After working with innovative thinkers in education and researching the newest technologies, New Century opened its first school located in downtown Atlanta. This is the first of many schools planned which aim to locate in the key employment centers. Parents and children are then in close proximity during the day. However, New Century realizes that school is more than a place. With the arrival of the information age, the traditional boundaries of learning are extended. A bi-directional flow of communication between students and the community will exist. We all participate in this community of practitioners as experts and novices to varying degrees in different disciplines.

The architecture physically incorporates the principles of the curriculum. The geometry of the new forms inserted in the existing shell of the Healey Building are expansive instead of closed, complete or finite. One understands the new from the existing order. As with the learning, architecture seeks to achieve connectivity between fields of information not highly compartmentalized. Rows of desks are replaced with flexible, dynamic and interactive spaces concerned with discovery and individual learning styles.

Walls express a new order within the existing orthogonal framework to energize the space. Ceilings are outreaching and floating free from the walls. Canted ceilings are used to move and maximize light in this lower level area with minimal natural light. Doors slide and pivot to allow spaces to flow onto one another easily. A scale for children is created with lowered ceilings and playful millwork elements. Colorful plywood millwork elements, light gauge steel framing members, plexiglas and doors all interweave to blur distinctions between learning spaces.

square footage: 6,000