Sacred Heart Schools William V. Campbell Academic and Arts Center
The William V. Campbell Academic and Arts Center is WRNS Studio’s most recent addition to the Sacred Heart Schools (SHS) campus, with projects including the Lower, Middle Schools Master Plan & Campus Design, Practice Gym, and the Stevens Net Zero Library.
The new Academic and Arts Center, serves as an interdisciplinary hub of activity housing a dance studio, maker spaces, quiet lounges, fine arts, ceramics, broadcast rooms, choral and band facilities, language arts, a photography dark room, classrooms, and career and student support spaces including personal and academic counseling spaces. The building was designed to support cross-disciplinary collaboration, informal interaction, and flexible educational models with a variety of shared, intimate spaces both inside and outside the classroom. Sustainable strategies were woven into every aspect of the project.
A focus on comfort, natural daylight, good air quality and reduced carbon drove the systems and material choices. The all-electric project includes radiant heating and cooling in the floors, ceiling fans in all learning spaces, an induction cooktop in the teaching kitchen, and operable windows which help reduce mechanical ventilation by 25%. Daylight Autonomy was key in driving planning and building envelope design. At-grade glass skylight planks along the building perimeter along with skylights in the main corridor, dance space, and stair hubs ensure good daylight balance and distribution within teaching spaces. Exterior automated shades help mitigate heat load and glare while providing good daylight usage.
Movable walls provide educational flexibility with visual connections to indoor and outdoor learning environments. Project work rooms serve as impromptu collaboration space and team rooms. A series of multifunctional and flex spaces are sprinkled throughout the three floors to ensure opportunities for social engagement and mentorship. Creative spaces include a digital media and dark room, TV studio, ceramic arts, painting, maker and woodworking spaces, dance, music and drama thread through the entire building. By bringing this diverse program under one roof, the building breaks down the barriers between academics, art, and tinkering, helping to foster a supportive, collaborative environment.
With its high performance envelope, great use of daylight, and low energy mechanical systems, this high energy demand project is projected with an EUI of 20.1. With the fine tuning of the planning and systems, a 346 kW PV array is installed on the roof and expected to result in a Net Zero Energy all electric building.
A natural material palette—brick, wood and metal—adds visual interest with details such as a ‘crinkled curtain’ in the dance studio made of perforated aluminum skin. An amphitheater located adjacent to the band facilities flows into the landscape, supporting performance and events while doubling as an outdoor classroom. Landscape design helps support different types of learning experiences through the campus.
The building’s material palette, massing, and circulation provide a sense of continuity with the campus’s architectural centerpiece, the historic Romanesque “Old Main” building, which opened in 1898. Serving as a counter to the “Old Main”, the Academic and Arts Building extends the landscaped Mall and forms a new gateway for one of the main entries to campus. WRNS redesigned the Mall to be more active and provide better connections to existing campus buildings and pathways.