The school campus is divided into two areas: the public, community space, and the enclosed, learning space. We have created a formal entry to the school campus that will give a sense of place to the school. It is also flanked by administration offices on both sides which will present a higher level of security. Facing the street is an array of spaces, including a library, auditorium, and radio station, creating a barrier to the school proper. The classrooms are located at the rear in a courtyard arrangement that creates a central common space which could also function as an informal 'outdoor' classroom. Rainwater retention tanks at the far corners of the courtyard extend the duration of water availability to the facility. We have incorporated the most advanced dry latrine technology to bring more modern facilities to the school. The modular design of the buildings allows for ease of construction, and proposed materials are all locally available.







This new Charter School started just 5 years ago converting an existing supermarket close to the center of Yonkers, NY into an Elementary School. The school has been very successful, creating demand from the community to expand into a Middle School. Based on an extremely tight schedule of 9 months for both design and construction, PFA has implemented off-site construction to run design, permitting, pre-construction and site construction on parallel tracks, cutting the project time in half compared to a standard design-bid-build approach, using Building Information Modeling to eliminate the time intensive shop drawing coordination phase. The school building and site layout was designed with great care to achieve an "as of right" project avoiding time-delaying variances. The new building features a full Middle School sized gym, media center, special ed., art & science classrooms serving the entire school.
Full Architectural Services for a new 5 story K-5 school in a very busy area of the Bronx, requiring laminated sound attenuating glazing.
Made possible by a grant organized by the School PTA, this Magnet school was able to afford a completely redesigned and reconfigured Media Center.