Materiality USA: Billerica Memorial High School

Billerica Memorial High School

Perkins&Will

Location Billerica, Massachusetts

Function High School

Client Town of Billerica, Massachusetts School Building Authority

Completion date 2020

Architect Perkins&Will

SustainabilityTargetingLEEDSilver Certification

Photography Chuck Choi

The town of Billerica has undergone a subtle yet significant transformation in recent years. However, its former high school, characterized by outdated and dysfunctional facilities, failed to accurately represent the town’s contemporary identity. In collaboration with the community, Perkins&Will embarked on a project to reshape this perception by designing their largest civic structure. The newly constructed school accommodates over 1,600 students in grades 8-12, a Pre-K program, and district administrative offices.

Brick tectonics The architectural choice of brick serves as a symbolic lesson to students about the power of simplicity in generating complexity, as well as the potential for collective renewal. The masonry’s interaction with natural elements visually narrates the ever-evolving nature of education’s impact on our sense of self.

Drawing inspiration from the town’s heritage as a New England mill town with a prevalence of red brick structures, the new high school seamlessly integrates this historical context with its forward-looking educational mission. The unassuming red brick exterior receives a fresh interpretation through geometric corbeling, while the interior employs sustainable timber construction techniques that infuse new significance into this traditional material. These simple

1 The school’s neoclassical civic neighbors and late-1800s industrial context informed a design that connects distinct elements to speak a humble material language.

2 The building’s elongated brick façade is organized by a repetitive frame expression.

3 Corbeled brick on the south facade takes measure of the day’s light, amplifying shadows and quietly functioning as a masonry sun dial, tracking the path of the sun.

4 The entire interior uses daylight to capture the rhythms of academic time as the sun pushes shadow through the building.

5 Timber takes new meaning through carbon-conscious detailing; The embodied carbon in the FSC Certified spruce timber structure offsets the equivalent of a typical school bus traveling over 460,000 miles.

yet genuine materials are skillfully composed in three dimensions, conveying the school’s historical narrative through an architectural language characterized by both introspection and projection.

The design approach takes into account the school’s neoclassical civic surroundings and the industrial backdrop of the late 1800s. The resultant design embraces structural expressionism, wherein the connections between distinct architectural elements communicate a consciously modest material vocabulary. Echoes of historical styles pay homage to local landmarks like the Mill Buildings in North Billerica and the brick structures in the Town Center.

The

masonry’s interaction with natural elements visually narrates the ever-evolving nature of education’s impact on our sense of self.

Strategically positioned, the building is oriented to maximize its presence along the primary route from the town. The design prioritizes communal spaces, ensuring that masonry facades shape the pedestrian experience, providing a graceful welcome to students, faculty, and visitors. The elongated brick façade, characterized by repetitive framing, incorporates windows of various sizes and functionalities through skillful use of stepping, corbelling, and coursing techniques. This dynamic façade serves as a metaphor for the ‘maker’ classrooms integral to the school’s curriculum.

Luminosity The architectural approach transcends basic illumination needs by embracing natural daylight over artificial lighting. Both the interior and exterior utilize daylight to punctuate the rhythm of a student’s day. Furthermore, the masonry’s depth serves a practical purpose, offering solar shading to mitigate interior glare. Thus, these meticulously crafted brick surfaces simultaneously serve functional and aesthetic purposes, capturing the temporal cadence of academic life as the sun casts shifting shadows across the façade throughout the day, semester, and year.

Brick, a material forged from the earth, solidified by fire, and brought to life by the sun, encapsulates the delicate equilibrium between creativity and pragmatism that defines the building’s essence. The process of bricklaying, involving intricate transformations, unveils a tapestry of intricate patterns and forms, capturing remnants of winter’s touch and tracing the sun’s ceaseless journey across the sky.

Both the interior and exterior utilize daylight to punctuate the rhythm of a student’s day.