As part of A4’s long-term relationship with the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, we were hired to renovate the school’s Solar Dorm, an early 70s teacher-student experiment in solar-oriented design.
Many of its experimental design features worked better in theory than in practice and were further degraded by later renovations and poor maintenance. With a very limited budget, A4 introduced more appropriate overhangs to reduce overheating and foc
The new design features of the renovation were focused on the dorm’s common room. A clerestory, front porch, and window seat aid in creating a pleasant communal student hangout.
The porch faces onto and engages the school’s main academic quad. Pargiter Library, an A4 adaptive reuse of the old Science Building is visible across the quad.
The highlights of an extremely limited interior renovation budget were a new high ceiling and clerestory for the common room as well as a cozier built-in window seat.
The original building, while excitingly experimental, was in fact too successful at creating solar gain and constantly overheated to the extent that, as visible in this ‘before’ photo, skylights were painted over and large areas of glazing that once
This ‘after’ photo shows a building that fits in more harmoniously with its surroundings, retains the useful elements of the original building, and emphasizes the communal aspects of the school’s residential life program.
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