Kingdom East School District

Crafting Inspiring Learning Environments for Kingdom East Schools

gbArchitecture has partnered with the Kingdom East School District (KESD) to undertake a comprehensive feasibility study and conceptual design for its seven schools. This ambitious project aims not only to address the unique needs of each facility and community, but also to develop a cohesive, forward-looking plan for the entire district.

A Collaborative and Thorough Approach

Our process has been collaborative, emphasizing extensive input from all stakeholders, including staff, administration, students, and community members. We facilitated numerous in-person and Zoom meetings, alongside surveys, to ensure every voice was heard and incorporated into the design process.

We thoroughly assessed and documented the existing facilities at Burke Town, Concord, Lunenburg, Sutton, Newark Street, Lyndon Town, and Millers Run Schools. While Lunenburg serves Kindergarten through Fifth Grade, all other schools accommodate PreK through Eighth Grade. Our design team continues to refine recommendations and create conceptual designs, guided by this invaluable stakeholder feedback, the leadership team’s goals, projected demographics, potential funding, and the overall district budget.

Designs Rooted in KESD’s Guiding Principles: Our conceptual designs for each school reflect KESD’s core guiding principles, focusing on Learning, Wellness and Community Connections:

Learning: To foster student-centered, experiential, flexible, and collaborative learning, our designs propose new gymnasiums, updated maker spaces, and specialized classrooms. Recommendations include readily reconfigurable furniture to adapt to various teaching modes, and enhancing tech access across all spaces.

Wellness: Recommendations prioritize creating welcoming, safe, healthy, and inclusive environments. This includes addressing safety concerns, improving acoustic separation for tranquility and calm, ensuring access to views and daylight, and designing appropriate individual spaces for specialized student and staff services. A significant aspect of our design solution involves creating deeper connections to the outdoors. This is achieved through enhanced daylighting and the thoughtful design of sheltered outdoor areas, effectively extending classroom, laboratory, and dining spaces beyond traditional walls.

Community Connections: Select spaces have been envisioned to accommodate shared resources and district-wide events across schools, enabling each to leverage shared expertise and celebrate the local community.