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Š The design content, detail, and invention contained within this book, being property of Red Chair Architects, shall not be copied or disclosed without written consent.
Red Chair Architects
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Prescott South PreK-8
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Morrison PreK-8 School
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Algood Elementary Dibrell PreK-8 School PreK - 12 Experience PreK - 12 Recognition & Awards
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Red Chair Architects is a full-service architectural design firm utilizing the best design thinking, experience, and partnerships to embrace each client’s needs. By first listening and then understanding their goals, desires, and budgets, the Red Chair team captures their clients’ dreams and gets them built. The red chair symbolizes the firm’s focus on the person for whom we design – a comfortable place of real distinction as we explore each client’s unique needs. Red Chair Architects is committed to serving our region through exceptional design and friendship for years to come.
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The Red Chair team possesses a strong reputation for excellence in educational planning and design. We’ve demonstrated this commitment with many school systems, repeat clients, and numerous awards. We devote creative energy into developing designs that inspire, designs that teach, and designs that illuminate while fully adhering to our client’s needs, programs, and budgets.
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Prescott South PreK-8
A brand new concept for Putnam County, this project combines a pre-K through 4th elementary school with a 5th through 8th middle school.
The result is two independent grade structures each with separate entrances, administrative offices, classroom wings, gymnasiums, libraries, and cafeteria spaces. The design for the new Prescott South Elementary and Middle School challenged preconceptions in its response to pragmatic, programmatic, and budgetary requirements. The project required the creation of two new schools – one a preK-4 elementary and the other a 5-8 middle school – on a single parcel of land. The solution sought to identify elements of redundancy where cost savings could be achieved if eliminated, such as the kitchen and media-center support spaces. 8
It also sought to identify areas where the individual school programs could be enhanced through a merger, these would include spaces like the auditorium, art classrooms, and music classrooms. Both schools needed to maintain an independent identity, while still having easy access to the shared core functions. This led the massing to be conceptualized as 5 monolithic parallel program bars threaded together by a central circulation spine.
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A primary goal of the design was to create a school that embodied a sophisticated playfulness. This can be seen through the use of a calm neutral palate overlaid with bold colors in the interior spaces. Circulation zones, entries, and common gathering spaces are awash in daylight from the ample windows that also provide views to the surrounding rural context. Each school makes up a smaller neighborhood within the larger campus with easy access from classrooms to core functions.
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Morrison School | PreK-8
Morrison PreK-8 School serves as one of the Morrison community’s only civic buildings. It is a 550-core capacity facility constructed on 27 acres. The school’s core elements – administrative offices, cafeteria, library, and gymnasium – serve students housed in 31 classrooms. The project concept was born out of the pragmatic notions of proper orientation, daylighting, and an insistence on “building the diagram,” resulting in a clear organization of plan and consequent clarity of wayfinding.
The primary circulation axis runs north-south, connecting the front entry of the building to the rear entry and parking beyond. This axis creates a line of demarcation between the core elements and the classroom wings, with the one exception being the overlaid transparent bar which houses the cafeteria, servery queuing, and library; this transparent bar, comprised of a series of parallel transparent walls, allows borrowed light deep into the middle of the building, while it spatially and structurally supersedes the corridor.
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Three parallel classroom wings oriented in an east-west direction plug into the primary axis, providing a desirable solar orientation, fenestration in all classrooms, and outdoor classroom possibilities in between. Budget constraints required creative programming solutions: a double-faced performance platform serves both the dining area and the gymnasium, satisfying the auditorium component of the program, but at two different scales.
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Algood Elementary
We are achieving the maximum result from our limited resources. They continuously seek ways to enhance design while respectful of budgets, schedule, and program. Dr. Kathleen Airhart, Director, Putnam County Schools
The new Elementary School is located on the site of the existing Algood Middle School, creating a shared courtyard between the two. This commons now features playgrounds, outside classrooms, and gathering spaces benefitting both schools. It is the new heart of the campus. Outside classrooms are enclosed with benches and a primary 'green screen' wall – a metal mesh fence that will support climbing plants.
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An energetic, creative and cost-effective approach to the interiors reflects an intent to encourage student and teacher interaction, provide fun common areas and enhance the overall educational environment.
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Dibrell School | PreK-8
The existing Dibrell School had become outmoded and overcrowded. While minor changes were made in the existing building, the focus was placed on the new expansion to the west of the existing building.
The development of the design began with a westward extension of the existing circulation route; this existing circulation was opened up to the existing building as well to strengthen the connection between old and new. The facility is designed for systematic expansion, as a second classroom wing can be added by extending the existing special education wing corridor to the west.
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Further, this future expansion will create opportunities for courtyards/ outdoor classrooms between wings. The old gymnasium can be easily removed and replaced with new program space as well. Emphases on daylighting, light sensors and low-flow plumbing fixtures have been incorporated into the project in an effort to create a better learning environment and reduce energy consumption.
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The expansion adds new core elements and a new two-story, sixteen classroom wing. Economy was a major driver for the Dibrell scheme: Simple volumes with simple and consistent roof spans; limiting opening spans in the building envelope to eliminate the need for steel lintels except in very specific locations; and surface drainage at higher volumes onto low roofs so as to eliminate much of the interior drainage.
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PreK-12 Experience this is a partial school list - please contact us for further information award winning school
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Blount County Schools - Blount County, TN
Union Grove Elementary School Carpenter’s Elementary School
Oak Ridge City Schools
Woodland Elementary Renovations, Oak Ridge, TN
Putnam County Schools
Facility Assessment and Long Range Capital Master Plan Upperman Middle School, Baxter, TN Monterey High School, Monterey, TN Upperman High School - Additions, Baxter, TN Prescott Elementary | Middle School, Cookeville, TN Algood Elementary School, Algood, TN Misc. Renovations: Jere Whitson Elementary, Sycamore Elementary, Park View Elementary, Cane Creek Elementary, Baxter Elementary Facility Assessment and Long Range Capital Master Plan
Rhea County Schools
Frazier Elementary School Renovations Spring City Elementary School Renovations Rhea Central Renovations
Roane County Schools - Rockwood, TN
Rockwood Middle & High Additions & Renovations
Warren County Schools
Facility Assessment and Long Range Capital Master Plan Morrison PreK-8 School, Morrison, TN Dibrell Elementary School, Dibrell, TN
State of Tennessee
Tennessee School for the Blind, Renovations Alvin C. York Institute Renovations
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PreK-12 Recognition & Awards
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American School and University 2010
Outstanding Design Algood Elementary School
2007
Outstanding Project Carpenters Elementary School
American Institute of Architects - Tennessee 2013
Merit Award Morrison Elementary & Middle School
American Institute of Architects - East Tennessee 2013
Merit Award Algood Elementary School
2012
Merit Award Morrison Elementary & Middle School
2012
Merit Award Dibrell Elementary & Middle School
2011
Merit Award Prescott Elementary & Middle School
2009
Merit Award New South Elementary & Middle School
2007
Merit Award Carpenters Elementary School
Tennessee School Board Association 2012
School of the Year Runner-Up Dibrell PreK-8
2011
School of the Year Prescott South PreK-8
Masonry Institute of Tennessee 2007
Merit Award Carpenters Elementary School
Publications 2014
Outstanding Design Morrison School
2010
American School & University, August
Outstanding Design Algood Elementary School American School & University August cover
2009
Outstanding Project Carpenters Elementary School
American School & University, August 37
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