Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building Pennington, New Jersey Pennington School Development, NJ Architecture Photos
Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building in New Jersey
Oct 26, 2021
Design: Voith & Mactavish Architects
Location: Pennington, New Jersey, USA
Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building
Voith & Mactavish Architects completes the Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building for The Pennington School, a private preparatory school in Pennington, New Jersey. The new building houses eighteen classrooms and five seminar rooms and lies at the center of a comprehensive campus plan VMA produced in 2012.
Innovating Within Constraints
The new Humanities Building was initially planned to contain 21 classrooms and occupy a larger footprint than the resulting 30,000 sf. Early in the process, however, VMA and the Pennington School realized that they could rethink the program and design in ways that made the best use of space and resources.
VMA analyzed Pennington’s daily class schedules and determined that the School would be better served by a mix of classroom sizes rather than the originally programmed series of equal-sized classrooms. The School’s culture would additionally be transformed by creating shared teaching spaces with separate departmental office spaces, rather than designating one classroom per faculty member.
Initial plans for the new structure included a fully enclosed lecture hall. With the change in strategy to prioritize flexible and multi-use spaces, VMA created The Forum, an expansive double-height atrium that serves as a space for both lectures and events, as well as informal gatherings and study sessions.
Freeing Up the Flow of Ideas
VMA designed the Humanities Building to challenge and redefine the versatility of traditional academic building design, in a way that would better support Pennington’s contemporary pedagogies and interactive student experience.
“Visitors can understand what the school is about by seeing the building. The school’s philosophy and the strength of its teaching methods are evident in the space,” says VMA founding partner and director of design, Daniela Holt Voith.
Every space works to capture the most potential for collegiality, student-teacher interaction, and cross-pollination between disciplines.
Inside the classrooms, seamless and unobtrusive technology supports varying teaching techniques, and flexible furniture can form multiple configurations to accommodate different needs. Faculty and administrative areas are clustered to allow shared amenities and to make them more accessible to students.
VMA also designed nooks throughout the hallways. Outfitted with comfortable seating in fun colors, these informal breakout spaces become meeting spaces for after-school clubs and places for teachers and students to gather as equals.
Impact
When VMA embarked on the Pennington School’s Comprehensive Plan in 2012, the goal was to improve the quality of the School’s teaching environments and increase enrolment.
The Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building provided much-needed flexible, multi-use, and informal spaces that resulted in a more collaborative and supportive environment for the entire school community. Since construction began, applications at the School increased by 42% and annual giving increased 28%.
The high level of spatial efficiencies not only helped reduce the building’s scale, it also led to a more sustainable structure, strengthening the School’s institutional commitment to environmental sustainability. The Humanities Building has been awarded LEED Gold.
The project was led by VMA’s Partner in Charge Daniela Holt Voith and Project Manager Robert Douglass. It continues VMA’s extensive experience in campus environments for colleges, universities, and independent schools.
Architecture:Voith & Mactavish Architects
Images: Jeffrey Totaro
Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building, New Jersey images / information received 261021
Location: New Jersey, USA
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