Story

Community Environment:
Tom Williams ES is designed to encourage family and community involvement in student education.  The vaulted school entry is created with overstated primary elements and liberal daylighting to draw pedestrian traffic inward.  A generous reception area encourages students' families to interact with educators with a unrestricted point of public contact. Visible from the exterior of the building and immediately accessible from the main entry is a Family Resource space.  This multi-functional community space is given emphasis through placement and daylighting to facilitate and encourage use.

Learning Environment:
Tom Williams ES is a year round school providing education from full day Pre-kindergarten through the fifth grade; along with additional services for special education, "mommy and me" programs, after school activities, adult education and family resources.  There are large flexible and divisible spaces planned to support the adoptable curriculum and high student load.

The Kindergarten and Pre-kindergarten spaces are tied together around and daylight open learning area, sharing interior and exterior functions.  This area is designed to alleviate crowding in individual classrooms and to relieve the load on the main multipurpose room.  The learning area also provides a protected environment for the youngest students to interact as a group.

In addition to the Kindergarten learning area, an exterior shaded courtyard, a computer lab, an interior open learning area, a vaulted multipurpose room, oversized divisible classrooms and multiple resource rooms are provided to adjust to the changing student needs.

Physical Environment:
The interior atmosphere of Tom Williams ES is designed to promote student and faculty comfort and reinforce a connection between the interior and the exterior.  Most spaces have the natural daylight through skylights or a pattern of windows.  On the east-west building axis, the interconnection between the spaces allows for integrated shared daylighting and provides a tangible connection to the exterior.  Glass enclosed  second floor walkways surround the exterior courtyard and penetrate the shared spaces allowing multi level and multi directional views.  In addition to an aggressive infusion of daylight and views, the users are made more comfortable through increased thermal and lighting control, mechanical separation and improved acoustical design.

Planning Process:
Over the course of year, we met with planners, engineers, teachers and other educators from both the School District and the existing Tom Williams elementary faculty.  Through a series of programming and design meetings at the existing school, we established design parameters and a project program that meets the needs of the Clark county School District and the Tom Williams ES Community.