Owego Elementary School

Description of the project

One day into the 2011-2012 school year, Tropical Storm Lee changed the community of Owego, New York forever. The district had four of its buildings completely destroyed by the 2011 flood and sustained significant damage to many others. One of the buildings destroyed was the original Owego Elementary.

In approaching the redesign, David Degnon, senior associate, Highland Associates, says the firm considered that a 120,000-square-foot building can be very overwhelming, especially to a 4-year-old going to school for the first time. In order to avoid long, tunnel-like corridors, the halls are bent and broken, creating intermittent learning spaces that are filled with natural daylight andviews of the outdoors. In fact, the design provides unobstructed views of the outdoors in more than 90 percent of the occupied spaces, an important consideration given that multiple studies prove students perform better with natural light and outside views.Owego follows the school design trend to include several multipurpose rooms: Staff want the flexibility of spaces that can be used at all times of the year, which means the glass must help manage solar heat gain and thermal performance year-round. SunGuard® SNX 62/27 on clear glass with IS 20 on the #4 surface easily met the requirement.

Design and Supply Team:

Highland committed to creating an atypical elementary school. “We wanted the building to be an integrated tool for their curriculum, and foster different types of learning; classroom learning, spontaneous interaction, small group collaboration, large group instruction, outdoor learning, etc.,” explains Degnon. “It was important for us to ensure the school embody the healing of a community (devastated by a natural disaster), and serve as a symbol of the determination and perseverance of the Owego community.” Additionally, Highland Associates needed to design a building with a high-performing envelope in order to meet LEED® requirements, including the enhanced acoustical performance credit. While it examined high performance, low-E glazing options, the building team knew that incorporating laminated glass would greatly reduce the amount of outside noise.

SunGuard Advanced Architectural Glass on this school:

SunGuard SNX 62/27 on clear glass was selected because of its balance of performance and light transmittance. “To increase the thermal performance, we initially looked at a triple-pane system,” Degnon says. “Because of the added complexity of the laminated glass, the curtain wall system would have become a custom system. This would have dramatically increased the cost of the façade. The solution was to use argon in place of air for the airspace and to couple that with SunGuard IS 20 coated glass. By doing this we were able to achieve triple-pane performance in a laminated, double-pane system.”