Higher Learning

Alabama school designed with environment in mind

By Dana Crisson

At a cost of $71 million, the new Hewitt-Trussville High School in Trussville, Ala., is one of the most expensive schools in the state.

The tradeoff? The ecologically and environmentally advanced design is certain to be cited as a blueprint for schools in the future.

Designed by Davis Architects and owned by the City of Trussville, the new campus is nestled on 80 acres of woodlands straddling the Cahaba River.

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“The entire school was designed to fit the lay of the land,” says David Couch, project manager with Doster Construction Co. of Birmingham, Ala. “The owner and designers of the project made the conscious decision to maintain the woods and leave as much untouched timber as possible.” Doster is handling the excavation, site preparation and construction of the state-of-the-art campus.

Instead of totally clearing the construction site, the engineers were only allowed to clear specific areas.

The school has two main parking lots and a different design criteria was used for each type of lot.

“A typical parking lot is built by uniformly cutting all the trees, stripping the topsoil and organic matter, and paving the lot,” Couch says. “Here, a natural woodlands parking area was designed for visitors and teachers that required a different preparation.

“Parking places were mapped out around trees and the lots were constructed as structural mats, with gravel placed over the existing dirt and paved over. That way, the tree roots go under the paving and are not disturbed.”

Because of the school’s proximity to the Cahaba River, water purity and runoff was extremely important. The woodlands parking lot was also built without curbs except on the exterior, so water runoff can go into the trees. The lot incorporates a recovery system that collects rain water in islands and then directs it into a retention system.

“In addition, we are building a retention pond that can be tied into the school’s water irrigation system at a later date,” Couch says. The student parking area was built in a more typical fashion.

“We had an extensive rock excavation process on the building pad because 80 percent of the footprint had rock,” he adds. “We poured concrete on the remaining 20 percent for bearing. Another challenging aspect of this job was to get the structural retaining wall poured and backfilled to enable us to go forward to the next level.”

The campus includes a 360,000-sq-ft main building with about 75 classrooms, offices, a cafeteria, culinary arts area, lecture hall, library/media center, multimedia/computer center, drafting area, science and chemistry labs, music department with separate areas for choral, band, and jazz ensemble, and a theater area with a stage, dressing room and support facilities. To protect the integrity of the woodlands, the cafeteria is located 50 yds from the river.

The athletic center, complete with dressing rooms, support facilities and two gymnasiums, is also under construction.

“These are called top-loading gyms because you park and enter from the top, and come down the stairs to the main floor,” Couch says. “These gyms were cut right out of the mountain, which was another part of the rock issue we had to deal with.” The campus also includes a band practice field, two football practice fields and two soccer fields, one for practice and one for competition.

A pedestrian bridge was built over the river to connect the practice fields to the main campus.

“The bridge was built in three sections and we used a 350-ton crane to set the center span of the bridge in one lift. We literally hung the bridge through the trees.”

The City of Trussville is building a recreation center on the same property in a separate project to maximize the use of the playing fields.

The exterior of the school is made of fieldstone and the front is flanked by columns and a clock tower. The designers emphasized natural light in the building, so interior petitions made of glass block flood the school corridors with sunlight.

Construction on the project began in March 2007 and the school is scheduled to open this fall.

“We are actually ahead of schedule because of the favorable weather,” Couch says. “Everyone else has cursed the drought, but it has been a blessing to the building industry. We usually build rain days into every job, so the drought has enabled us to pick up almost 30 days over the duration of the project.”

Birmingham-based Doster Construction Co. was founded in 1969 and is consistently ranked among the nation’s top general contractors.

“It has been a challenge to maneuver our cranes and other equipment around the trees, but the overall design of this campus is top-notch,” Couch says. “Hewitt-Trussville High School is a beautiful campus and we are proud we didn’t clear the site.”