Academic Wings Finish Work Beginning

Step into the academic wings and notice that many finishing details are beginning to take place.

The finish on the class room doors is an cherry oak color, very warm and inviting.

In some of the rooms the vertical cabinets are being installed.

Each room will have two cabinets, double doors, and lockable.
They have a combination of shelves and storage space within.

Drop ceiling tiles have been installed and the pendant light banks are in place.

The finish colors are different in different areas, but they all feature earth tones and warm classroom color. The floors will have a vinyl floor covering which will go down after all other work is completed so they will remain undamaged.

Technology runs are in place in the rooms that will need multiple direct feeds.

Each outlet and port is coded and identified back to the control hubs.

Many of the academic hallways will feature large open windows at the end of the hallway. The open section on the left will be filled with lockers.

The banks of lockers are spread through out the wings, each floor and each wing has multiple lockers, none are out in the public space or commons.

They banks are 24 each with half locker sizes.

Some of the rooms feature as many as three windows.

The drafting room is shaping up with the cabinetry in place.

Even the inside of the cabinets is light and fresh looking.

Theater ~ A Peek Inside

We will have a foyer and entrance to the theater. A ticket booth will be on the outside in the lobby area.
This is a view of the balcony from the stage.

There will be two levels in the balcony. In this photo they are installing the tracks for the dividers. Folding doors will slide out and close off the balcony for diverse activities including small seminars, group activities, and testing.

This is the view of the stage from the balcony!

This is the stage from the house level

Looking up from where the previous shot was taken you can see the curved front edge of the balcony.

The projection and control room is at the back of the house. There is additional supply cable pulled to the center of house for remote control.

The ceiling and duct work have been blacked out now.

Concrete poured for the floor has set and now steps lead up the corners of the stage.

Mechanical Rooms

One nice thing that the new building will provide is adequate access to all mechanical fixtures and equipment.
Open and well lighted rooms with sufficient clearance and space for maintenance are provided in each wing and main areas. Our maintenance crew will be able to keep our systems running at top efficiency, keep them clean, and access them for repair if necessary.

None of them are on the roof or in the dungeon or cramped in as add ons. They are all a design component in the master plan.

This HVAC system looks like it will sufficiently do the job of providing clean and conditioned air for our school.

Science Rooms ~ Early Stages of Contruction

The science rooms are beginning to take shape. This is one of the last areas we are completing in the phases of construction. All of the water lines, gas lines, and ventilation systems are in place.
Many of the science rooms will have Solar Tubes to provide daylight and natural lighting to these rooms.

In this photo you can see the opening for the skylight entry in the ceiling.

This is just the roof dome for collecting light. To this will be added a tube (hence solartube) from the roof down to the drop ceiling. Within that tube will be mirrors and prisms that will amplify the light and boost the output within the room.

I do not have a picture of the completed installation to share here at home, but I did find this photo from a 2007 site visit to North Guilford high school while it was under construction. We went there to see the solar tubes and how they would function in our new WHS. The amount of light is not altered, it truly glows in the dark with this much amplification. I will try to find the close up I took of the lens at school soon and post that shot here too.

So I found them at school. These are the photos from the Guilford school we visited.

This shot shows the magnifying lens that sits in the ceiling tile grids.

closer up you can see how the daylight hits the curved lens and is amplified
I found them to be very interesting optical effects.

The intensity of this light is not exaggerated, it is as it was photographed.

Cabinetry and Casework

The auxiliary gym is the holding place now for a hodgepodge of cabinetry
Every piece has been delivered and is awaiting installation.

All this looks random and disorganized, but each piece has come in with coding and room number designations

The majority of this gym full of cabinetry will be installed in the science area

Very specific sizes and types of drawers, cases, glass door cabinets, firesafe cabinets, vertical cabinets, and ADA scaled cabinets were all designed specifically for the areas they will be installed.

These rows of metal forms are the fume hoods for the science and chemistry areas.

Our fume hoods are manufactured by Thermo Scientific suppliers.

Morning Has Broken ~ and Updates Too

I have waited over a month for this photo. One of the few reasons I am thankful for the time change!

I waited for a morning when the low light at sunrise would light the building from the east while there was a dark or over cast sky. I have seen this before and hoped to catch it again.

The last time was back in January.
click here to go there!

Photographed from the parking lot, the landscaping adds a nice improvement to the perspective.

There were very specific regulations on what types of trees and shrubbery we could use. Most of the regs came from Town of Boone guidelines. For that, we benefit and so does the future.

Here we are looking from above the tennis courts.

It is almost as if the courts are swimming pools. I spotted them from the tower on top of Flat Top Mountain in Cone Manor this afternoon.

(Nearly 10 miles away!)

The Softball feel has sod down. If you scroll over and click to enlarge you will see the pattern of placement of the sod.

In this photo and the next you will see that the irrigation system for the baseball field is being put underground.

We will use some collected rainwater, gray water, from out cisterns to water our fields. And, remember, under all of the baseball field is our Geo thermal wells (250 wells at 400 feet deep each) that we will circulate back into our building.

to go there click here

The foundation and footers and now the rises for our stadium seating has been completed. The artificial turf is installed and painted. It was nice to see a regulation soccer field painted on the field as well as football striping.

This view straight down the bleacher is the south end of our building, the gym, wrestling room, weight rooms, and PE rooms are all on this end adjacent to the field.

The concession stand and bathrooms are shelled in, under roof, and behind doors now.

The Watauga end zone is sweet!

This view is from above the fields and looking south at the east face of our school. Beautiful to me. Hope you like the photos.

New Aerial photos of our New Campus

This is the most recent aerial photograph of our main building. Your point of view is from the south end of the building. You can see the three classroom wings, the commons, and the front areas.

The kitchen and cafeteria is in the center bottom of the photo. The dining area extends out the nearly half of the length of the white roofed "wedge" in the center. On the right side of the cafeteria is the auxiliary gym. North from that is the main gym, the main entrance (@ 3:00), the Media center and the theater (@2:00) and the Band room (@ 1:00).

This is the same South view of campus as the photo above. It is a great shot to see the full length of the developing campus. The New River is on the bottom right side of the photo. You will notice how the Second practice field sits below the main stadium,

Here we are flying in from the East approaching campus.

Turning around and approaching from the West in this photo. The newest section of the Boone Greenway trail can be seen in the bottom right and center. It parallels our campus along the slope of the stadium. What a nice addition to the town and community this section became. It was worked out to be created with funding from the Obesity Grant and used our local Town of Boone maintenance and construction crews. Another excellent example of community cooperation between agencies to create our future together!

This fly in is from the North and looks at campus from above our main driveway. Highway 421 would be at the bottom of this photo. I think it is important to look at the size and scope of this project. We have not just built a new high school. We have created an entire CAMPUS. And that is HUGE.

All aerial photographs are provided courtesy of SkySite:

SkySite Aerial Photography ~~~ click here
North Carolina's most consistent and reliable source for aerial photographs! Thanks for allowing me to post your photos for our community!