Design Integrates Project-based Learning, Saugus History, and Sustainability
HMFH Architects received the Grand Prize in Learning By Design Magazine’s spring 2021 Educational Design Awards Showcase for the firm’s Saugus MiddleHigh School. HMFH’s design for the Town of Saugus, Massachusetts was recognized as a “next generation benchmark” in contemporary learning space design and planning. The Learning By Design competition is peer-reviewed, scored, and juried, and all projects must meet or exceed six scored criteria: innovation, community needs, interior design, sustainability, functional design, and 21st Century learning.
For the Saugus Middle High School, the 2021 jury cited the school’s unique new concepts to improve education, community wellbeing, and social equity and how the design establishes a welcoming, motivating experience for students: “This is a difficult design problem and they’ve executed it beautifully. The connections of the high school and the middle school are intentional and celebrated with light, graphics, and forms. The weaving of interior architecture, architecture, culture, scale, story is so delightfully constructed. There is thought and craft at every corner.”
Project-Based Learning, STEAM Program Inform Design Decisions
The 269,000 square foot school is comprised of three distinct sections: a four-story high school wing, a three-story middle school wing, and a central connecting core with shared community spaces. Built on the former high school’s 22acre site, the new school integrates middle and high school grades around a robust STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) program supported by fabrication labs, a 750-seat auditorium, project-based collaboration spaces, movable walls, outdoor classrooms, art studios, and multiple opportunities for hands-on learning. Furniture and equipment throughout the building was carefully selected for flexibility and can be rearranged quickly in response to specific project or teaching needs.
“The design of the new Middle High School provides our students and teachers with an exciting, future-ready setting that changes how teaching and learning is achieved,” said Scott Crabtree, Saugus Town Manager. “Seeing the vision of so many dedicated participants become reality is a great source of pride and accomplishment for the residents of Saugus who invested in the future of education by supporting this school.”
Saugus Town History on Display
The school celebrates Saugus’ history and culture with soaring graphic exhibits honoring the town’s landmarks, industries, and people. In the high school wing, a four-story mural illustrates the town’s pioneering role in the iron industry, a chapter exemplified by the nearby17th Century Saugus Iron Works. Credited as the birthplace of the American iron and steel industry, the Iron Works today is a National Historic Site and nine-acre National Park, hosting visitors from around the world. Its enduring legacy inspired the new school’s metal-clad, textured exterior surfaces.
A large-scale wall graphic in the middle school wing celebrates the diverse history of the Saugus River. The River District’s prosperous commercial ice-making, lobstering, and fishing traditions dating back to pre-Colonial days established Saugus as a center for entrepreneurship and commerce.
“From our earliest discussions with the School Building Committee and Saugus residents, it was easy to understand the tremendous pride people felt for the town’s storied history,” HMFH Principal Tina Stanislaski said. “These discussions led us to find creative ways to bring that history and the Saugus community stories to life in an engaging, visual manner.”
Resilient, Energy-saving Design
One of the new school’s most visible features is how daylight floods its interior spaces, achieved through use of multi-story lightwells and strategically located skylights. Natural light offers proven benefits for healthy, engaged learning while also reducing the energy cost and draw.
Other sustainable measures include a trigeneration plant that produces on-site electricity and captures the generated heat to reuse for heating and cooling. A green roof absorbs stormwater, preventing runoff to the site, and mitigates heat gain within the building. Water-conserving fixtures and selective recycling significantly reduce water consumption by 45% annually. With these achievements in energy conservation and sustainability the Saugus school is targeting a LEED Platinum Certification from the US Green Building Council.
In addition to HMFH, the principal building team partners of the Town and the School Building Committee include the Massachusetts School Building Authority, construction manager Suffolk Construction, and Owner’s Project Manager PMA Consultants.
HMFH Architects is an education design firm known for its community-based approach, user-centric design, and healthy, sustainable buildings. A certified Women-Owned Business, HMFH works with public school districts, independent schools, universities, and community and public-realm clients. For more information, please visit www.hmfh.com.
