The Pritzker Science Center
The Groundbreaking Is November 8, 2008

Milton’s new science building is eagerly anticipated: It has been well planned. It has inspired excitement and new levels of philanthropy. It will begin to take shape on November 8, 2008, and students will file through the doors in December 2010.

J.B. Pritzker, Class of 1982, has made it possible for Milton to fully realize a promising plan for taking a leadership role in science teaching and learning. J.B.’s loyalty and generous commitment to Milton has come to fruition in a gift that does more than recognize the critical importance of science. In making the Pritzker Science Center a reality, J.B. explicitly affirms Milton’s long tradition of cultivating a passion for learning—of educating young people to question, to explore, and to think critically and broadly. When the shovel goes into the ground on November 8, Milton will begin to build a center where the key elements of a Milton education will thrive.

Powerful themes drive the building design

Centrality: Science is a critical force in our lives
Visibility: Seeing science at work entices the curious and converts the indifferent
Transparency: Exploring together and collaborating demystifies science

William Rawn and Associates have led this building design, an evolution away from the earlier design for science. Why a “new” iteration of science now? The board sought maximum effectiveness—spaces that enabled the most advanced science learning—coupled with efficiency. The trustees opted to restudy how we might achieve our most energetic goals, secure control of costs, rely on sustainable features, and enhance the campus.

The design that won the day telegraphs the importance of science across the campus and to the world. It takes direction from the teaching and learning in inquiry-based science that has flourished in Milton’s interim science classrooms. All the program needs are fulfilled, costs are under control, and sustainability is the watchword, in a new building, on a new site.

All eyes on Science

The Pritzker Science Center is a presence on the Milton campus. Connected both to major academic buildings and green space, it defines a new quad, bordered by Cox Library on the east and the Kellner Performing Arts Center on the south. Science is visible across green sitelines from key locations across Centre Street. Science, the building and the activity inside, is visible from the street itself.

A scaled entry
Brick, glass and copper resonate with other campus buildings

Science buildings tend to be the bulky, oversized buildings on campus. Making sure that the new building related well to the scale of Milton’s buildings—Straus, Wigg, Kellner and the Student Center— was a challenge met by developing an entry element with a narrower proportion than the width of the building. The Pritzker Science Center is two stories tall, graduated across the front, and stepped from the ground floor to the roof.

Brick and glass are the envelope materials on the side of the building facing Kellner and Centre Street. The east side walls, and part of the Centre Street front, use copper, which provides interest on the long side of the building and also salutes the materiality of science.

An efficient building plan

The most practical classroom building design is the double-loaded corridor, classrooms off both sides of a long hallway. The Pritzker Science Center takes advantage of its location: the double-loaded corridor bends to fit the site shape. That bend opens up the inside, where balconies, and stairs with multiple landings, unite the floors and maximize interaction. Materials reinforce the themes of transparency and accessibility: interior glazing makes the classroom activity visible from the hallways. Clear glass spans the lab table areas; translucent glass protects the concentration that the conversations around the Harkness table need.

The bend in the building provides the perfect location for an entry point and a central gathering place, inviting students and faculty to relax, take a break from a project, enjoy their connections with science. Still exploiting the bend in the building, the faculty room is located directly across from the central gathering space.

Learning spaces

Exploration, collaboration and discussion are integrated in inquiry-based science. Generating questions, hands-on work pursuing answers, probing issues together around the table—it all goes on in 14 class labs, one for each faculty member and his or her discipline.

Scientific inquiry that is specialized, or independent, or that needs to continue for longer periods of time, takes place in four inquiry labs. Larger than the classroom labs, the inquiry labs are on the first floor, open and beckoning to all who pass. The Pritzker Science Center locates the “cool stuff,” the excitement of pursuing an idea, in the center of activity.

To provide ultimate flexibility and prepare for potential new teaching strategies, several of the inquiry labs and the classroom labs are separated from one another by “garage door” type partitions. Those laboratories can double in size, allowing for variable uses of the space.

Solid strategies for sustainability
Designed to meet silver LEED specifications

• The Pritzker Science Center uses natural light extensively; sensors as well as manual controls regulate light for peak efficiency.
• Continuous filtration of roof water gathers, recharges and disperses rainwater to irrigate landscaping; a dry-grass swale is a major landscape design element framing the entrance and lining the building’s east side.
• The roof has two sections: a green roof on the overhang of the stepped, west side of the building at the base of the second floor. The top of the building uses highly reflective TPO shingles; TPO is a chemical alloy made with recycled materials, and the shingles are 100% chemically recyclable.
• Demonstration solar hot water and photovoltaic panels produce energy for the building; their number and capacity can increase if the technology proves itself effective and efficient in this building.
• The building’s “Dashboard” demonstrates real-time energy use and savings simultaneously.
• Use of recycled and renewable materials is maximized throughout, and use of local materials is extensive.
• Green landscape design makes use of a dry-grass swale and subgrade storm water retention tank. The grasses and other native plantings in the swale survive with this recycled rainwater, give year-round color, and require minimal maintenance. Reused bluestone pavers will be featured at the front entryway and east side gathering space; New Hampshire granite will be used for curbs and benches. The landscape design features native plantings and preserves many existing trees. An existing stone wall will be reused along the west face of the building.

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