Rosemary Benivegna RA,LEED AP

Located on a five acre site, the 92,500 square foot school provides a variety of spaces for arts education in Dance, Dramatic Arts, Visual Arts and Music, in addition to the traditional middle school academic curriculum. The Performance/Exhibition Space, Library/Media Center and Black Box Theater are immediately accessible from the building’s main entrance, since they also serve as venues for after hours civic and neighborhood activities.

This school has the unique distinction of being located on an ample 14 acre site in an urban residential neighborhood, allowing for generous outdoor play space, parking and bus drop off area. Half of the site’s acreage was left untouched and may become part of an adjacent park at a later date. The 91,000 square foot building includes two stories of classrooms for the second through eighth grades, above Central Administration, Library/Media Center, Cafetorium, Gymnasium and a separate wing for the Pre-K and K-1 Classrooms.

The programs served by this building include day care for infant/toddlers and pre-school children and parent and job training. An indoor multi-purpose play room at the center of the building with adjacent food prep area forms the nucleus of the classroom spaces. The facility was funded by Head Start and Connecticut State programs and includes outdoor play spaces and a safe bus and parent drop-off area.

This new Library building forms the entry point to the School of Fine Arts campus from Storrs Road. A curved two story lobby allows pedestrian traffic in and out of the south campus and access to the building’s office, instructional and rehearsal spaces, even when the Music and Dramatic Arts Library is closed.

The main focus of this building is a large multi-use rehearsal space with variable acoustical treatments, for the school’s marching band(s) and orchestra, supported by practice rooms, storage for uniforms and musical instruments, studio offices and classrooms. Both the new Library and Orchestra/Band buildings are linked to the other two existing school buildings, creating a unified image of a "Fine Arts Quadrangle."

This facility is located on the ground level of a new residence hall completed in 2004. The design utilizes a food court concept favored at other campus dining facilities. A separate recreation room is included adjacent to the dining area, which also accommodates additional dining seating. Both spaces are open until late in the evenings and are accessible from the campus side of the building, separately from the residence hall.

This building, located on a busy thoroughfare, is an adaptation of prototype designs developed for the CT DMV. Curved forms and silver gray aluminum panels are used to reflect a machined automobile image, accented with the bright blue of the CT State Seal. Completed in 1993, the design’s intent was to give an institutional building a fresh image, providing the customers and staff a pleasant, well designed facility.

Phase 1 includes a four story, 50,000 square foot office building, a parking facility for 225 cars, 12,000 square feet of retail space and underground parking for the building’s tenants. The exterior curtain wall of dark tinted glass and polished granite unify the building’s components. A six story second phase with additional underground parking was added in 2002.

Semi-open operatories and hygienists stations are located on exterior walls, each separated by casework containing sinks and supply cabinets. Utility walls at the head of each station define the access path. The core of the space contains laboratory, prep area, X-ray, consultation room, records, staff lounge and patient waiting. The open plan allows daylight from the exterior and borrowed light at the tops of the separating cabinetry walls to penetrate the interior spaces.

Sixty-eight townhouse units are grouped together into curved configurations which are nestled into the steeply graded and irregularly shaped site. Top quality amenities and finishes, exterior clapboard siding, skylights and dramatic bedroom dormer windows were chosen as building standards.