Myers Park Traditional Elementary School

Charlotte, North Carolina

Firm

Adams Group Architects PA

Client

Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools/Bovis Lend Lease

Area

96,000 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$10,500,000

Completion Date

08/2003

Myers Park Traditional Elementary School is rooted deeply within one of Charlotte’s older neighborhoods. The school campus tucks itself behind Queens University, formerly known as Queens College (originally Charlotte Female Institute).
The design provides a 58,000-square-foot addition that maintains a sensitive response to the existing 38,000-square-foot historic school that was built in 1927. This is accomplished while providing a center for the community that cohesively accommodates today’s technology and teaching practices.
The program includes a new administrative office, a controllable entry, a new media center, a multipurpose room, 22 new classrooms, 14 renovated classrooms, a renovated cafeteria and a black-box theater. The theater is shared by Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and Queens University. A series of protruding masses form the building addition that is flanked at each end by a circulation spine. The spines call attention to entry points and give form to an axis that connects the university to the elementary school. They are expressed as large gables terminating in arched masonry porticos that directly abstract the original building’s form.
The design yields an urban neighborhood school that is preserved historically to enhance the education of a larger student population, while respecting the neighborhood scale and character.