Father Gabriel Richard High School
By: Frances Putman
In 2000, leaders at Father Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, realized they were going to have to build a new facility. The school, named for a famous Detroit-area priest who served in the U.S. Congress, was originally established in 1868. In the 1970s, it became a regional high school, but for many years, it had shared space in an urban neighborhood with a Catholic elementary school. However, both schools were growing quickly. Building a new high school facility would mean more space for both schools.
Because the local diocese has strict regulations about schools not incurring debt, leaders at Father Gabriel Richard had to carefully consider their building options. Everyone was excited when Tom Monaghan, then president of Domino’s Pizza, which is headquartered in Ann Arbor, stepped forward to donate a parcel of property for the school.
The somewhat-secluded, 40-acre site, adjacent to the pizza company’s facilities, was workable, but presented many challenges. Only a small portion of the property was suitable for building, though the views throughout were breathtaking. The site included wetlands, woodlands and other costly topographic challenges that had to be overcome or incorporated into the project. One way to do this was to build part of the school into the hillside.
“The new building is arrayed over three levels that take advantage of the steeply sloping, heavily wooded site,” said Richard Borrelli, AIA, principal with TMP Associates, Inc., the architectural and engineering firm that worked with the school on this project. “Conceptually, the building is organized into three wings representative of mind, body and spirit (classrooms, gymnasium and chapel). This organization allows for the eventual expansion of the athletic wing for additional practice and locker space, as well as a fine arts wing housing a performing arts center and support spaces.”
Though the school is situated on three levels, there are no three-story stairwells. It is more of a main floor with a step-down on one end and a step-up on the other. While students in the old Father Gabriel High School building had cityscape views of Ann Arbor, students now enjoy scenic views from the third-floor library.
“It’s a color show in the fall,” noted Borrelli.
When school leaders first met with architects and presented their needs, the estimated cost of the project was around $22 million. But that was way above the budget with which they had to work.
“The school had to have this size, and there was no room to eliminate any program component,” Borrelli said. “Through judicious value engineering and a creative look at the building’s architectural expression, that cost was reduced without sacrificing any program area.”
As it turned out, the attractive, high-tech look of the school has become a real recruiting tool. It’s a place where students want to be, and where parents want their children to attend. The school, originally designed for 500 students, is working on approval to accept more students, as applications have increased.
Redesigning the exterior to save money gave the school a unique look. Instead of a brick and veneer exterior, which originally had been conceived, the building was designed as a steel-framed building with metal stud walls and a high-tech, edgy aesthetic.
“The design gravitated toward a rough, split-face block base, identifying with the overwhelmingly natural site, topped with slick, machine-corrugated steel siding above,” Borrelli said. Between the block base and the steel top is a brilliant green, glazed block band, leaving a thumbprint on the school, which has the “Fighting Irish” as its mascot.
The metallic finish gives the building a very high-tech look, a striking contrast to the heavy, urban masonry building the school had previously occupied.
“The new building is a definite inversion of past and future,” said Borrelli.
Standing seam metal roofs top the curving roof forms of the chapel and the gym. Borrelli noted how the metal roof and walls, colored in silver metallic, shimmer in the sun, providing an ever-changing reflective surface.
In another cost-saving move, the chapel was designed as a multi-purpose facility. The area, created in a half-circle design, features moveable partition walls. Without the partitions, the area is large enough to hold all students for weekly Masses or other school-wide gatherings. With the partitions, smaller areas are used as additional classrooms. One area is even used as the cafeteria at lunchtime. The school does not have an industrial-type kitchen, and a food service vendor brings in lunch each day.
“There is no space that they are not using,” Borrelli said. “They were definitely good stewards of their resources.”
Throughout the building’s interior, typically low-cost, durable materials were used. One exception is the terrazzo flooring installed in the main corridor, with the school’s logo incorporated into the design.
For schools considering similar building projects, Borrelli said that everyone should first realize that no donated site, however visually appealing, is ever actually free. Getting the site was a great benefit to the school; however, if the school had chosen its own site, it could have avoided some costs and building challenges.
Secondly, he reminds school leaders to allow ample time for jurisdictional approval.
“Your agenda is never your township or city’s agenda,” he noted.
For this project, school leaders dealt with a city government that moved slowly on approving various elements of the project and set many requirements that were sometimes costly and time consuming. In fact, construction was delayed by a year as school leaders scrambled to meet demands.
“Finally, design to your budget,” he said. “You will maintain your program and not disappoint your users.”
TMP Associates, Inc., www.tmp-architecture.com, is a full-service architecture/engineering firm, focused in the planning and design of K-12 and college/university projects.
Fast Facts
School: Father Gabriel Richard High School
Affiliation: Catholic
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Student Body: Just under 500 students
Grades Served: 9-12
Project Goal: Design and build a new facility for this school, which has a history dating back to 1868. Since land had been donated for the school, the structure had to fit the landscape. This was the first phase of a two-phase project.
Size: 92,000 square feet over three levels
Cost: $13 million
Challenge: The school had an extremely tight budget, with no ability to eliminate any program component. They needed what they needed, and the challenge was to make it happen.
Solution: Find ways to reduce costs and use space most efficiently. A site was donated, and the facility was designed of corrugated steel, rather than masonry, giving the building a high-tech look. In a somewhat unusual move, the chapel was designed as a multi-purpose space, with operable partitions. The space is even used as the cafeteria during lunchtime.
