Location: | Beverly, MA |
Size: | 12,000 sq ft |
Completed: | 2021 |
Architect / Designer: | OPAL |
Consultant: | Peel Passive House |
“This new 12,000 square foot academic building represents a watershed in the history of Waring School, a private liberal arts middle and high school school in Beverly, MA. Serving as a new campus entry point for the school’s faculty and 150 students, the building will house classrooms, informal spaces for independent study and small-group sessions, and an auditorium designed around the All School Meeting, a daily touchstone at Waring since the school’s founding in 1972.
Meeting the Passive House standard of energy efficiency and indoor air quality, the design also addresses longstanding site-circulation and environmental challenges on the campus. The building replaces a repurposed residential structure that was plagued by periodic flooding. Sited above the flood plain, and spanning a 12-foot vertical slope, the new building will provide a fully accessible path—as well as a visual and programmatic bridge—between the school’s lower and upper campuses.”