Glasgow Middle School, designed by Ballou Justice Upton Architects in Richmond, Virginia, was a facility replacement project for the existing Glasgow Middle School located in Fairfax County, Virginia. The original school was constructed in the early 1960s for a core capacity of 750 students and in 2001 had 1250 students enrolled.
This was an exciting, fast paced project for Fairfax County Public Schools that involved constructing a new two-story 200,000 square foot middle school on the ball field of the existing Glasgow Middle School. Because the project was located behind an occupied school, we had to constantly work around the school schedule and be keenly aware of students and the public. The scope involved installing new utilities that ran in front of and around the existing school and all work had to be timed to not interfere with bus access or disrupt service to the existing building.
The new school is a masonry bearing structure with many sustainable design features including roof mounted solar water panels to heat the hot water heating system. Sunshades flank the windows on the South and East side of the building to provide natural light into the building’s internal classrooms. A courtyard located in the center of the school provides natural light into the art labs, itinerant spaces and second floor classrooms. In addition, construction and demolition waste was separated and recycled during construction of the new facility.
We graded the area where the old school once stood and rebuilt new multipurpose fields, baseball fields and a hard -play surface with basketball and tennis courts. While the original construction schedule allowed for a total duration of 3 years, we received substantial completion on the building in 18 months and had the entire project completed more than a year ahead of schedule.
The new school features 48 traditional classrooms, 6 ESOL classrooms, and 15 multipurpose / itinerant classrooms. Also included are 2 tech laboratories, lecture hall, media center, auxiliary gymnasium, a main gymnasium with 14 basketball goals and bleacher seating for 750 students.
