Lockwood High School

Design Team
Nick Pancheau AIA, Jason Fitzgerald AIA, Travis Smith AIA, Brian Johnson AIA, Jeff Kanning AIA, William Haynes AIA, Alex Wright Assoc. AIA, Kari Kraske Assoc. AIA, Andrew Houlihan Assoc. AIA

Sited on an existing 56-acre K-8 campus of the Lockwood Schools in Lockwood, Montana, this project was tasked with unifying the existing disjointed facilities by designing a new high school and a related community-focused program. The new Lockwood High School helps to establish the community’s identity. A blend of existing architectural precedent and community input provided a language for expressing the community’s pride in a new institutional structure. Work included comprehensive campus improvements involving eight separate buildings and the development of educational, athletic, arts, and wellness spaces.

The existing campus was loosely organized and lacked a master plan. The design team focused on using the new high school facilities to bring order to the campus while acknowledging the site’s existing radial nature. The high school was sited adjacent to the middle school, reinforcing the edge of a newly created central campus mall. The east-west-oriented mall serves as a campus hub, providing parking, circulation, drop-off, and wayfinding. It is anchored on either end by a bus drop-off area and the new athletic stadium facilities. The result is a master plan that resolves past planning efforts and identifies campus organization and function.

Axial organization within the high school provides order to complex programmatic needs. Pride Hall serves as a soaring north-south connector, creating access across three levels of public arts, athletic, and educational spaces. This hall is intersected by an east-west corridor that provides access for Lockwood Middle School to the west and classroom and education functions to the east. Community-centric spaces are organized along these axes, and student-centric spaces fill intentional protected voids.

The addition of Lockwood High School, the parking lot expansion, and Lockwood Stadium create a new identity for the Lockwood schools. The site unifies K-12 students and provides a place for the students and families of Lockwood to call home.

Additional Information

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