Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Design Development topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Design team presents material choices, mass-timber elements and schedule for Stoughton elementary school
Summary
Architects and project staff reported that design development drawings will be submitted to cost estimators next week, highlighted planned materials including exposed mass timber in select spaces, clarified window and roof design choices and confirmed a schedule for MSBA submission after the October town meeting.
Design consultants updated the Stoughton Building Committee on design-development progress for the new elementary school, saying the team will deliver drawings to cost estimators next week and expects to finalize the MSBA submission after the October town meeting.
Architects said most interior and exterior materials are consistent with prior schematic design: resilient flooring for heavy-use areas, acoustic treatments in the learning commons and gym, brick and fiber-cement panels on exterior walls, and durable finishes selected to minimize harsh maintenance chemicals. In key spaces the team proposed exposed mass timber (including glulam and DLT elements) for acoustic and aesthetic reasons; architects said mass timber ceiling and structure will be visible in select high-visibility areas such as the learning commons.
The design team reported a change in the gym wall glazing: because the gym faces north–northeast, the consultants now propose clear vision glass rather than translucent fiberglass panels to improve daylighting and compatibility with curtain-wall elements at the learning commons. The team also described limited vegetated roof areas (sedum planting) over specific wings and a simplified roof approach with translucent skylights where earlier designs had pop-up roof structures.
On classroom fit and casework, the team said they confirmed two full walls of storage in typical classrooms and that furniture and fixture layouts shown in renderings are illustrative only and not yet part of the construction contract.
Schedule and next steps: design-development drawings will go to cost estimators next week; renderings and additional visual materials are planned in September, and the submission to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) is scheduled for shortly after the October town meeting. The team said they will continue user-group meetings and prepare more detailed renderings of timber elements for the next update.
Committee members asked about materials’ durability, the amount of additional survey work to preserve trees, and where renderings of mass-timber spaces will appear; designers said any additional limited survey work would be done to precisely locate trees the design intends to preserve.
