The Reece School

Platt Byard Dovell White creates an inviting building finely tuned to the needs of its occupants and neighbors.

By David Sokol

Now almost 60 years old, the Reece School was one of the first in New York City to educate children with emotional disorders, learning disabilities, and speech or occupational impairments. It is still a leader in this field. Director Dr. Thomas Colasuonno sums up the Reece’s approach: “However they got here, the pathology is the same, and we deal with it behaviorally, psycho-pharmacologically, psycho-dynamically—we deal with it humanely.” Since last July, when the city-contracted private elementary school moved into a new 23,000-square-foot building by Platt Byard Dovell White Architects (PBDW), faculty and staff has also counted design among their educational tools.

Although the size of the old brownstones was in many ways inadequate, their intimate scale reflected the school’s values, says Ray Dovell, AIA, PBDW principal. And in fact, designers learned that Reece students are most comfortable in smaller environments. Accordingly, they made the new classrooms a cozy 300 square feet in order to accommodate six to eight students and two teachers.
 
In addition to instructional spaces, the new Reece includes what Dovell calls “a world of education,” with counselors’ and therapists’ offices, faculty support spaces, and the school’s first lunchroom and gym.

 “‘Mom, they got lockers, just like a real school,’” Colasuonno remembers overhearing shortly after the new five-story building opened its doors. “We’re trying to create an environment that is as normal as possible, because every day we are training for the future,” Colasuonno says. In one sense, the new facilities alone help accomplish these objectives. Having a lunchroom, for example, prepares Reece graduates for eating in a high-school cafeteria.

Another priority for the client was making the building responsive to its surroundings. “It’s very important for the Reece School to be a good neighbor,” Dovell says of the street elevation, which faces a public school and abuts apartment buildings of similar scale to the east and west.

Formal name of project: The Reece School

Location: 25 East 104th Street, New York, NY 10029, Tel. 212.289.4872

Gross square footage: 21,040 sq.ft.

Completion Date: June 2006

Total construction cost: $8,389,000

Owner: The Reece School

Architect:
Platt Byard Dovell White Architects, LLP
20 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10010
T 212.691.2440
F 212.633.0144

 

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