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Harry A. Conte West Hills School
New Haven
Herbert S. Newman and Partners
A renovated school retains the scale
and style of its friendly italian neighbors
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The architect’s design seeks to
connect the Italianate character of the Wooster Square neighborhood
to the existing K-8 1961 school, by placing a new entrance
building on the street with the scale of a one-room schoolhouse,
linking it to a new classroom wing and the original buildings.
The exterior of the existing building was restored and the
interior was renovated to retain the spirit and character
of the original.
An addition of classrooms and offices
brings the front door of the school forward to the street
line. This addition utilizes the same ideas of structure and
curtain wall as found in the original school, but in a new
way, and increases the scale of the school at the street,
by surrounding the front door with the mass and simple bearing
of its neighbors. Like the neighborhood houses, the roofs
of the new additions have wide eaves, but they are flat like
those of the original school. This roof expression, which
is now a shared expression, works to amplify the otherwise
common aspects of the other disconnected architectures, and
so creates a linking element for the differences between the
styles—a place of accommodation and appreciation.
The existing school consisted of two
buildings: a main two-story building with classrooms, offices,
swimming pool, and gymnasium surrounding a central courtyard;
and a separate, 250-seat auditorium building. One addition
connects the existing classroom building to the auditorium,
which includes art classrooms. The second, larger addition
to the south of the existing building provides additional
classrooms, administration offices, and the front door to
the school.
Formal name
of Project:
Harry A. Conte West Hills School
Location:
New Haven
Gross square
footage:
100,000 sq. ft. (renovated existing); 114,000 sq. ft.
(new construction)
Total construction
cost:
$11.7 million
Owner:
New Haven Public Schools
Architect:
Herbert S. Newman and Partners, PC
300 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511
(203) 772-1990/ 772-1997
www.hsnparch.com
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