Impact on Learning

Venice High School Campus Remodel

• 03/01/17

THE CHALLENGE

Venice High School in Venice, FL, had been faithfully serving the student community for over 60 years when it came time to re-think and re-create the campus. The construction of the new facilities needed to take place in phases so classes could be completed as normal, without disruption.

Construction would include repurposing existing structures and creating new campus structures including multi-story academic buildings, an administration building, a media center, a gymnasium and a performing arts center. It was made clear during the design phase that these four buildings would need to be a hybrid, with the performing arts center and gymnasium being thin-brick-imbedded tilt-wall concrete panels and the academic buildings and administration building consisting of conventional brick.

THE SOLUTION

SchenkelShultz Architecture, the project architects, knew that Glen-Gery had a reputation for creating long-lasting quality bricks of both thin and full size. This made them the ideal providers of masonry for a project like Venice High School. Another benefit of using Glen-Gery was the ability to move seamlessly between buildings and brick sizes in a way that respected the constraints of the project.

For the Venice Project, Rough texture utility size brick Sand (R33) and Boulder Grey (R83) were selected, which offered both ASTM C-216 Type FBX facebrick and paraffin wax-coated thin brick that match in color, texture and size and also met the requirements of PCI for tilt-wall.

IMPACT ON LEARNING

Great facilities have a big impact on the way students learn and teachers teach. The new Venice High School is not only aesthetically a point of pride for the students, but also provides a community-minded space that encourages collaboration. Both students and teachers now have a safe, modern campus to call their own and in which to proudly practice teaching and learning for decades to come.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .