumps with 95% heat recovery on building ventilation, triple glazed windows & curtain walls, sustainably harvested wood, linoleum flooring, acid etched flooring and extensive application of daylighting.

Community Environment:

This new high school is located near the town center of a small, remote, rural community in northern Pennsylvania.

The core of the building is the student commons anchoring the "main street". This commons serves as the cafeteria, student gathering area before and after school and public lobby for evening events and gatherings. Its location adjacent to the sports fields enables the commons, concession stand and restroom facilities to be used for outdoor stadium events as well. The building also houses a fitness center, financed entirely by local donations, which is accessible after school hours to the community at large.

A "Green" School

This project was designed in accordance with USGBC LEED™ Guidelines. While the district did not have the budget to pursue a LEED™ rating for the facility, their decision to build a new building rather than to renovate their existing facility was based on a study whereby both options were fully developed and analyzed based on 40-year life-cycle costing.

The primary green features of the building included:

• Ground source heat pump with 95% heat recovery
• Daylighting with dimmable T-5 up-lights
• Sustainably harvested wood products for tongue & groove ceiling decks
• Locally produced materials (within 500 miles)
• Super insulation including triple-pane windows
• DDC LON-works automatic temperature controls
• Recycled materials (post-industrial and consumer)
• Construction phase waste management plan
• Wireless data systems (less material use)