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Choate Rosemary Hall Science Center

Wallingford, Connecticut
Completed 1989

Laboratory and classroom building
 

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This project was designed as a gateway between two consolidated prep schools. Its form, scale and water-struck brick exterior complement the rural setting, mediating between the two campuses and helping to define the central focus of their newly unified whole.

A system of overlapping radial and angular geometries determined the building's main components:  a three-story "L" (housing laboratories and classrooms) and an angled two-story wing (housing a conservatory, offices and additional classrooms). The components interlock around a transparent glass conoid and the outdoor courtyard it embraces, animating interior circulation with light and a dynamic exchange of indoor-outdoor views.

A 160-foot bridge spans a new pond and connects the lower campus with the second-story entrance.  The bridge continues as an open corridor around the conoid and emerges as a banked walkway to the upper campus. The building thus provides a major pedestrian link between the schools, permitting barrier-free access to previously impassable terrain.

The interior, organized vertically by scientific discipline, is integrally linked to a campus-wide computer network. Laboratories are evenly illuminated by fluorescent lights in the coffered concrete ceilings and provide direct air supply/return by strategically-located penthouses. Also on the roof are an observatory and four staircase skylights, one of which supports a Foucault pendulum monitoring the earth's rotation. 

Major Components

Level 1 (Physics)
2,850 s/f lobby; 3,400 s/f  laboratories (4);  3,200 s/f auditorium; 2,600 s/f classrooms (4); 800 s/f projects room; 700 s/f storage/preparation rooms (4)

Level 2 (Biology)
2,660 s/f lobby; 5,752 s/f laboratory/classrooms (7);  1,400 s/f storage/preparation rooms (7): 900 s/f reference study; 520 s/f conservatory;  520 s/f science office

Level 3 (Chemistry)
1,200 s/f lobby; 2,550 s/f  laboratories (3);  2,550 s/f classrooms (4); 1,275 s/f  storage/preparation rooms (6)

I. M. Pei & Partners services

Site Planning; Complete Architectural Services; Interior Design

Structural

Leslie E. Robertson Associates, New York, NY     

Mechanical

Edwards and Zuck, P.C., New York, NY  

Landscape

Keith E. Simpson Associates, New Canaan, CT

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