Mountain View Middle School

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

Firm

Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates - Architects

Client

Cumberland Valley School District

Area

242,500 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$35,862,200

Completion Date

08/2019

Nathan Cox Photography; Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates

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The school district’s enrollment was increasing rapidly, and the need to replace an aging and undersized middle school, with limited space for expansion, was apparent. The new 1,400-student middle school shares the 130-acre campus with an 850-student elementary school. The site has been master planned for the addition of another elementary building and future classroom additions to the academic wings. The new middle school was Pennsylvania’s lowest cost-per-square-foot school built in 2016.

The simple, yet highly efficient floor plan concept has a “Main Street,” and an extra wide two-story circulation zone that separates the facility’s public spaces from the academic spaces.

This layout provides an easily circulated and supervised building with clear sight lines. It gives administrators, teachers, security personnel, and first responders the ability to quickly observe and respond to any level of concern.

Environmental graphic panels with bold use of color along Main Street highlight the school’s core values and diversity, and provide each academic wing with a distinct identity and framed entrance. The natural features displayed in the panels represent the typography of the three outdoor learning areas between the academic wings. Each outdoor learning area is landscaped to echo the science curriculum of the adjacent grade level and enables students to interact with the environment and use the school as a teaching tool.

With a project-based learning curriculum with real world applications, the cultural arts department promotes collaboration and critical and creative thinking through the use of traditional and modern means. A central “Commons Lab” is shared by art, technology education, family consumer science and future programs.

The space is designed for flexibility and adaptability to enable students in large groups, small groups and individually to move efficiently among spaces and provide opportunities of cross-collaboration among departments.