Winston Preparatory School Master Plan

A multi-faceted campus transformation that enhances learning and ecolog y is completed without fi nalized construction documents well within a tight schedule and budget.

The 13-acre campus of the Winston Preparatory School contains an intriguing mix of derelict buildings, relics, and a spring-fed swimming pool. A series of charrettes with staff, faculty, and students yielded the school’s new enhancement vision: a state-of-the-art, ecologically sustainable classroom and landscape that would enhance community, local ecology, and student understanding of campus impact on the Long Island Sound.

Biohabitats performed an ecological inventory and analysis which identified invasive species and recommended forest management. The site plan located new buildings and paved areas on previously disturbed lands and addressed stormwater management holistically while incorporating green infrastructure. Biohabitats was responsible for all regulatory coordination with the local wetlands board for the conversion of the swimming pool, a regulated water body, as well as the associated wetland buffer encroachments.

Due to a compressed project schedule, construction began with little more than the entitlement drawings required for the site plan and building permit approval. Working closely with the construction management team to stay on schedule, Biohabitats’ designers often prepared detailed concept drawings while in the field. With the original design goals and concept in mind, many site details were altered or new details created to reuse vast amounts of rock found during site excavation. The landscape design incorporated over 200 native trees, shrubs, grass, and perennial land annual wildflower species.