Hawken Middle School: Lincoln Hall
Location: Lyndhurst, OH
In attempting to implement a new middle school curriculum that reflected an educational pedagogy of small class size and flexible learning spaces, Hawken School realized their facilities would not support this new direction. studioTECHNE was hired to implement a site master plan designed by David M. Schwartz and Associates and design the new middle school building. Working with administration, faculty, and students, studioTECHNE led a series of workshops designed to first understand the new curricula and secondly to work through model classrooms that would support an educational plan directed at teaching to multiple levels.
The building design developed inside out, with classroom placement, support spaces and learning centers being designed and arranged within the new facility to reflect the schools need for small group, grade level and school level teaching assignments. Once complete, design attention focused on the exterior. The campus is a collection of buildings each of their own decade, the schools direction was to follow the "truth" found in the character of the original 1920’s Georgian Hall in which the school was founded. We achieved this goal by designing the building's details and motifs to compliment but not copy the original, allowing a harmony to form between the two buildings.