Education

Johnson Elementary School

The new Johnson Elementary School for Harrison County Schools, is a 66,000 SF building that accommodates over 600 students.

This school is located on a restricted and tight site on their existing campus, so the building, student drop-off road, bus loop, and parking all had to be planned carefully to fit the site.

The school was also being built in a flood plain; after negotiations with FEMA the building was designed with the foundations raised about 7’ to accommodate to bring the new school and above the flood plain. Because of this, a 2-story school was designed; classrooms for Pre-Kindergarten thru 1st grade are on the ground floor, and 2nd thru 5th grades on the second floor.

The building was placed on the site for optimum daylighting and the potential for future expansion.

Insulated concrete forms were used for the exterior walls and the interior bearing walls. The exterior of the building is a brick veneer with fiber cement panels.

The project was designed with Building Information Modeling (BIM) to minimize change orders.

The school is comprised of 28 classrooms, special education, computer labs, music, media, large training room, administrative offices, health and nurses rooms, a large gymnasium, cafeteria with a stage, and kitchen.

There are Promethean touchscreen interactive whiteboards in every classroom.

A unique feature is a timber pedestrian “covered bridge” that connects the two second floor classroom wings. The bridge is a wooden replica paying homage to covered bridges in West Virginia, especially the Simpson Creek covered bridge that sits just outside the city limits.

The building is designed with advanced safe school features including security vestibule or man-trap at the main entrance, layered security zones, hardened construction, a video surveillance system, exterior site and building lighting, and more.

We designed multiple “High Performance School” components, such as natural daylighting, good indoor air quality, and thermal control of each classroom.

Johnson Elementary was designed as Collaborative for High Performance School (CHPS), and also received an ENERGY STAR Rating of 90, which means it is in the Top 10% of the most efficient Schools documented in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program!

This was named NCWV Media’s Public Project of the Year.

Project Details
Category
Education, PK-12
Location
Bridgeport, West Virginia
Size
66,000 SF
Project Architect
Thomas R. Worlledge
AIA, LEED AP BD+C, REFP
Contractor
City Construction Company
Awards
  • NCWV Media’s Public Project of the Year

I think there's three basic questions you can always ask yourself anytime there's construction--was it on time, was it on budget, and the number of change orders. McKinley Architecture and Engineering absolutely met our expectations and, in fact, exceeded those expectations.

Dr. Mark Manchin, Superintendent, Harrison County Board of Education

Watch Other Testimonials