Park City High School Reborn!
Photography: Don Weller
Light filters into the new Park City High School (PCHS), showing off its new 200,000 square feet of sustainable, educational grandeur. After three years of demolition and rebuilding, the dust has settled, and the hallways buzz with the uninterrupted sounds of students and faculty at work.
A teacher leads a discussion in the state-of-the art lecture hall. Students set up a photo shoot in the television studio. Though it’s too chilly for plein-air painting on the art deck, artists gather in the ceramic and painting studios. Strains of music come from the new dance studio. Brand new cardio machines whir above the freshly painted gym floor. Science students gather around their lab sinks. Inspirational quotes, from the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez, cover the walls.
“You guys are lucky, lucky, lucky,” says Principal Hilary Hays to a group of passing students as she points out yet another feature of the reconstructed school: editing rooms for the film students — six of them! Calling the new high school “an incredible launching pad to academic excellence,” Hays is like a game show host opening door after door of impressive prizes for all who weathered the construction: a remodeled black box theater, a strolling gallery, cooking classrooms with gas and electric stoves, teacher planning stations, spacious administrative and counseling offices, room after room of computers and science labs and vast common areas.
The nearly $31 million project was completed in phases, allowing school to remain in session as Hughes General Contractors’ procession of backhoes to painters marched through the site. Now, not much remains of the old high school building, which was constructed in 1977 with add-ons every couple of decades as bursting student population necessitated expansion. Additions from the 1990s (the media center, gymnasium and Eccles Center) remain intact, but where there was once a dark, narrow maze of classrooms and hallways, now there are daylight-filled common areas and orderly classrooms set out in an easily navigated design.
Focusing on “collaboration, communication and control or safety,” Steve Crane and his colleagues at VCBO Architecture created a floor plan of inviting gathering spaces complemented by individual classroom teaching environments. The architects also incorporated an array of requests from the steering committee, ranging from a distinctive front entrance to an efficient heating and ventilation system.
School district Director of Support Services Stephen Oliver points out that the new PCHS is “a signature building for Park City’s east entrance.” Its design mirrors the town’s mining-resort-mountain ambiance. From the recycled steel trusses and mine-style lamps to the earthy-rust-silver color scheme and peaked rooftops, the building “reflects the past, but is indicative of the present,” according to Crane. And there’s some room for the future, too. The facility is on track for the Green Building Council’s LEED (leadership in energy efficiency and design) certification, according to Oliver. Architect Vern Latham explains that the design incorporates sustainable elements — everything from recycled materials and low-VOC paints to waterless urinals and a new turf football field.
PCHS is a place of learning. It’s also a source of pride. As former teacher and retired school board member David Chaplin puts it, “It has a presence now. It represents our school. It represents our community. It represents our kids. And it looks like a place where good things happen.”
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