Indian Hill Exempted Village School District

Indian Hill, Ohio

Firm

MSA Architects

Client

Area

301,000 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$71,900,000

Completion Date

08/2024

Tyler Gentry

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Indian Hill Exempted School District is a high-performing school district in a suburb outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Despite being less than 20 miles from downtown and surrounded by suburban developments, the village is quite rural and is filled with rolling hills, open fields and wooded parks. The school district determined it needed to re-imagine its existing outdated primary (grades K-2), elementary (grades 3-5), and middle (grades 6-8) school campuses to better support educational initiatives and learning pedagogies. The project involved renovations and additions to each of the existing buildings with a focus on improving safety and security, expanding recreational and arts spaces, supporting STEM and project-based learning, and ensuring the success of the school for the next 50-plus years.
Primary goals of the renovations: providing new spaces for unified arts programs, fostering creativity and collaboration, inspiring students, sparking curiosity, appealing to all senses and the whole student, and connecting to nature and the outdoors.

Additions to each school provided flexible classrooms, collaboration spaces, modern art studios, music rooms, language arts rooms, and innovative project-based STEM labs. The re-imagined spaces also have community spaces for students to engage and interact outside classrooms. Increased natural light, high-performance building envelopes and building systems, as well as finishes and furniture with sustainable, green materials greatly improved the health and well-being of students, faculty and staff and helped achieve the district’s sustainability goals. Each of the schools achieved a STEM designation from the state of Ohio as a result of the innovative teaching, learning, and facility upgrades.

Interiors throughout the spaces incorporate biophilic design and lots of wood, natural tones of greens and blues, and organic shapes. Environmental graphics for all the spaces bring in key aspects of the school brand and identity in contemporary ways, combining the use of natural colors from the interiors scheme and incorporating Indian Hill branding elements such as its signature red and hexagon forms to fit the overall identity of the school district.
Improvements also were made to outdoor learning and play spaces to improve function, safety, and accessibility for all students. New, large, outdoor classroom spaces encourage faculty and students to take lessons outdoors and connect with nature.