press release

Poquoson breaks ground on innovative school

Community gathers to commence construction.

By Cathy Grimes

The Daily Press

November 2, 2006 – A turn of a shovelful of dirt this week signaled the start of construction for a new elementary school that will feature a giant working sundial, a V-shaped, "butterfly" roof and a heating and cooling system that will use groundwater as the primary heat source.

Site work begins Monday for the 82,000-square-foot, two-story building, which replaces Poquoson's 51-year-old elementary school. That building will be razed when the new construction is completed in April 2008.

When school opens in September 2008, students will enter a building with light-filled corridors, a glass-walled library-media center and classrooms clustered in "houses" for each of the school's three grades: third, fourth and fifth. (Students in kindergarten, first and second grades attend Poquoson Primary School.)

School and city officials "didn't want to spend $18 million to corral their students in a box," said Bill Bradley, an architect with Charlottesville-based VMDO Architects.

The building was designed for as many as 225 students per grade and maybe a sixth-grade addition in the future, said Poquoson Superintendent Jonathan Lewis.

The building uses natural light and a dimmer system to decrease utility costs. The heating and cooling system will use groundwater pumped from a series of wells. Bradley said the system should pay for itself within seven years and has a life expectancy of 50 years.

Besides the building's energy efficient and environmentally friendly features, he said the new school building "is designed to teach."

Bradley, a former educator, said the school focuses on a water-and-wetlands theme.

As students move through the building, they travel through spaces designed to reflect one of five water-based habitats: forested wetlands, scrub wetlands, tidal flats, estuary or open water. Instead of numbers, rooms will be labeled with the names of native species, such as North American osprey or river otter. One exterior wall of the gym is a huge working sundial.

The teaching focus extends to the landscape, Bradley said. Planter boxes and garden spaces continue the wetlands theme with native plants.

The design for the school grounds includes a new wetland with a boardwalk for outdoor instruction and experiments. Bradley said the ground will also serve as a public park with access to the wetlands.

Water played another role in the building's design. Poquoson sits an average of six feet above sea level and is prone to flooding. In fact, Hurricane Isabel and other storms have flooded the existing elementary school. Bradley said the new school will sit five feet above the ground to avoid flooding.

The higher elevation will also enable students to see Bennett Creek and the wetlands from the second-floor rooms.

One of the building's more distinctive features is a V-shaped, "butterfly" roof over the gymnasium. The inverted V uses less construction material and means less space to heat and cool and more opportunities to use natural light in the gym, Bradley said.

The roof channels rainwater to downspouts on each end of the building, creating what Lewis called waterfalls. The water is directed to planters and catch basins that lead to the wetlands and Bennett Creek.

Bradley said he hopes the building provides students with an example of good stewardship.

"We teach children to be good stewards of the environment," he said. "But then we send them to prototypical schools that are anything but."

VMDO Architects was founded in 1976 and is the youngest firm to receive the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Virginia Architecture Award, the most prestigious honor given by the Virginia Society of American Institute of Architects.

For further information, interview, and photography opportunities in reference to this project and VMDO Architects, please contact William Bishop at 434.296.5684, email at bishop@vmdo.com.