Butterfield Elementary makeover progresses
Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008
ANTHONY REYES Northwest Arkansas Times Joe Yager, project superintendent for the Butterfield Elementary School improvement project, shows the front of the new section of the school Wednesday in Fayetteville.
All of the cinderblock walls that will make up the new front addition to the Butterfield Trail Elementary School are in place, giving passers-by an idea of what the school will look like once it is finished.
The 28, 000-square-foot addition is the first phase of a construction project to add onto and remodel the school for the 2009-2010 school year.
"The masonry is complete," Fred Turrentine, director of school plant services, said.
The main cinderblock not quite finished is the office addition for the new standalone gymnasium on the south side of the main building.
Already visible on the front of the building is the new rounded entry to the school, which features a wooden rail awning. From inside, visitors will look up and see wooden rails that resemble the spokes of a wheel in the ceiling.
Fred Turrentine, director of school plant services, said those features are designed to resemble a wagon wheel and pay homage to the history of the area. The school is located at 3050 Old Missouri Road along the historic Butterfield Stagecoach Trail location of the school.
The noticeable entrance has been a staple point for new school designs by the architecture firm designing the addition. The Crafton, Tull, Sparks and Associates firm designed an atrium that resembles an owl for Fayetteville's Owl Creek School, and they also designed new entrances for Asbell Elementary and Woodland Junior High.
Another feature of the new addition is a curved hallway on the south side. The firm also designed a curved hallway for Owl Creek.
"These architects are getting to where they don't like to draw squares anymore," Joe Yager, building project superintendent for Nabholz Construction, said.
The new addition will feature many large windows that will provide natural light in the classroom, Turrentine said. This included a space for glass windows in a kindergarten classroom that is about 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall.
The new roof for the building will be a white membrane designed to reflect light instead of absorbing heat.
The roof is one of the features that will help the school achieve the Leadership in Energy Efficient Design green certification rating it is seeking from the U. S. Green Building Council, Turrentine said.
If the school is certified a green building once construction is finished, it will be the district's first certified green building, he said.
Becoming a green building could provide the school with a new claim to fame as its original open classroom designed is modified with the remodel. When the existing structure was first built, it was the first open classroom school in Arkansas.
The open classroom format was a popular design for new elementary schools built in the late 1960 s and early 1970 s, but the design has since fallen out of favor.
The work left on the new addition includes painting, flooring and installing windows, plumbing, the ceiling and light fixtures. Workers also haven't finished installing all of the exterior stone, mostly in brown or tan colors, that will make up the exterior.
Turrentine and Yager are confident, however, that the new building will be finished in December.
Once the addition is finished, school staff will move from the older, existing building into the new addition. The existing structure will receive a complete remodel and the open classrooms will be converted into enclosed classrooms.
Work on the interior renovation of the current building is expected to be finished during the summer.
During the interior remodel of the existing structure, the school will not have a cafeteria. Turrentine said the district plans to prepare meals off-site and transport them to the school next semester during the transition.
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