The Seahawk Times

A Hilton Head Island High School Student Newspaper

Update From Architect Don Baus

Don Baus, architect from Little Diversified Architectural Firm, returned to HHIHS bringing the staff together once again in March to give them an update on the plans for the new HHIHS school building. Since the last staff meeting with the builders, there were over 1,000 responses to the initial surveys Many groups of people were involved, from students and teachers, to parents and community members who voiced what they thought would be the best for the future school building The incorporation of Gullah culture, clubs, history of the island, and art, as well as education, community, technology, athletics, safety, outdoor areas, and natural light within the new HHIHS, have all been heard. He came again on March 23rd for an end of year update. This update will be published at a later date

There is a lot of excitement about the new building. It is certain that a top priority is to have community spaces and lots of natural light. Other notable things such as a contemporary exterior design, outdoor seating with canopies, group/team learning spaces within classrooms and collaborative small group/flexible spaces h w polished school design was p

Key for drawings:

Yellow: phys. education and sports

Green: cafeteria

Grey: High-Bay CTE

Purple: Arts wing

Dark purple: media center

Red: ROTC

Peach/tan: Admin office

Deep Blue: SPED

Light Blue: new class wing wing, with a main hallway between new and old building wings. The cafeteria, CTE (Business classes), and culinary classrooms will be relocated to where the back of the school now lies, which is by the current bus loop The main entrance will be in between the current SCC and D-hall; the entrance would lead into a ‘hall of fame’ which celebrates everything that makes HHIHS unique.

Bottom Right: Close up of the first floor of the new academic wing. The dotted outline will be the new courtyard.

By: Emily Bocialetti

Within the new building, there will be 75+ classrooms; classroom sizes will be 900 square feet, and 1,200-1,500 square feet for labs. Within each classroom, there will be built in storage. The media center will be the central part of the school, along with the elevators The media center will have a mezzanine and a second floor that will be in front of a new glass wall. The current cafeteria will be converted into a physical education space. Wrestling and dance will be separated The art wing will be gutted, classrooms will be resized, and outdoor access and larger spaces for band and dance will be added. There will also be collaborative spaces in the hallways throughout the building. Private testing rooms are planned but have not been placed within the design yet

The implementation of new class tracks, like health science, will be on the third floor and the new building has the potential of bringing automobile and marine tech programs to HHIHS There are plans that the culinary program will be able to support and provide food to the community since we have licenses and permits to cook for the community. The SCC and black box will be refreshed but will stay the same size, and the ROTC hall will stay where it currently is

At this point in time, it is planned that construction will begin in April 2024, that is if the referendum passes in November 2023 Phase one is said to take approximately 12-18 months, but overall, the entire building will take about five years to complete.