Background
The Millis Public schools in Millis, Massachusetts consist of three schools housed in two buildings. The Clyde F. Brown Elementary School serves pre-K through fourth grade, while the High School/Middle School occupies the second building. The Clyde F. Brown School was built in 1954 with some renovations in 1991 but the school's internal system had reached its useful life.

The MSBA (Mass School Building Authority) that provides partial state reimbursement selected Tappe Architects to design the new Elementary School. Warner Larson Landscape Architects based in Boston, Massachusetts were hired by to be the Landscape Architect sub-consultants to design the site improvements that included safe driveway circulation for buses and cars, a parking lot to accommodate all staff and visitors, entrance plazas, age-appropriate play spaces, and an outdoor learning space. The design team was involved from feasibility analysis to construction administration helping with the siting of the new building location, phased demolition, and transitioning to the new school. The project budget was $4,711,500 for a 12.3 acre site design.

From the visioning sessions, the school's desire was to have a safe and welcoming, flexible space with brightly colored playgrounds. The new building cite is nestled in an existing knoll anchoring the Town Park bandstand and the Middle School/High School. The site seamlessly blurs the edge between the two school's boundaries and the Town Park creating an open campus. Besides having a generous welcoming plaza, the design took advantage of the topography to integrate the building with the town's bandstand, which was on a slope, and create amphitheater spaces that server the students and community along with play that engages the slope, while preserving mature trees.

Goal
The Millis Public School's system motto is "Small School Big Community". This was the driving vision behind the site design for the Clyde F. Brown Elementary School where the newly designed school campus acts as a central hub for this small rural town in Massachusetts bringing the community together on week evenings and weekends.

Design Inspiration

 
Millis used to be an industrial town but is now primarily a suburban town while maintaining its rural character with several thriving farms that abuts the school property. The famous Charles River runs through part of Millis. The school's design is influenced by the surrounding charming farming character and takes the design vocabulary from the resident home's boulder stone walls to wood fences bordering the properties and farms. The surrounding vegetation is mostly oaks, pines, and maples characteristic of New England forests.

The school entrance plazas are flanked by native New England stones and reclaimed North American eastern white pine benches. A sculpture of a brown bear, the school's mascot, sits at the main entrance and adds a playful, cheerful element greeting the school staff, students, and visitors alike. At both the main and secondary entrances, the plaza uses concrete unit pavers that echo the banding and warm colors from the building. These pavers help anchor the plaza as social spaces separate them from the circulation paths.

Planting
This being a public school, the planting is mostly native trees with some low maintenance ornamental plantings in key spaces. The planting beds by the front entrance mimic the rows of crops seen in farms. The ornamental planting design features a tree selection of flowering trees, evergreens, trees with summer interest and fall foliage to provide year-round interest to go with the unique four seasons in the New England area. A key aspect of citing the building into an existing knoll was to preserve some mature oaks and pine trees which was successfully done by careful oversight during construction and ensuring proper setback from those tree roots. There are several new trees planted to create the feeling of a school nestled into the woods. There are areas designated in the campus on the periphery where nature can regenerate slowly into a forest thereby ensuring maintenance is minimal for the new planting to be successful. The design also provides a separate open lawn for play or passive gatherings. A walking loop encloses this central lawn and is surrounded by underutilized native northeastern such as sourwood and fringe trees. These trees have plant ID labels serving educational value. Backed benches under the trees along these walkways will serve a comfortable resting and viewing spots for parents, grandparents, and teachers to watch the children.

Play Spaces
The school had requested two separate play areas for the kindergarten program and the age 5-12 group students. The kindergarten playground is located right near the school entrance to allow for clear visibility from all directions. This fun playground has interesting play elements to engage the children for hours, from a main climbing structure resembling a farmhouse to motion play like the cozy cocoon spinner for a calmer respite. All the play components are inclusive and have poured-in-place safety surfacing with a rubber surfacing pattern that also mimics the farming crop rows. The Landscape Architect says that the best feature is a trike ride that surrounds these play elements. This trike-ride has painted traffic markings designed to teach the children at an early age the importance of safety. By designing parking lots of the trikes and storage for other toys, the playground helps instill organization and discipline at a young one. There is also sensory play with a large sand box that is kept litter free with a cover after use. This playground is securely surrounded by a custom wood wire mesh fence taking design inspiration from the rustic wood-wire fences seen throughout town. The older kids' (5-12) play structure, located adjacent to the newly designed basketball, tennis, and pickle ball courts, took advantage of relocating the existing play equipment (installed in 2013 with Community Preservation Act funds) into the knoll, thereby creating some fun challenging sloped play with an eight-foot embankment slide. This playground was supplemented with few additional play elements. All of these play spaces overlook the town's park fields and are adjacent to the bandstand, so Warner Larson created a central picnic area with shade trees that act as a gathering space for the community and hosted events.

Outdoor Learning
The existing school had no outdoor classroom but just a few outdoor planters. The new design created three distinct outdoor learning spaces, a larger school garden being shared and cared with the community, and a bonus outdoor arts/music space. There is a structured outdoor classroom by the school entrance for the younger children that is surrounded with the same fence details as the kindergarten play area. Taking inspiration from the natural character of town, the outdoor seating is made from sewn hardy cedar planks that allow for a classroom of 20 students to be outside. The whiteboard has a weather gauge with the school bear mascot instilling school pride through small details that are educational as well. Adjacent to the bandstand, where there is a big grade change, instead of using a large retaining wall, the design creates a terraced garden around a large amphitheater which is popular with the students for arts and performance events like music band practice in addition to being used for learning. Another smaller amphitheater located next to the east side of the school serves as an informal outdoor learning space.

Sustainability
From the very citing of the school building nestling into the knoll and preserving some mature trees, the building has low impact on the land. Stormwater management principles are used throughout the site but take center stage right by the front entrance drop-off where a large bio-retention captures and filters the pollutants from the parking lot surface. This rain garden life is planted with native wet tolerant plants that are attractive to birds. The reuse of the existing play structure for the older children is a good example of sustainability in the form of "reuse" by repurposing it to give it a new life. Lawn areas are kept to a minimum and low mow fescue has been extensively planted not only for ease of maintenance but to encourage pollinators. The amphitheaters are constructed with fully recycled plastic woodgrain timber to provide longevity. The mostly native planting and specifically, the planting of underused trees along the walking path promotes ecological diversity.

Success
Three years since its completion, Clyde F. Brown's landscape continues to thrive, mature, and enrich the lives of the school staff, children and the larger community of Millis by fulfilling the mission of creating a safe, welcoming space that allows for continued learning and creating new memories.

TEAM LIST
Architect: Tappe Architects
Landscape Architect: Warner Larson Landscape Architects
Project Team: David Warner (Principal), Joshua Millonig (Project Manager), Sameer Bhoite (Design Director)
Civil Engineer: Nitsch Engineering
Owner's Project Manager: Compass Project Management
General Contractor: Agostini Construction
Landscape Contractor: Central Nurseries