Wells High School
Student Centered Learning Environment through renovations and additions

K-12 Education:
High Schools & Technical Centers

The Wells-Ogunquit Community School District hired Lavallee Brensinger to transform their high school facility into a team teaching, student-centered learning environment. The design solution takes full advantage of existing athletic and performance space, and creates new academic space that fully integrates their shift in pedagogy towards a proficiency-based curriculum, supporting each student’s individual learning plan.

A new student commons supports the student storage and informal learning needs, while also becoming the student living room where mentoring peer learning can coexist. The creation of a learning commons combines dining and library services to maximize the use of space and allow students to take advantage of the loud library experience where interactive and high-tech collaboration is encouraged.

The fully air-conditioned design includes new classrooms and lab spaces designed as project studios, providing flexibility and multi-discipline collaboration within a STEAM environment that teams Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math curricula.

Wells High School is the first publically funded K-12 school to be recognized as a Maine Advanced Building. Efficiency Maine’s initiative for Maine Advanced Building follows the Tier 2 prescriptive energy-saving measures of the New Building Institutes Core Performance Guide. After one year of operation, these measures proved an energy-savings greater than 30% beyond code and an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of 37.  The New Building Institute Guide is the foundation for Green Building Protocols such as LEED, CHPs and other third party sustainable building programs.