Open Bell Soon to Ring at Issaquah High

The closed-circulation campus serves multiple purposes, including tightening security on a currently porous space and creating a redundancy of circulation, keeping students inside in difficult weather and allowing exterior routes when sunshine allows it.

Where the loading dock excites people most on campus now because it features the lone view of the valley, those views will spread throughout the new space. By creating worthwhile view-oriented public spaces, such as the courtyard, Kent also connected the campus socially. With academics on one side, athletics and extracurricular on the other, the common areas bring the two together.

“The courtyard really became important,” Kent says. “It is an outdoor space, but directly ties to the indoor social space—the cafeteria and the commons—with a wide area. It is the social gathering node of the school and ends up being one of the most pleasant spaces because it is light, airy and open, and you can see down the valley and the football field.”

Once students move into the new rooms, work intensifies on phase two, a performing arts center complete with industrial arts, band, choir and a black-box theater. Completion of phase two is set for summer 2011.

“Essentially, it’s an addition to the school we just finished,” Gromley says. “The reason for doing the phasing was it allowed the district to build the school while students were attending class on the same campus.”

The third phase puts finishing touches on the project, especially on the landscape.

“I think staff and kids find it to be an exciting space,” Crawford says. “There is a good connection to the outdoors. They will be indoors more but actually feel much more a part of the adjacent outdoor environment.”