Nichols School is a historic, private college preparatory school located in North Buffalo that serves students Grades 5-12. The project was completed in multiple phases starting with a new north entrance to the basement of Mitchell Hall (one of the campus’s early 20th century E. B. Green-designed buildings), perimeter foundation drainage, areaways to increase daylight to basement level staff/student spaces, regrading, landscaping, and accessible walkways around and leading to the building.
The new Student Commons building came next and is located between Mitchell Hall and Flickinger Performing Arts Center. The steel moment framed building serves multiple purposes. It expanded the capacity of the campus’s dining facilities and reduced the number of lunch periods for the students. When not occupied for dining, the building functions as a student center, which can be compartmentalized and used for large meetings. The new building also improved the functionality of the campus kitchen by reorganizing receiving and distribution as well as creating additional storage space at a new basement level. Utilizing lower grades along the western side, the basement doubles as a new handicap accessible entrance complimenting infills third function as a new Main Entrance and lobby for the Flickinger Performing Arts Center.
Designed to complement the campus architecture, the new addition utilizes both masonry and limestone to provide historic compatibility and strong identity. The new building was designed around a gabled skylight that floods the interior of the existing and new dining area with diffused light. A gently curving glass wall on the west façade provides panoramic views to the athletic fields to the west.
Winner 2020 AIA Buffalo/WNY Design Award Commercial/Institutional Category
ELSEWHERE ON CAMPUS, what began as a repair project due to vandalism, expanded to resolve long standing drainage issues in the outfields of the softball and baseball diamonds which made lawn maintenance and play on the soccer field difficult due to ponding water. An engineered solution of under-field drainage and stormwater detention was not an option, so surface re-grading to encourage stormwater to collect, pool, and dissipate in the corners of the property was completed instead.
