Designed as a hub for interactive, multidisciplinary learning, Davis Senior High’s new STEM building changes the way students engage with science and each other.
Architect Helen Pierce remembers the moment when the design for a new STEM building at Davis Senior High School really came together. It was the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a virtual meeting to discuss programming, Pierce noticed one phrase coming up over and over.
“They wanted a building for ‘the things we do together,’” she recalls.
This moment changed everything. Though the building was originally slated for a long, narrow space deep within the campus, designers proposed moving the STEM building to the site of an underutilized tennis court at the entrance to campus, which would support a wider footprint. The new site allowed designers to arrange the program around a central commons, where different disciplines of science, math, healthcare and art could cross-pollinate.
A gathering staircase and movable furniture allow the commons to flex to different functions.
“It was about rebuilding that culture of learning together, peer-to-peer, that schools lost during lockdown,” Pierce says. “You can’t do science, or design for that matter, in a vacuum. Discovery comes out of those unexpected interactions between different disciplines.”
Interdisciplinary learning is at the heart of the two-story, 37,000-square-foot project. Classrooms and labs wrap around a flexible, multimodal space designed for a wide range of STEM activities. Clusters of comfortable seating for small group work are easy to remove for larger events like science fairs and art exhibitions. Operable partitions enclosing two adjacent classrooms open to expand the space, while a social stair supports lectures, performances, movie nights and a die-hard lunch crowd.
“This is where the magic happens,” says Principal Dr. Bryce Geigle. “When students are bouncing ideas off different disciplines, the content they’re learning becomes richer, more applicable to their real lives. New brain pathways develop and get reinforced.”
Like the STEM program it supports, the building’s structure and appearance are rooted in interdisciplinary inquiry. Solar studies and energy models informed the distinctive V-shaped roof, which extends further on the south to bounce indirect light into the commons. The roof also directs water to downspouts and a rain garden. Clerestory windows encircling the raised center bring in light from all directions, while sleek bands of sun shading regulate heat and glare in classrooms. The result is a bright, lively environment designed to spark idea exchange.
The multidisciplinary classrooms blur the boundaries between STEM subjects. With few exceptions, classrooms can support any STEM subject. Instead of a fixed fume hood in a dedicated chemistry classroom, for example, a mobile fume hood can be wheeled into any classroom and plugged into an exhaust port. Burner nozzles, eyewash stations and showers are standard in each classroom. Modular furniture lets teachers reconfigure spaces to suit the subject and learning goals.
To the building’s west, nature-based stormwater systems form a garden around two sculptural downspouts.
“This building lifts up our Davis community and rewards their trust in our schools to design state-of-the-art facilities that make us proud to be Blue Devils.”
— Dr. Bryce Geigle, Principal
On the other side of the building, a bare-bones yard serves as an outdoor lab. Shaded worktables with power and water hookups facilitate experiments too messy for indoors. A second-floor outdoor walkway doubles as a balcony for physics experiments and egg-drop competitions. Tiered seating and an elevated “stage” — a civil engineer’s creative alternative to a steep grade change — provide a venue for a doldrum-beating outdoor class.
When visitors arrive, the STEM building provides a celebratory first impression of the campus. At the first Back to School night after it opened, one parent commented, “If this is where our money is going when we vote, I’m always going to vote ‘yes’ for schools.”
Movable walls connect ground-floor classrooms to the commons. The hexagonal latticework in the guardrails above is inspired by honeycombs. The hexagon style is carried over to the ceiling tiles, reinforcing the natural themes and establishing the diagonal pattern followed by the overhead lighting.
For Dr. Geigle, the finished project is a testament to the power of collaboration and cultivating a shared vision for the future.
“It’s really important that we are designing spaces with the students’ best interests at heart,” he says. “This building lifts up our Davis community and rewards their trust in our schools to design state-of-the-art facilities that make us proud to be Blue Devils.”
